プロレス Machine is a robot created to cover wrestling and combat sports.
from the top rope and the Great American bash I bid you all good evening morning afternoon wherever you may be in this great land of ours or around the world welcome to the $55 million Studio on the pro wrestle machine whether you’re a longtime fan reliving these Monumental events or a newcomer eager to understand wrestling’s Rich history you’re in the right place this episode is packed with insights opinions and a few surprises along the way let’s get into this issue through the use of the pro wrestle machine August 23rd 1999 wrestling Observer newsletter WCW Road wild review njpw G1 climax results plus more by Dave Meltzer eight years ago New Japan debuted a new summer Concept in G1 climax tournament taking what at that time was a huge Risk by running three consecutive nights at Tokyo Sumo Hall in hindsight that first tournament was both in and out of the ring one of the most important ones in wrestling history inside the ring with so many of the wrestlers having literally career matches night after night it became almost legendary and the first experiment has become an annual huge money tradition for both the company and for insiders in Japan G1 equates several consecutive sellout August Nights at Tokyo Sumo Hall and the hottest shows of the year but just as important was the purpose the first G1 was dominated by three young wrestlers Kim mudo Shin Hashimoto and eventual winner masah chono on the final night chono who was the least over at the time of the group then known as The Three Musketeers first beat Hashimoto in a playoff match to get to the finals then in a match that has become somewhat legendary beat mudo in 2931 in the finals to become Mr August in Japan for the first time chono was immediately elevated to a new level which he’s remained at ever since in becoming probably the most important wrestler today in the company since that time built around the former Musketeers New Japan has done record business the likes of which no promotion in history up to that point had ever approached today’s WWF has surpassed it including numerous sellouts at the Tokyo dome but it can all be traced to the night when the three guys in their late 20s dominated a tournament over the company’s biggest established Superstars like Ricky choshu the company’s biggest star at the time who put everyone over in losing every match that week Tatsumi fujinami Bam Bam Bigalow Scott Norton and Big Van Vader fast forward eight years this time it’s mudo chono and Hashim in their mid-30s who are the established stars and legends and G1 took on a whole new meaning this year because TV Asahi made the decision to give New Japan a 2-hour live television special to air the finals the company’s first live Network special in seven years the contrast with that WCW has done over the past year and what New Japan did over the past week are astounding basically New Japan went back to its past to try and create a new Superstar there were four potential candidates so like the first G1 after after a surprising tournament which saw the established stars do clean jobs to the younger guys manabu nakanishi a 32-year-old former 1992 Olympic Games wrestler put mudo on his shoulders in the torture rack and got the submission in 1443 before a sellout 11,500 fans at Sumo Hall on August 15th nanishi who had never even won a match let alone been in contention in his previous G1 tournaments won the championship by first beating Hashimoto and then mudo whose knees were badly bothering him limiting he could do but he still had to wrestle three times on the final night and still did his moonsaults on the same day thereby at least theoretically making his career as usual the tournament was considered a huge success with sellout crowds all five nights running August 10th and August 11th at Osaka fitsu jym before 6,700 fans a sellout with several hundred Standing Room tickets sold both nights and August 13th 14 and 15 at Sumo Hall with basically a Full House of 11,000 the building actually has 11 , 66 seats the first two nights in The Standing Room crowd for the finals the network chief of TV assah he was at Sumo hall for the finals and gave a speech after presenting the trophy and check to nakanishi the network covered nakanishi’s winning the tournament as a significant weekend Sports story and aired the Finish as part of its nightly newscast and it was covered as a front page story in most sports papers August 15th as a holiday in Japan so viewership on a Sunday afternoon was expected to be low so in a sense the G1 was put on live more figuring the day would get weak ratings rather than necessarily the strength of G1 as a ratings draw the finals live drew a 6.0 rating peing with an 8.2 for the championship match numbers that were only considered Soo going against the National High School baseball playoffs that were drawing huge ratings all week G1 in reality is more for the hardcore fans as a holiday weekend with fans coming from around the country to Tokyo to see three straight days of the hottest shows of the year with no gimmicks needed while that makes for great drama live and reports where the heat was strong every night and unusually strong for the final day it’s not what by tradition draws mainstream TV ratings where the Casual fans in Japan are more into a dream matchup of big names that had never met before rather ironically 90minut special airing highlights of the two nights in Osaka in the first night at Sumo Hall that aired from 4 to 5:30 p.m. on August 14th drew a stronger rating with a 7.7 overall rating and a 9.6 Peak rating the decision to go with nanishi can be debated even if one recog izes once the decision was made the execution of it couldn’t have been stronger or better executed of the four younger wrestlers in the tournament who could have used the elevation Satoshi Kojima Hiroshi tenzan nanishi and Yuji Nagata he was the worst worker of the four he did have the strong Olympic wrestling background which means a lot when the Bookers Ricky choshu and masas cider were both Olympic game competitors before going into pro wrestling are into creating the illusion of sports legitimacy and at about 260 lb and powerfully built has a good look but he never reached the potential he was thought to have after his strong 1992 debut and was a flop in WCW during a lengthy and totally forgettable stay as kurasawa Kojima was the hottest worker of the four last year due to his in ring fire but he hurt his chances with a weak performance on July 20th when given an IWGP title match with mudo tenzan has been pushed hard in the past so his winning wouldn’t create a superstar out of nowhere since he’s been knocking at the door for a long time and even went to the finals two years ago but kenz on has been somewhat cold this year since breaking away from chono as his regular tag team partner Nagata who was also a strong amateur and was the best athlete and potentially the best worker of the four doesn’t have a great look at is barely larger than Junior heavyweight size although going into the tournament many felt he was the one who would get big wins and the elevation of making it to the finals and losing to one of the established names going into the final day in block a Nagata Tatsumi fujinami and mudo were all in the running with three and one records in Block B it was coming down to nanishi and chono also 3 and one nagata’s loss in the tournament came against mudo which meant he scored a submission win over fujinami and kak Sasaki fujinami against Nagata and mudos against fujinami nakanishi’s lone loss was to chono while chono had lost on the first day of the tournament to shirro koshinaka the tournament’s final day started with Nagata clinching at least a spot in a playoff being put over t yasuda on 1026 using the nagato lock fujinami was knocked out of the running losing to sasak Northern Lights bombb in 1023 then Chona was knocked out of the running getting pinned in 1726 by tenon’s diving headbutt keeping the basic tournament theme alive of putting over the younger wrestlers this left mudo versus Kojima and with mudo having just beaten Kojima and saporo in the IWGP title match and Kojima having a poor tournament only one win thus far there probably was some expectation he’d be the spoiler and send Nagata to the finals but it didn’t happen with mudo winning 1140 with a figure four leg lock the final tournament match son akanishi who would have already clinched a playoff spot even with a loss since chono had lost facing Hashimoto who had also had a disappointing tournament which would have been him the favorite however logic got in the way at this point since the show had to end by 5:25 p.m. due to TV commitments and a win by Hashimoto would have put nakanishi tenzan chono and shirro koshinaka who up his tournament record to three and two with a forfeit win over kazuo yamazaki who suffered a knee and spine injury the previous night and had been banged up with a myriad of injuries dating back a few months and wasn’t himself during the tournament all into a playoff to reach the finals and time was running short so nakanishi used a knee submission hold at 1522 to clinch a spot in the finals this put mudo versus Nagata in a match where the winner would face nakanishi with mudo using the figure four leglock once again to win in 1028 the difference in impact and interest in the finals as far as nakanishi winning the tournament beating mudo as opposed to being Nung was huge so there really can’t be a strong argument for for putting mudo over here if the idea of the tournament was to create a new Superstar this all finished with nakanishi making mudo submit to win the tournament chono announced the championship match and brought up the storyline of how nanishi was where he was in 1991 when he won the first G1 tournament actually chono going in was 5 years younger far more over and was a far better worker but the basic idea of creating a new Superstar and putting a young Underdog over in the tournament was the same nakanishi and Nagata will challenge mishos Ohara and tatsutoshi goo for the wgp Tag Team titles on August 28th at the jangu stadium show and it would make sense to continue the momentum by booking a title change this would probably lead to mudo versus nakanishi for the IWGP heavyweight title at a big show later in the year so the final standings were group a mudo 5 and one nagada 4 and two fujinami 3 and two Sasaki 3 and two Kojima 1 and four Yuda 0o and five and Group B nakanishi 4 and one koshinaka 3 and two tenzan 3 and two chono 3 and 2 Hashimoto 2 and three yamazaki 0 and five there were several different ideas bounced around after the show for next year’s G1 tournament tentatively Sumo Hall is booked for three days from August 11th to August 13th there are thoughts of doing two days in Osaka before Sumo Hall like this year or maybe doing one day each in Sendai ngoya and Osaka before going to Sumo Hall there was even talk of doing two G1 tournaments next year because of the success the one annual tournament has gotten with a spring tournament added although I’d consider that a bad idea the most ambitious idea which seems out of the realm of possibility for a number of reasons is to run the biggest tour ever bringing in big names from around the world for a Y2K and 10th Annual G1 running consecutive nights at the Dome stadiums in saporo Fukuoka Osaka ngoya and Tokyo after the tournament New Japan announced the pairings for its annual tag team tournament tour which will be from September 10th until September 23rd with the finals at Tokyo buddon Hall the tournament with a name change from Super grade SG tag League to grade 1 G1 tag League will have Sasaki and Kazuki fuja janji Hera and koshinaka Norton and mudo mang and Hashimoto Brian Johnson and tekashi isuka Dan Fry and chono Nagata and nakanishi Ohara and goo and Kojima and tenzan Steve Austin has become the subject of a lot of talk in the past week with his various injuries his probable maybe almost assured dropping of the WWF title at SummerSlam and stories regarding him becoming harder to deal with in addition Austin has signed to become a regular for five consecutive episodes early next season on the CBS TV show Nash Bridges to repre his Jake cage character the episodes will start the final week of October and of course be part of the important November sweeps Austin appeared on two episodes of the show last season playing the recurring role as a renegade cop with a first episode leading Nash Bridges to its best finish ever in the neelen prime time ratings his major ratings magic somewhat wore off for the second appearance which drew a rating slightly above what the show normally averaged Austin has been out of action since July 27th when he suffered a multitude of injuries a badly bruised chin which had thought was feared to be broken and at first thought to be the worst of the injuries a laceration of the chin and what turned out to be the most serious of the injuries a torn TCL the ligament in the back of the knee taking a bump actually after the raw taping ended where he was supposed to go through the announcers table with Hunter Hurst Helmsley but he landed wrong and the table didn’t break before the kner was diagnosed it was believed Austin would only miss one weekend but now he’s expected to be out of action an indefinite period of time possibly until the September 26th Unforgiven payper viiew in Charlotte with the exception of SummerSlam surgery was not recommended for the knee tier but at least one month of serious rehab was suggested before he returns to action due to Austin’s knee problem what was originally scheduled as a singles match where a Austin would drop the title to Triple H was turned into a three-way with mankind coming off double knee surgery added to the mix according to WWF officials it’s a total roll the dice as to how much Austin’s Knee will be able to take at Summer Slam he’s rehabbing it daily at Health South in San Antonio there are scenarios booked in the Event Austin would only be able to work a few minutes as under normal circumstances he isn’t expected to be anywhere close to ready for this weekend there is a lot of conjecture that the ultimate finish will involve Triple H beating mankind as opposed to Austin and thus back door his way into the title which would not get him over anywhere near to the degree beating Austin for the title would have and unlike Austin Rock Undertaker and even mankind Triple H needs every break to go his way to be accepted as a real Champion even though business is so hot these days that Midian could be world champion and they’d still pack houses apparently if this is the case and Austin isn’t the one who loses in the three-way and it most likely is at this point simply because there is some question as to how long Austin will even be able to be out there it has nothing to do with Austin not wanting to put Triple H over as he’d long ago agreed to do so the plan scenario at this point seems to be for Austin to lay low somewhat through the rest of the year as far as getting a return match for the title and return to win the title at The Rumble in January at Madison Square Garden and still face the Big Show who has been a major disappointment thus far as far as breaking out of the pack and becoming a ratings draw but has to be put over strong because of his huge contract at WrestleMania the nature of pro wrestling being what it is today most all short-term as well as long-term scenarios changeed several times long before they get there and it’s also the nature of promotions to float false stories regarding finishes for the internet Big Show winning King of the Ring or the teas that Hogan was actually going to retire due to knee problems both of which were planted by the promotions to make fans think the more obvious scenarios on both shows weren’t going to happen still with the injury and television commitments Austin dropping the title and Helmsley being elevated does seem to make the most sense on the surface there are still two other factors the first was seeing Austin on television this week there was no mention of a knee inj injury so one can say they’re keeping it quiet since it’s not part of their storyline other than the excuse on one of the SE shows two weeks ago for Austin missing House shows the first weekend he was off but clearly judging from how he was moving his knee isn’t as bad as Hogan’s knee which buckles with every step but Hogan is still out there struggling his way through bad matches there’s also the Jesse Ventura Factor while anything is possible Ventura has to come out of the scenarios as a baby face they could do a post-match deal where Ventura decks a heel with a punch at the end so he doesn’t necessarily have to raise Austin’s or for that matter Mankind’s and at the end but it’s still the best finish for the ultimate Hometown Big Pop although it doesn’t appear on the surface to be the right finish for the short-term business needs of the WWF as far as the notes last week regarding Austin refusing to work with Billy Gun and Jeff Jarrett while they are accurate WWF officials claimed linking the two names together creates an incorrect impression Austin was scheduled to wrestle gun in a non-title match on the July 26th raw in Cleveland Austin who was banged up the night before in the first Blood title match with Undertaker came to TV and felt there was no storyline reason as to why he should face gun in a cold match and nobody could give him a good enough storyline reason to change his mind the night after his big match with Undertaker when gun was being prepared for rock and not himself he said he thought it would be better use of himself to just cut a promo and do that type of an angle noting he was tired and beaten up from the previous performance he didn’t rule out working with gun if there was a storyline reason and there are tentative plans at some point before the year is out for Austin to have a pay-per-view match against gun Jarrett is another story Austin did Nicks a plan program with Jarrett with Austin believing Jarrett isn’t over enough to where it would make sense for a guy in his position to work with him the feeling within the company is that if Jarrett were to get over to the level the company wants him to be that Austin might consider working with him at that point although there are other mitigating factors there is apparently personal animosity regarding Jared cutting a promo criticizing Austin’s 316 moniker that was taken seriously and he apparently has told people that he doesn’t want to be the person who picks Jared up to a level he hasn’t been able to attain even more Austin who is together in real life with Deborah complained that he didn’t want a wrestling angle to interfere with his real life and didn’t want to be in the position of not being able to hang around in places with Deborah because the two would be feuding on television while some are describing this as Austin being more difficult to deal with and the fact is that Austin has always watched his back politically others are saying the three incidents all coming at about the same time aren’t related and while it looks to the outside like Austin is hard to deal with the reality is he’s considered the closest thing to a model employee of anyone in his position in the recent history of the WWF with the dropping of the title and because of the injury it was questionable at press time if Austin would even appear on the raw show on August 23rd in Ames Iowa which is sold out and August 24th in Kansas City for smackdown’s debut show which may not sell out which some are blaming on the aftermath of what happened on the previous show although it will be close enough to full that it’ll look full on television the company has enough depth now unlike in 1997 when Austin suffered what at the time was thought to be a career-threatening neck injury and he was kept on television every week because he was the strongest ratings draw for a company on the losing side of the ratings War there is no definite date for his return to H shows and the TV filming will limit his availability probably through mid October in what is generally believed to be the last ever WCW payper viw show from sturis South Dakota rad Wild on August 14th made some booking changes for the better but the at spere as usual killed the show the booking changes were a lot more emphasis on clean finishes with one in every match and a few mild surprises the negatives were that nearly every match was bad the setting playing Outdoors before a worn out crowd of non- wrestling fans meant that nobody seemed over and few of the matches had significant heat probably the worst thing about the show even more than the setting was the desperation booking of the Hulk Hogan versus Kevin Nash Main Event despite teasing a feud forever from the nelo debut in 1996 and having two major breakups this was the first time the match teased for years ever took place but with WCW on a string of three straight po by rates with Nash on top but with Hogan out injured Hogan’s leverage position was great but the myth that he’s still a huge pay-per-view would be ruined if the Buy rate didn’t significantly pick up in by tradition rode wild because of the Saturday night time slot and perhaps because of a history of bad shows as by tradition has generally not fared well in that regard this year wcw’s popularity falling things figures appear to be worse even with Dennis Rodman who had been a strong pay-per-view draw in the past but his appearan has garnered almost no mainstream attention since he’s no longer an active player and he’s come last year’s curiosity and Bill Goldberg on the show as well the setting was no help either it looked like the ring was set up in a field which it was with only about 5,500 fans and in the background was a road and across the screen in front of the hard camera were cars driving past in a banner for what appeared to be some sort of a food stand with a lack of heat it looked more like an independent Wrestling TV special you’d see on a minor Channel than a major league Pay-Per-View event Road wild or Hog Wild as it was first called was considered over the past few years as one of Eric Bishop’s perks some of the wrestlers the ones into motorcycles like the idea of a paid vacation to the Sturgis Rally but they were in the minority now with revenues on a massive decline running a Pay-Per-View event without alive gate which means $200,000 or more is more obvious as the bad business decision it has always been about the only excitement from the show came in the dressing room before it went on the air Buff Bagwell and Ernest Miller got into an argument and came to blows before their match apparently the original finish had Miller going over but Bagwell went to Kevin Nash complaining that he was the one left laying in most of the TV angles and Nash changed it there were reports that the finish and postmatch were constantly were constantly being changed Bagwell again complained about a finish where he’d win with a little cradle but get left laying again some somehow it escalated into words Bagwell either went to slap or actually did slap Miller first as accounts vary what doesn’t VAR is that Miller threw two solid punches to the mouth and cheek when they rolled to the ground with Bagwell trying to tie Miller up to not get hit while on the ground badwell scraped up his elbow pretty bad when they got up Miller still wanted to fight and Bagwell tried to calm him down which some tuas him trying to save face while at the same time back down because Miller hit him with hard punches nobody was seriously hurt and they went out and had their scheduled match it was a bad match but probably no worse than it would have been under the circumstances in the setting Bagwell was punished by being taken off Nitro on August 16th but there was some heat about a double standard because Miller wasn’t punished and in fact was protected because he was the only wrestler in the early matches on Nitro who didn’t have to get laid out by Sid Vicious there had been bad feelings between the two since Miller has natural heat because his TV Persona resembles his real life Persona and Miller was mad feeling bagwell’s interview in blackface was racist one ryy stereo Jr Oscar Gutierrez and Billy Kidman Peter gruner and Eddie Guerrero beat Vampiro Ian hodkinson and Insane Clown posi Violent J equals Joe Bruce Shaggy to dope equals Joey olster in 1222 Raven was at ringside supposedly the name Deadpool came from Raven since at times when wrestlers have morbid Deadpools you know who is the next active wrestler to die his name often comes up high on the list and he used it as an inside joke Mike ten brought up the setting as being more familiar to the Mexican wrestlers since they often do outdoor shows in outdoor Fields converted into makeshift Arenas he also noted ICP were longtime wrestling fans who had worked Indies and their first album named The Great meleno was actually a tribute to Dean’s father and a tribute to the fact they can’t spell with the setting and it being a six-man it did have the feel of an opener on a Lucha Libre Indie show match was okay although you’d expect more than okay from a match involving Mysterio junr and Kidman and Guerrero ICP did fine considering their level of experience finish saw Vampiro accidentally kick Shaggy too dope Guerrero did a pescato on Vampiro and Kidman pinned Shaggy after a shooting star press two and a quarter Stars two Harlem heat Lane and Booker Huffman won the WCW tag titles from Chris Canyon Chris cerius and Bam Bam Bigalow Scott Bigalow in 1306 this was like two matches Stevie Ray versus Bigalow was unbelievably bad like unb ably missed moves and positioning Booker T versus Canyon was nearly as good as the other two were bad I’m willing to believe it was Ray making Bigalow look worse than he really is because Bigalow has almost never looked this bad at one point Ray actually missed a Clos line not a Miss Clos line spot but actually missed a clothline Bigalow got a mouse on his left eye likely from an errant Ray blow but the cameras would never shoot anywhere near it Ray nearly pressed Canyon overhead he also nearly lost Bigalow doing a slam Canyon did a rocker dropper off the top rope but then on the second one t turned it into a power bomb DDP showed up but wound up colliding with Bigalow while this was going on T climbed to the top rope and came off with a missile drop kick on Canyon for the win the Triad did Mike work early to make sure the sturis crowd which has had some racist crowd reactions in the past reacted to them as the heels one Stars three Perry Saturn Perry satell and Shane Douglas Troy Martin and Dean maleno Dean Simon beat Barry Windam and Kurt henig and Bobby dunam Jr in 1057 they played rap as crap for the Cowboys entrance but they still didn’t get a big pop wendam who is deceptively tall visually makes meleno look like nothing when they are in the ring together it’s one of those matchups that’s best left avoided so WCW continues to do it Kendall Windam interfered hitting maleno with a cowbell however Saturn pinned dunam with the Death Valley driver after the match Saturn stomped on a cowboy hat last behind three4 of a St four Buff Bagwell Marcus Bagwell pinned Ernest Miller in 724 these two got the first real crowd heat of the show largely due to Miller’s inciting the crowd in the pre-match it was all stalling and cheerleading early Finnish saw Sunny Ono accidentally hit Miller with his briefcase and Bagwell did a totally messed up looking rolling reverse cradle for the pin after the match Miller kicked Bagwell and Ono took off his vest and began mimicking Bagwell doing bodybuilding poses it would have been funny except for some reason Ono just isn’t funny Bagwell had a pretty big cut on his elbow dud five Chris Ben Wa pinned Diamond Dallas Pig Paige falkenberg in 1214 to retain the US title in a no DQ match this was the only good match of the show Paige dominated early Charles Robinson who also refereed the Harlem Heat match is back as an unbiased Anonymous ref the explanation after all the favoritism of the past is that he wants to keep his job paig dominated the match since he was doing the job you have to give Paige credit on this finish as he really put benois over not this laying down for a three count making sure everyone knows it’s a fluke and laying the younger guy out after and going back to the dressing saying look I’m a pro I did a job the crowd even got into it when Ben Wa made his comeback with three straight near falls off German suplexes Ben Wa was on the top rope when Kenyon interfered throwing him off Paige hit a or nay but Paige wound up colliding with Canyon big also interfered they showed meleno Saturn and Douglas watching on the monitor but none of them came in to help Beno even though it was three on one Bigalow came off the top with a splash on Ben Wa but he kicked out Bigelow’s attempt to nail Ben Wa a second time backfired and Ben Wa came off the top with a diving headbutt and scored the pin three and a quarter stars six Sid Vicious Pinn sting Steve bordon in 1040 Sid is now the 40-year-old Millennium man they were pushing the entire match match house Sid has a winning streak that Rivals Goldberg’s old streak and they wonder why people are sick of their announcers and their product first off except for squash matches Sid hasn’t even beaten anyone on television as all his matches are DQ finishes second with only one or two exceptions he’s lost every match he’s had up to this point on House shows at least with Goldberg it got over early on because even though the number was a fantasy and if anyone remembers history when the numers seemed accurate the streak angle was over huge with people bringing signs and as soon as they started screwing with the number nobody cared about the streak at all but they never learned at least the guy really won all his matches with the internet so prevalent you can’t pretend the house show results don’t happen and even forgetting about that audience you can’t have one DQ after another on Nitro and sell people there’s a winning streak anyway to their credit Sid did start a one match winning streak pinning sting clean sting hit two Stinger splashes went for a third but Sid caught him and choke slammed him they did play it up as a huge deal that Sid scored a team pin on sting to get him ready for his program with Goldberg the two did more than you’d think in the match one and a half stars seven Bill Goldberg pinned Rick Steiner Rob reach Steiner in 539 it was never mentioned that Steiner’s TV title wasn’t at stake then again nobody probably remembers he has the title in the first place Goldberg got very little pop coming out then again hardly anyone else did either and sting came out to Dead Silence a previous match the story of the match was Shiner taking Goldberg’s knee brace off and pounding on him with it including a clothesline Goldberg made a strong fiery comeback with a press into a power slam followed by the spear and Jackhammer it was fine for what it was one and a quarter Stars eight Randy Savage Randy PFO pinned Dennis Rodman in 11:30 Rodman was the only one the crowd really saw as a star although he didn’t get either a face or heel reaction it was a brawl with almost no wrestling but Rodman who was physically exhausted early is such a great athlete then he gotted his way through it and took some good bumps Rodman threw Savage into the light stand Bobby Heenan said Rodman was 6 and N 260 when Rodman was on Jay Leno a few months back he said he was 6 and 6 220 and he’s a whole lot lighter now than he was then Rodman did a Russian leg sweep Rodman gave Billy Silverman the worst ref shove in history for decking him it became a deck the ref match Rodman dropped three most mudo live elbows on Silverman Mickey J ran in Savage decked photographer writer Ross Foreman remember two years ago when Rodman showed up in wrestling the first time and even last year when there were like 100 photographers from every major publication at ringside in this year there was only Ross Foreman he hit Rodman with the camera Savage decked Mickey J Scott Dickinson ran into ref and he got decked Savage took a bump over the top rope which was risky considering the state of his knees they brawled backstage with a live crowd booing as they left Savage speared Rodman into a garbage bin he then threw a guy out of a portable toilet and locked Rodman in and knocked it over Rodman came out looking none too happy they got back in the ring Rodman was supposed to Clos line ref Johnny Boon off the top well sort of he slipped on the top jumped off the middle and was a little low on the clothesline but what the hell it was only Johnny Boon Rodman put on the sleeper that no doubt he learned from the late Paul Gorgeous George came out I don’t know what happened to Carmen Electra who was originally supposed to do this finish and gave Savage a chain and robman Ablow I guess that’s what Rodman gets for raping her in that trailer Savage hit him with a chain and Nick Patrick who if you’re keeping score was ref number five counted the pin one and a quarter Stars nine Hulk Hogan Terry Balia pin Kevin Nash and the loser must retire for at least one week match and retain the WCW title in 1216 Hogan came out with a red and yellow Tony shuvani kept emphasizing the name Hulk Hogan as opposed to Hollywood Hogan Hogan’s left knee seemed real bad as he didn’t want to put any weight on it Nash dominated but didn’t do much of anything Hogan bladed but for whatever reason didn’t draw much blood finally Nash hit the jack knife but Hogan kicked out of the pin and it was the same Superman comeback of old only an older more arthritic version Hogan did the high Boot and a leg drop and it was over dud John Boyd the baros member of two of the most famous tag teams of the 70s and 80s the Royal Kangaroos and later the sheep herders passed away on August 7th of an apparent heart attack at the age of 56 known as Lord Jonathan Boyd the native of Sydney Australia held Regional Tag Team titles around North America for most of the 70s with partner Norman Frederick Charles the Third as the Royal kangaroos after they split up Boyd turned into a New Zealander for his second run with l Williams and later with rip Morgan as the sheep herders he retired in 1989 after a 25-year ring career and had been living in Portland Oregon where he had the greatest success of his career working as a Brash small tag team Hill for promoter Don Owen at the time of his death he was working a day job as a Salesman for a and b towing service in Portland and by night as a bouncer at Judy’s Restaurant and Lounge his funeral was held on August 14th and Charles his longest running tag team partner flew in to deliver the ology Boyd garnered tremendous heat nearly every territory he worked as a heel despite being only five and six January 2nd but with a thick blocky physique largely because he was one of the best interviews in wrestling his powerful voice ran down foes with such conviction and Drew such heat it would almost make Jesse Ventura’s delivery seem tepid Boyd was creative on his interviews starting out with entertaining poems before laying the verbal SmackDown on his opponents he was actually two entirely different performers during his career in North America in the 70s he had long hair and was something of a pretty boy character carrying a boomerang as something of an updated version of the legendary kangaroos tag team of two Australians who were scientific heels Boyd was a good worker as a scientific heel while his partner Charles III played the role of his goofy cousin who wasn’t as good a wrestler but was a more vicious brawler along the lines of a rough house Fargo in Tennessee in the 80s with the sheeps there was nothing scientific or pretty about Boyd he got weirder and stories about him outside the became legendary then bill from New Zealand with Luke Williams playing the role that Charles previously had as the goofy cousin Boyd shaved his head bald making the scars from the years of blood matches in Oregon more noticeable and being an ugly very hated villain the two had a strong run in Alabama as he’ll main eventors against the local homesteaders like the Fuller brothers and Jimmy golden before going to Memphis for a program with the fabulous ones Stan Lane and Steve Kieran at a time when business was very strong they went to San Antonio in 198 3 for promoter Joe Blanchard who had a weekly show on the USA Network and booked the territory which was at the time the bloodiest territory in the country Unfortunately they were in the wrong place at the wrong time in many ways just as the Run was getting going Boyd was in a serious auto accident that destroyed his legs and was thought to be career- ending while Boyd stuck around as a very good Hill manager due to his strong promos and one year later returned to the ring the territory was falling apart due to the more flashy televised version of wrestling promoted by the competing Von Erics who his NWA members had access to more National stars like Ric Flair the injury probably resulted in the worst break of Boyd’s wrestling career since Williams needed a partner and Butch Miller was brought back to North America the original kiwis and later sheep herders and the more famous version were Williams originally known as Sweet William and Miller originally known as crazy Nick Carter who gained their first North American Fame in Calgary for Stuart back in 1974 they had a big run in Oregon in the late ’70s as a Wilder version of the royal kangaroos who had become legendary in that part of the country Everly the time Miller returned home to New Zealand after the Oregon run Boyd and Charles broke up the Royal kangaroos who were wrestling as the top Hill tag team in Calgary when Boyd walked out in 1978 leaving Charles to team with the Cuban assassin the partnership as the new version of the sheep herders became a natural beginning in Alabama with a strong run and gaining even more attention with a hot Feud with the Fabs in Memphis while Boyd was injured and working as a manager and Booker in Texas Miller was brought back to team with Williams as the top area tag team combination eventually when San Antonio was dying out Williams and Miller left for mids South for their wild matches with the Fantastics and later Florida while Boyd who recovered from his injuries well enough to do a limited brawling Style Match remained as Booker and started teaming with larger younger rip Morgan trying to revive a dead San Antonio Circuit by injecting greater and greater transfusions of blood not realizing at that time that was bleeding the territory to death as it turned out the injury may have been and you know what may have beans mean even greater than he even recognized if Boyd hadn’t have been hurt he and Williams would have remained the only sheep H herders Miller never would have returned and Boyd likely would have had some big years in the business working the WWF as The Bushwackers but who knows Boyd and Morgan later went back to Memphis for a second run of the feud with a fabulous ones in 1985 Morgan ended up leaving for Crockett territory as a so-called foreign mid-level team with Jack Victory called at the time Jacko Victory Boyd’s last run in Memphis was briefly with Bigfoot feuding with Jeff Jared and Billy Travis when they were the territory’s top Babyface tag team Boyd returned to Oregon without a partner and finished his career working prelims for Owen through 1989 born October 21st 1942 in Sydney Australia his name at Birth was probably John Bole since his brother is named Ernie Bole and his first ring name in Australia and the South Pacific was pretty boy later handsome Johnny Bole working for Jim Barnett’s World Championship wrestling starting in 1965 with a reputation as one of the better young scientific wrestlers when he first arrived in the United States in 1970 he arrived in Oregon as Lord Jonathan Boyd in 1971 as an Aussie Hill who hated the state he started as a single but after a few months Charles was brought in as his crazy cousin and the two became the lead heels in the promotion for a strong one-year run Boyd held the Northwest Singles title twice and tag title four times during that period working against every top baby face in that part of the country such as Dutch Savage Lonnie before he was known as moon dog M Tony Bourne Jimmy snooka and boy regard and even a heel versus he Feud with Avon stigers perhaps their most memorable angle was with Tom Peterson the TV and Appliance dealer who was the sponsor of Portland Wrestling seemingly forever Peterson would bring appliances to the Portland Sports Arena every Saturday for the show and Hawk them to late night wrestling viewers on commercials done from the sports arena the converted bowling alley that was the home of Portland Wrestling but Royal kangaroos one Saturday night destroyed the television sets Peterson had brought Peterson then put a bounty up on them and many national Stars such as Dory Funk Jr Lonnie M Mad Dog Von Dale Lewis and Don Leo Jonathan would come in on Saturday nights for big tag matches but come up short when their run was over in 1972 they went to the Carolinas where they didn’t get over as big and kept in touch with Owen who finally brought them back in 1975 for another strong run which included a hill versus Hill Feud against bull Ramos and newcomer Jesse Ventura Ventura in his autobiography mentioned a night in Oregon where he claimed Boyd tried to shoot on him and Ventura claimed he quickly taught Boyd a lesson the Royal kangaroo’s biggest title and name value came with a three- month run as San Francisco based NWA World Tag Team Champions for Roy Shire in 1976 beating Pat Patterson and Tony garia even with a strong interviews the two didn’t Drew well in a fading territory and were quickly replaced by the more flamboyant Valiant Brothers as the San Francisco territory was starting its descent into Oblivion but while one could say what if he didn’t break his leg and they didn’t call Butch back into the US the other thing about it is Jonathan Boyd probably would have made a pretty lousy bushwhacker Lord Jonathan Boyd career title history Source wrestling title history’s Third Edition NWA World Tag Team California version with Norman Frederick Charles III defeated Pat Patterson and Tony gar September 18th 1976 San Francisco lost to Jimmy and Johnny in December 4th 1976 San Francisco NWA Pacific Northwest heavyweight defeated Kurt Von Steiger July 31st 1971 lost to Dutch Savage October 24th 1971 defeated Dutch Savage November 28th 1971 lost to Dutch Savage December 28th 1971 NWA Georgia TV defeated Ray candy September 1979 lost to Ray candy September 14th 1979 Atlanta NWA Pacific Northwest tag team with Norman Frederick Charles III defeated Kurt and Carl Von Steiger July 11th 1971 lost to Cowboy Frankie Lane and Jimmy snooka July 1971 with Norman Frederick Charles III defeated Cowboy Frank Lane and Jimmy snooka 1971 lost to Dutch Savage and board November 26th 1971 with Norman Frederick Charles III defeated Dutch Savage and board December 17th 1971 lost to Tony Bourne and Lonnie May April 17th 197 72 with Norman Frederick Charles III defeated Tony Bourne in Lonnie M May 9th 1972 lost to Dutch Savage in Lon M with Norman Frederick Charles II defeated Dutch Savage and Jimmy snooka February 27th 1975 lost to Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka December 25th 1975 with Norman Frederick Charles III defeated bull Ramos and Jesse Ventura June 5th 1976 lost aable Ramos and Jesse Ventura June 8th 1976 NWA Stampede in ational tag team with Norman Frederick Charles I third defeated Leo Burke and Keith Hart June 1977 lost to Leo and Bobby Burke 1977 with Norman Frederick Charles III defeated Jerry Morrow and George Wells 1978 lost to Keith Hart and Hubert Gallant 1978 Southern tag team with Luke Williams defeated Stan Lane and Steve Kieran January 30th 1983 Memphis lost to Stan Lane and Steve Kieran February 6th 1983 Memphis with Luke Williams defeated Stan Lane and Steve Kieran February 7th 1983 Louisville lost to Stan Lane and Steve Kieran February 13th 1983 Memphis with rip Morgan defeated Stan Lane and Steve Kieran June 22nd 1985 Memphis lost to Stan Lane and Steve Kieran September 5th 1985 Lexington Kentucky with rip Morgan defeated Stan Lane and Steve Kieran September 6th 1985 Beville Arkansas lost to Stan Lane and Steve Kieran September 9th 1985 Memphis with rip Morgan defeated Stan Lane and Steve Kieran September 16th 19 1985 Memphis lost to Stan Lane and Steve Kieran September 17th 1985 Louisville with rip Morgan defeated Stan Lane and Steve Kieran September 1985 lost to Stan Lane and Steve Kieran October 12th 1985 Memphis with Bigfoot defeated Jeff Jared and Billy Travis in tournament final November 10th 1986 Memphis lost to Jeff Jarrett and Billy Travis November 17th 1986 Memphis NWA Southeastern tag team with Luke Williams won tournament for vacant titles December 1981 won lost to Robert Fuller and Jimmy golden September 11th 1982 Dothan Alabama Southwest tag team with Luke Williams defeated the Grapplers Lyn Denton and Tony Anthony May 1983 San Antonio vacated title June 1983 after boy broke his leg in auto accident MTV over the past week was turned into almost primarily a promotional vehicle for the WWF to build for Summer Slam MTV debut ww related shows every afternoon from August 9th through August 13th and replayed them frequently throughout the week on August 14th all the shows were replayed in succession building to a documentary produced by the network called True Life I’m a pro wrestler the 90-minute documentary put together by award-winning producer Brooks Tarver was one of the best produced pieces on wrestling in years I’d call one of the few must sees amidst the plethora of wrestling related pieces these days in the mainstream media the show largely interspersed clips of a wrestler training for his first match at L thatchers wrestling originally Matt Talia but he flamed out and it ended up moving to cover the first match of Steve Moss under the ring name rapid fire Rory Fox a former star struggling to make ends meet Tony Atlas and two stars at the top Hunter Hurst Helmsley and China although the piece was in some form made to be a promotional piece to get Helmsley over for his big run as Champion it was virtually unanimous that it was the naive tragic and somewhat likable Visage of Atlas that stole the show Atlas 43 was a major star in wrestling in the late 70s and early 80s before his career flamed out largely due to drug problems he was shown literally having no money to his name surviving on his past reputation working little Northeast cities in front of tiny crowds and for tiny payoffs Atlas was the only portrayal to really have any depth and give any true insight as to what life and wrestling is more often than not really like the peace made it clear wrestling was a difficult business to get into and a huge business if you make it to the top but Helmsley and China really didn’t come off as interesting people they were very dedicated disciplined hardworking people who people see as celebrities and living their characters as almost a 24 to7 job but they weren’t really that interesting on camera unlike with Atlas a training segment in the gym appeared at least partially staged for the cameras Helmsley who came off well spoken and intelligent mainly noted it was a great business if you can achieve the dream but little was told of his background or hers were their trials and tribulations of making it in fact they weren’t even portrayed as as a romantic couple but simply as business partners who traveled together and were together more than most married couples the film ended finishing after the raw taping last week in Chicago that triple H had lost his number one contendership to of all people China about the only introspection of the two or since they had a life or dreams beyond their fictitious characters that seemed legit was China worrying about when her days were over in wrestling would she ever get married and start a family or in the Whirlwind of her current Fame where the days months and years whiz by so quickly were the important thing in life passing her by Talia who the documentary was originally going to focus on flamed out early a former high school wrestling star from Chicago who was going to Cincinnati to be trained he was a 24-year-old parier with no discipline it was pretty clear from the start even though his reflexes early in training showed he was a pretty decent natural athlete that he didn’t have the dedication to make it he showed up and camp out of shape much to the Chagrin of Thatcher who in one of the best scenes in the film after finding a cracked pipe in his room after he had disappeared ends up telling him off after he repeatedly missed training sessions because he was out late doing drugs and trying to impress 17-year-old girls as thater said to him Talia disappeared after this scene late in the movie after he bombs out of wrestling school and winds up in rehab only to resurface at the end still talking about how it was harder than he thought but that he still wanted to be a wrestler while this didn’t appear in the piece what actually happened is that when Talia talked about wanting to give it another try Tarver and the crew were set to drive with him from Chicago back to Cincinnati once again and follow his progress talia’s van broke down on the trip and they wound up in Cincinnati at about 5:30 a.m. at which point Tarver went to sleep Talia was s to return to class at 1: p.m. the next day the next morning Tarver went to awaken Talia and the bed hadn’t even been slept in and he was nowhere to be found shortly thereafter he was back in rehab again Ross was introduced at this point as a young man in the school looking almost like Obie Taylor his own words but there was little depth to his character other than showed Thatcher coming up with a name and gimmick for him as it turned out Thatcher as a wrestling school trainer was besides Atlas strongest personality in the piece Atlas was clearly and unintentionally the star he was shown looking at videos of himself in his prime when he was the huge muscle man with a tiny waist and hips that gave him almost an action figure– like caricature of a physique on that 1980 tape he was the rising superstar that Hulk Hogan was putting over in Madison Square Garden and almost somber and tearful at what he once was and what he turned into still huge and Powerful he was doing reps with 405 PBS on the bench something few men in the world in their 40s could do in his prime Atlas had a physique probably matched in wrestling today by only Scott Steiner and only a handful of wrestlers in history mostly powerlifters turned wrestlers like Ted R City Bill caser Doug fernus Scott Norton and Tom McGee as opposed to him being a wrestler primarily who entered bench press meets could match his competition bench press lists but once you got past the physique there was nothing to the package he said all he had left from his Glory Days was some of his size and his power he talked about how steroids the only reference to them in the documentary which shows the depth they went into when it comes to talking with China and marijuana had ruined his life and handed of his use of stronger drugs without directly saying them he talked about how he never could hang on to his money noting he made $1,500 in his first week in wrestling got paid on Monday and was broke on Wednesday he claimed to have made one $100,000 per year from 1,975 85 while Atlas was a big star in wrestling most of that period and probably did top $100,000 in his best year which was really huge money and wrestling in that era I’d suggest that was slightly exaggerated but saved none of it and was broke living in an apartment with 10 people in one bedroom when he tried to slit his wrists in the 80s after his fall from the top Vince McMahon called him for his last run of sabba Simba which he intimated saved his life the film shows Atlas having problems with a local promoter James St genene of the Eastern wrestling Alliance in Leon Maine who comes off as the big villain of the show at one point Atlas the booker and the promoter have a problem because Atlas went over budget on payoffs and the heat was evident between the two Atlas came off as a kind-hearted man with absolutely no business sense who felt that nobody who drives 10 hours to a show and leaves their family for a day should go home with no money later St Jee canceled a show calling Atlas up at 6:00 a.m. Atlas went to the building anyway seeing wrestlers who had driven in not knowing there was no show and the people at the building wanted a wrestling show and didn’t even know it was canceled Atlas went to his apartment scurrying around for money he’d hidden away but forgot where he hid it finally coming up with the last $180 he had to his name he went back gave it to the ring crew to set up the ring and figured he’d pay the wrestlers off the gate St Jee found out Atlas was going on with a show contacted the main commission and since Atlas didn’t have a promoter’s license and couldn’t get a temporary one or use one from another promoter the commission wouldn’t allow the show to go on St Jee was shown in an interview saying how he wanted to be a promoter who would clean up the stench of wrestling promoter by working honorably and then contrasted it by playing over and over a tape of him that he left on Atlas answering machine almost cackling as he told Atlas how he called the commission and Atlas wouldn’t be able to run his show Atlas naivity came forth with his next idea for a gimmick Atlas wanted to do what was called in the piece a shoot match it wasn’t exactly a shoot what it turned out to be was a match against a local China like woman bodybuilder called Master Sandy Atlas instructed her to punch him in the face as hard as she could and basically shoot on him and he take it figuring somehow that to be a great gimmick that would resurrect his dying career and the two could take the ACT on the road shots of Sandy laying in punch after punch on Atlas face to where after the match when he took off her protective gloves her knuckles were badly swollen and one was broken while Atlas face was swollen up as he sadly left the building after taking legitimate punishment for another small payoff it noted that Atlas was recently suspended in New Hampshire for no showing a card but that he had received his promoter’s license for Maine and his first shows will be taking place this coming weekend also during the week was a segment where guys auditioned to be wrestlers by throwing around dummies while being judged by Mick Foley a Cheesy segment Foley was said to have somewhat safe several wrestlers including Triple H Foley and rock were shown picking their favorite videos and Reminiscing on their careers Austin was interviewed on another show they did a World karaoke Federation in which draws DLo Brown and Godfather sang giving them exposure although it was also a somewhat weak segment it finished with a SummerSlam countdown with Austin and Triple H building up their match and airing a Hardy Boys versus brood tag match paced by a series of number one contenders matches that Drew huge quarter hours raw was back up to a 6.62 rating 6.38 first hour 6.83 seconds hour and a 10.6 share on August 16th Nitro which was doubled in six of the eight head-to-head quarters finished finished with a 3.28 rating 3.78 first hour 2.89 seconds hour 3.18 third hour and a 5.4 share over the head-to-head 2 hours and 6 minutes Rod did a 6.58 rating to nitro’s 3.04 WWF first drew a monstrous 7.27 quarter which featured both the China versus Triple H match along with the Jericho confrontation of Undertaker and Big Show the Mankind versus China match drew a 7.10 rating while the Mankind versus Triple H match drew a 6.13 final quarter and the overrun which went unopposed in the final 3 minutes grew to a 7.13 there was very little in the way of good news for Nitro other than a relatively strong showing of The Hulk Hogan versus Sid Vicious Main Event promoted heavily throughout the show which did a 3.64 final quarter and a 4.26 overrun the two quarters that Rod didn’t bevel Nitro were the second quarter Road dog versus snow and beginning of Undertaker SL show Jericho segment against paig versus Kidman which was a 5.7 to 3.2 margin in the final quarter the biggest Gap was the China versus Triple H quarter going against benois versus disco which was the best actual wrestling match of either show but drew the lowest quarter of the night at 2.42 the slight increase in wrestling audience as compared to last week was probably due to last week’s numbers being held down by a strong showing of the Cleveland Browns versus Dallas Cowboys game which was the highest rated preseason football game since 1995 as it did a 10.1 rating including a 36.6 rating and 55 share in Cleveland it was the first game of the new Browns and a 21.1 rating and 32 share in Dallas there was a story reported on the George Michael Sports Machine as strictly a rumor and as best we can tell there is zero substance to at all that the NFL and or ABC had offered $100 million to Vince McMahon to move raw from Monday but that McMahon had turned it down the story sounds ludicrous on the surface but it’s amazing it got so far as to actually be broadcast cast on a television show even with a caveat that it was strictly a rumor but just being reported gave it enough credibility that some talk show hosts this week were discussing it as fact even though raw does phenomenal numbers the audience for raw is still significantly lower than most Prime Time network shows on Monday nights while raw will have some negative impact on Monday night football ratings this season as both raw and Nitro had last season it’s still only a very minor impact in shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and Ally mcel still draw far more of a mainstream audience raw did draw more teenage males on August 9th than the preseason NFL game and did draw more 18 and 34 males on August 2nd but much fewer viewers overall than the David Duval Tiger Woods Golf match the closest thing to good news for WCW and this really is a stretch to relate it to WCW other than the company did promote it heavily was the movie first daughter on TBS in which DDP had a significant role and worked hard on promotion for it was the most watched movie in the history of the station drawing a 6.89 r and 12.0 share for the first run climaxing with an 8.24 rating for the movie’s conclusion from 8 and 10 p.m. and followed with a 3.82 rating and 7.0 share for the Replay for the weekend of August 14 and 15 Livewire did a 2.3 rating Which is higher than usual Superstars did a 2.1 and Sunday night he did a 4.45 rating it should be noted that Pacific Blue did a 2.3 rating this week against much tougher competition than the previous two weeks where Shawn Michaels appearance gave the show consecutive 2.2 ratings which again points out Michaels meant absolutely nothing as a ratings draw for that show WCW Saturday night drew a 1.5 rating which is terrible since it was the lowest rated show of the afternoon or evening on TBS Thunder on August 12th for a tape show was actually up slightly to a 2.89 rating we also got a market bym market breakdown for the ratings of nitro on July 26th which did a 3.43 rating nationally headlined by Hogan and sting versus Nash vicious as you can see WCW interest varies greatly Market by Market Atlanta did a 5.3 Baltimore a 4.0 Birmingham a 6.1 Boston a 1.8 Charlotte a 5.1 Chicago a 3.4 Cincinnati at 2.4 Cleveland 1.4 Columbus Ohio 3.1 Dallas 3.3 Denver 1.8 Detroit 4.3 Greensboro 5.3 Houston 4.5 Indianapolis 4.4 Jacksonville 5.4 Kansas City 3.2 Las Vegas 5.8 Los Angeles 1.9 Memphis 9.6 Miami 3.2 Milwaukee 3.9 Minneapolis 4.4 Nashville 3.9 New Orleans 3.3 New York 4.4 norick 3.6 Oklahoma City 5.1 Orlando 3.5 Philadelphia 4.0 Phoenix 0.9 Pittsburgh 4.1 Portland Oregon 3.6 Providence 2.6 Raleigh 4.2 Sacramento 3.3 Salt Lake City 1.1 San Antonio 5.0 San Diego 2.0 San Francisco San Jose 1.8 Seattle 1.9 St Louis 5.2 Tampa 4.1 Washington 3.3 and West Palm Beach 4.9 New Japan G1 climax tournament history all finals at Tokyo Sumo Hall August 11th 1991 Masahiro chono pin Kim Muto 2903 August 12th 1992 masiro chono pin Rick Roode tournament was also for the vacant NWA world heavyweight title 2944 August 8th 1993 Tatsumi fujinami beat H hiroi 2149 August 7th 1994 Masahiro chono beat power Warrior kensek Sasaki 2115 August 15th 1995 Kim Muto pin sh hasimoto 248 August 6th 1996 Ricky choshu pin Masahiro chono 1345 August 3rd 1997 kensek Sasaki pin Hiroshi t on 809 August 2nd 1998 Shin Hashimoto pin Kazu yamazaki 1534 August 15th 1999 manabu nakanishi beat kg mudo 1443 Japanese television rundown July 24th New Japan 1 Kango Kimura and shirro koshinaka beat Masahiro chono and Michael Wall Street in 407 this was to give Kimura and koshinaka a television win before their IWGP tag team title match which actually took place a few days before this aired it was more like an American TV match with Wall Street as the jobber taking a double team butt bump slle lar combination a double team Power Bomb leading to koshinaka pinning him after a butt bump off the top rope three quarter Stars two juian liger and El Samurai beat Koji kanamoto and Dr Vagner Jr in 1305 fast-paced really good match carried by kanamoto who was the best of the four vogner did some great mat work finally liger pinned Vagner after a running liger bomb three and a half Stars three Tatsumi fujinami and Yuji Nagata beat kg Muto and hero Seido in 1432 slow and uneventful early but it picked up and turned into a good match at the end everyone was fine except fujinami who knows what to do but physically is a step off on doing a lot of it finally fujinami got the figure four on cido while Nagata kept mudo at Bay by locking him into the Nagata lock two and a half Stars four shinya Hashimoto and mang in kensek Sasaki beat Scott Norton and Hiroshi tenzan and Satoshi Kojima in 16007 good match ending when mang Pinn tenz on after the tongen death grip which they also called the Nawa claw two and 3/4 Stars July 25th all Japan One Tori and yoshihiro takayama won the double tag belts from Johnny Ace and Bart Gunn in 1730 in some ways like the build this match wasn’t too bad in other ways it was among the worst world tag team title matches in company history the crowd got into it particularly toward the end the wrestling and transitions were unbelievably bad with the exception of Amore who is only decent as individual performers they were all out there lost Ace and gun try a lot of hot moves but look clumsy in the majority of them takayama is getting better but a lot of his offense in particular his chops look awful the wrestling was bad a lot of messed up double team moves but there were a lot of near Falls that the crowd got into takayama hit gun with a leg drop Hogan followed by amori hitting him with a bomb’s way Ray Stevens and then Amore used the axe bomber Hogan on gun for the pin this match pretty well exposed that the previous great matches amori and takayama have had on television were just about completely the work of their opponents one and a half Stars July 31st New Japan the show opened with a clip of a match with chono and NWO sting versus fujinami and Hashimoto and chono brought Wall Street in as referee and told Massa hatori to leave the entire scene was more reminiscent of us wrestling than Japanese wrestling it was funny to see Wall Street in a ref shirt counting hatori and telling him to leave the minute the match started Ed Wall Street was helping Arris and the New Japan guys like Sasaki hit the ring they cut to the Finish which saw wall Street’s attempt to help NWO sting backfire and he was pinned while hatori ran in and made the count time well tell if New Japan going down the American road is good or bad for business one atani and takaiwa won the IWGP Jr tag titles from liger and Sasuke in 1631 most of which aired one of the better matches of the Year Sasuke and atani really carried things with great mov and near Falls the first 90 seconds were unbelievable and it never really slowed from there Sasuke did his assai Moon Sal early and a BIG running flip dive later takaiwa did his triple bomb on liger but Sasuke saved Sasuke missed what I guess would have been a double Revolution moonsault finish saw lier Miss shoda palm and takaiwa pinned him with a cross armed German suplex four and a half Stars before the next match since this was the second to last New Japan show ever at the saporo Nakajima Sports Center they aired a clip showing saporo memories airing clips of a 1978 inoki versus tiger Jeet sing match the 1984 angle where yoshiaki fujara made his name he’d been just a prelim guy known internally as the company shooter by attacking Ricky choshu with a lead pipe the 1985 in Noki versus Bruiser Brody match and the 1988 match where choshu pinned and Noki clean in a singles match with Lariat two fujinami and tenryu beat tenzan and Norton in 1033 the TV picked up at the 5-minute Mark fujinami and Norton really had trouble working with each other this was a terrible match ending when tenzan missed a moons and fujinami beat him with a dragon sleeper dud three Sasaki and koshinaka beat chono and NWO sting in 1107 the second half aired and it was decent Akira interfered several times including screwing up and hitting in wo sting finish saw Sasaki clothesline Akira and then NWO sting for the pin one and 3/4 Stars four mudo beat coima in 2310 to retain the IWGP heavyweight title the final 11 minutes aired on television a huge disappointment for a world title match on a big show it was slow paced the crowd was into it though they were trading spots with Kojima doing lariats and mudo with drop kicks to the knee finally mudo delivered a dragon screw off the apron and kept drop kicking the knee including one on the floor and another off the top rope mudo tried a backwards drop kick a move Satur sayama used in the early 80s and that jinay shinzaki uses today but really didn’t hit it well then put on the figure four for the Tapout this match really hurt kojima’s stock two Stars August 1st all Japan one mitsuharu masawa retained the Triple Crown pinning toshiaki Ka in 2158 this was yet another amazing match of what has to be the in ring Feud of the decade it was so weird watching maawa in this match as every step he takes looks painful he moves so slow and it looks like his career should be over he was reminiscent of Terry Funk 10 years ago and that when you see him walk with the bad knees you almost feel sad that he’s going to embarrass his name by performing and then he goes out and gives you a match of the Year anyway and this was pretty close to that it was one of the three or four best matches of the Year mainly because they beat the hell out of each other rather than did a lot of moves but the stiffness and comebacks were awesome maawa was killing him with elbows early and Ka was coming back stiff but m didn’t even bump Ka used brutal high kicks maawa did his elbow suici and tried a tiger driver off the apron but Ka reversed it into a backdrop onto the floor Ka was killing him with kicks to the head and then hit the stiffest knee drop I can ever recall to the side of the head the fans were quiet at this point perhaps stunned by the stiffness and not knowing how to react Ka finally dropped maawa on his head at 1330 which was the sign for the crowd to get into it it was basically the hard kicks by Ka and the hard elbow Clos by maawa maawa dropped Ka with a German suplex on his head but Ka got up and hit yet another high kick followed by a Brain Buster and a Power Bomb for near Falls they teased the big spot where Ka beat maawa in January as Ka went for a power bomb maawa went to turn it into a frankensteiner but Ka blocked it as maawa was going through and was about to drop him on his head when maawa pulled the move off at the last second maawa did a rolling elbow and tiger suplex for near Falls kawa’s selling at this point was incredible Ka came back with low kicks like in Muay Thai but maawa came back with elbows German suplex and a tiger driver dropping kaata on the side of his head maawa acted as if he was going to do a running elbow but the ref stopped him since Ka didn’t get up and ordered maawa to go for the pin and got the three which was a strange finish in that it wasn’t the perfect choreograph time for the Finish but a great finish to make it seem like Ka was legitimately knocked out and this was a real fight that had ended four and a half Stars August 7th New Japan one kashin won a 10-man junior heavyweight Battle Royal in 1019 kashen and atani were the final two left in a pinfall or submission elimination Battle Royal with aani going for the dragon suplex and kosin reversing it into an armar for the submission Most Japanese battle Royals are horrible but this was pretty most of the early Focus was beating the hell out of the two newcomers wataru inoi and katsuu shibata who got their chests chopped raw once it got down to the final two they did some nice spots three stars two mishos Ohara and tatsutoshi goo retained the IWGP tag titles beating Kango Kimura and shirro koshinaga in 1031 typical New Japan match with a slot start and the Strong finish with near Falls crowd got into the finish a lot ending when goo pin Kimura three and a quarter Stars three atsu onita and Masahiro chono and Akira kimudo and Hiro Yoshi tenzan and hero cido in 1311 this was pretty much a story match to build up the Nita versus ver muda match at jingu stadium before the match started there was a wall of New Japan guys led by Tatsumi fujinami blocking the ring because they didn’t want onita to wrestle it wasn’t like there was a big brawl or anything as fujinami eventually just let him through fans were totally into chono as a baby face and into onita as a Hot Gimmick the focus was onita who would tag in and tag out without ever making contact they did a good job of protecting onita who actually can’t wrestle and Akira worked most of the match and he’s a very good good underrated worker so he carried it well onita brawled with cido in the crowd finally onita and mudo went at it mudo hit the power elbow but Akira and chono hit the ring and softened up mudo and onita brawled with him outside the ring onita used a chair on mudo and took him outside and rammed him into the wall CTO hit a senton off the top on Aira and climbed to the top for a second one at this point onita hit both tenz on and cido with chair shots knocking Seido off the top rope in the Ring mudo went for the figure four on onita but he blew green Mist in his eyes and Akira pinned cido with a splash off the top onita also blew the Mist at tenz on after the match and mudo was staggering around as if he was blinded basically all the stars in the match were for Akira because nobody else did that much two and a half Stars after the match onita attacked the TV announcer and stomped and slapped him around backstage the show ended with a weird american-like angle not really even ww fish but more 80s Florida under Kevin Sullivan like the time Mark Luen came from the sea onita was with a TV announcer on a bridge I was afraid he’d jump in a polluted river with open wounds and nearly kill himself he did that years ago and it almost ended his career to all the infections but I guess that only makes him more hardcore as it turned out onita is doing this interview and in the background you hear loud thunder it was like a cheaply done horror movie skit you hear the sound of rain but there is no rain eventually onita started praying and you hear the loud thunder and there was an explosion at this point n onita in ninja makeup climbed up the bridge as if he was coming from the river and was laughing really Sinister Nita blew mist and kept laughing and put his hand on his face cing his face paint on it and then put his hand and Pie Face the announcer so he had the makeup smeared on his face very weird to see this on a new Japan TV show time will tell about this direction Mexico the August 20th Arena Mexico show is one of the biggest of the year called Elio final with the battle for the Mr NE name as the main event even though the angle was shot weeks ago they weren’t able to do the match until this week because nebla had a prior commitment to the mil mascara’s Japanese tour they also have higante Silva and braso deata and Emilio Charles Jr versus higante kran and Apollo Dante and Cen carus and mascara ano 2000 in Atlantis and ELO Del Santo and negro Casas versus Viano Tero and Dr Vagner Jr and Pier Roth Jr plus a 10-man elimination tag with the younger wrestlers it should draw well with the name gimmick on top the gimmick of Silva who is a draw in Mexico versus Kyan plus Santo in with name wrestlers and the EML elimination tags called torneo cibernetico matches are usually the best wrestling matches in the promotion El Santo’s picture is on millions of Mexican national lottery tickets Triple A on August 16th and leyon had an eight-woman cage match where the last one out would lose her hair or mask with Shido Hamada laui TAA laola diabolica Miss janith Rossy Moreno Alder Moreno and Venus moocho Kota who looks to be about a million years old has returned as a top heel for AAA the wwo and KERO ran on August 14th holding but a mask versus mask match with locals panta orus over kiss Jr unmasked as Jesus till La Cruz and a hair versus hair match with Lady magic beating panta Serena who was a huge International women’s star about 15 years ago August 13th Arena Mexico Drew an estimated 9,000 with Silva and Charles and kasas beat mascara 2000 and univ so 200 in salv and Scorpio Jr in 641 when Silva was fouled for the DQ in a negative star Main Event Silva did two drop kicks well one-footed versions a Beal a leg drop and a good monkey flip Pio and Ricky Santana and Viano Tero beat Atlantis and lizmar Senor at braso deplato when Viano Tero kicked Atlanta low to keep their Feud going the second nebla teamed with shocker and El satanico to beat Auntie fostel Norte who it was said looked tremendous and olympico and Tony Rivera when ybla made ATI F submit several iwrg wrestlers were at ringside cheering ybla on the ladies Millennium cup show on August 14th in Mexico City was canceled due to lack of Interest they also killed the idea to introduce a new female wrestler under the name Lewinsky Kiran missed the August 13th Arena Mexico show the excuse given was that Kiran was at the WWF Canada offices signing his new contract they are bringing the Silva Kiran Feud around the country in September and October which by tradition is a strong part of the year in Mexico pero aguo is rarely wrestling as he only has had one match so far this month all Japan they held a show on August 15th in a small village of manasse as part of their Summer Festival in front of 4,900 fans a free Festival show using only the Japanese workers takaori and yoshihiro takayama were saying that they weren’t going to give back the all Asian Tag Team titles it’s an angle building of their title defense against mitsu Harum maawa and yoshinari Ogawa on August 25th since misawa’s company president said since they won the pwf international and world belts that they’d vacate the midc card all Asian belts they held tryouts this past week with 23 people auditioning for the school and six being picked the most interesting name that is training is kazuhiro takafuji who is a champion powerlifter but at 31 is very old to be learning to wrestle New Japan notes on the remainder of the G1 matches from the the past week on August 11th in Osaka kensek Sasaki pinned Satoshi Kojima in 1305 after a Lariat Tatsumi fujinami beat tat yasuda in 329 with a crooked head scissor submission there was a story to this as fujinami broke the record for the quickest win in G1 history breaking the mark set by Ricky choshu in 1994 when he beat masiro chono in 347 Kim Muto beat Yugi Nagata in 2111 with the armar submission in a real good match Hiroshi tends on pin kazuo yamazaki in 1230 after a diving headbutt manabu nakanishi beat shirro koshinaka in 1115 with a torture rack and chono beat Shin Hashimoto in 2136 this win is to set up their rematch at the jangu stadium show August 13th at Sumo Hall had t on pin koshinaka after a moon Sal in 1514 in a real good match chono over nakanishi in 1021 after a yakaza kick in a good match which saw chono use his stdf several times and nakanishi used the torur rack ashimoto Pinn yamazaki after a Brain Buster in 450 five in a hot match Kojima pinned yasuda in 1351 after a Lariat in a disappointing match Nagata beat fujinami in 1221 with a Nagata lock and mudo pinned Sasaki in 2050 with a frankensteiner in a hot match mud’s eye was busted open and they teased the doctor stopping the match early they traded Dragon screws and figure fours Sasaki debuted larat to the knee to set up the Scorpion death lock near the finish before mudo hit the frankensteiner out of nowhere for the pin August 14th at Sumo Hall saw mudo beat beat yasuda in 625 with an armar submission in a good match fujinami beat Kojima with the dragon sleeper in 1310 Nagata beat Sasaki in 1443 with an armar submission in a good match Nishi beat tenzan with a torture Rack in 1540 in what was said to be a really exciting match chono beat yamazaki in 1018 with the SDF and koshinaka beat Hashimoto in 1347 with an ankle lock in a good Main Event the lineup for the tag team tournament which includes Scott Norton and Ming from WCW indicates the Rel reltionship is at least still ongoing it appears they are going to build to a tag team program with chono and Don Fry versus mudo and Norton the magazines this week were loaded with photos of Kemo who even made one cover which is very rare for a foreigner particularly a foreigner who has done very few pro wrestling matches no date has been announced for his start but one would think it would be October 11th at the Tokyo Dome other Japan notes August 15th was a huge day for wrestling in Tokyo and besides the G1 finals at Sumo Hall there were noon and evening major women shows at Kaku and Hall due to the different starting times ajw at noon New Japan at 3 and Gia at 6:30 there were actually some fans who attended all three shows ajw finished its Grand Prix tournament on August 15th with Monami Toyota winning for a record fourth time previous wins were 1990 1995 and 1998 and also became the first woman ever to win it in consecutive years she had to wrestle five matches on the final night which must be some sort of a record yumo won the round robin with 15 points while Toyota M nakanishi and karuo all tied for second with nine points they did a series of matches with Toyota nakanishi and Ito which would go on until one wrestler won two consecutive matches nanishi beat Toyota first theno beat nakanishi quickly Toyota pinned ETO quickly and finally Toyota pin nakanishi this set up the hot versus Toyota final with Toyota getting a pin by turning as pyramid driver into a cradle in 1845 the win traditionally makes Toyota top Contender for the www title currently held by Neo ladies Kyoko enoa ajw will be holding its annual tag team tournament starting October 11th at Kaku and Hall and ending in December and kilo and dako inoi will be in the tournament as a team ajw also ran Kaku and Hall on August 14th with a series of matches to determine the final standings in the Grand Prix nanishi went to a 30-minute straw with kumako Maka followed by takako Eno going to a 30 minutes straw with nny Takahashi takako one she’d have gone into the playoff and Toyota pinned EO in 1717 actually if ETO had won or drawn with Toyota she’d have faced H in the finals so the final winner was Toyota H in second nakanishi and Ito tied for third nine points maawa and takako inoi tied for fifth 8 Takahashi 7th 7 tomoko wanabi eighth six and Miho wazawa 9th five Wabi is out of action with a knee injury which came last week when she caught Toyota doing the planta off the light stand and at surgery and will be out about 5 weeks the shows did not draw well as there were probably no more than 1,000 at the show on August 14th and 1st 500 on August 15th ajw is planning a Jackie sa Memorial show on September 29th at Tokyo Oda Ward gymnasium and they are planning on inviting meua Nancy Kumi D Matsumoto and jaguar yoka to attend the show Gia on the other hand overflowed Kaku and Hall on August 15th with 2,300 to see The Return of Akira hokuto in her first matchback since giving birth hokuto and ASA Kong and mayumi oaki chigusa nagio and tashio Yuma and makos satura in 1417 kensek Sasaki left the New Japan G1 party to attend this show watching his wife’s first match in 18 months hokuto will be wrestling on the August 22nd Gia show in hamamatsu teaming with Cho nagashima against Ozaki and sugar a cmll ended its Skyhigh Legend mil mascaras whose entrance music is the 70 song Skyhigh Tour on August 15th in Osaka with mascaras beating Gran Marcus Jr before 970 fans to retain the iwa world heavyweight title from the 70s Pedro Martinez Eddie Einhorn promotion in the US mascaras gets a lot of magazine coverage because so many of the writers grew up in the 70s when mascaras was the biggest wrestling hero aimed at kids he still physically looked remarkable for a 61 one-year-old man doing his famed flying body press finisher every night on the tour michinoku pro ran a major show on August 13th at saporo Nakajima sports center with an announced 3,820 brand anwa who is the leading Point getter in the current world mask Man league pinning great Sasuke in the main event naniwa has 14 points while Sasuke and tiger mask who had a 30 minutes straw on August 15th and alore are tied for second with 11 points Mr agila wwf’s poy ch has arrived this past week some more notes on Doc Chan who is a very skinny masked man on this tour who is a blitz cre like high flyer among the moves he’s been doing are a running springboard Shooting Star Press onto the floor and a move where he basically runs up a wall like in a Bruce Lee movie but comes off with a moons salt JD will be holding a women’s explosive barbed wire match with shark suchia versus Yuko kugi on September 5th at Karu and Hall which to my knowledge would be the first time they’ve allowed that gimmick in that building the August 14 San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about a book written by an American monster in Japan one of the stories talked about was the death of Rosen saying he was stabbed in the gut in the bathroom and came out with blood coming from the wound and got on stage at the club and started singing Mac the knife which is a true story and mentioned how he died a few days later it also mentioned about the mob connection to the pro wrestling business in Japan here and there the World Wrestling Council ran its biggest weekend of the year the 6 th annual anniversary weekend with a Big Show at kwas baseball stadium which Drew 11,678 fans headlined by Carlos cologne regaining the universal title from Ray Gonzalez when Carly cologne Carlos son who was about to start wrestling hit Gonzalez with a shovel there were a couple of other title changes on the show as Mustafa side of Gangsta Fame won the TV title from glamour booy Shane in a ladder match and black boy won the wwc junior title in a three-way over former champ myelo htis and El rockero they also had a lights out match with Invader number one facing a newcomer called Invader Del mileno enter for the New Millennium a gimmick that didn’t last long since Invader beat him in 25 seconds and unmasked him as longtime jobber L exodo Felix toia Abdullah the Butcher beat Tower of Doom in a lumberjack match with whips they also did another match with Invader number one versus chicki star with the winner getting the contract of weris invader’s brother weris had been siding with star but helped Invader however when Invader went for a heart punch star moved and he gave his the heart punch they also had a pseudo celebrity type match with injo now rabioso Julio Franco the spokesman for a Water Products Company one of the TV sponsors who was attacked by prelim wrestler bouncer Bob another angle on the show saw the return of Jose Rivera senior who hadn’t wrestled for the wwc since 1983 but was cologne’s longtime tag partner in the 70s the first show of the tour was August 12th in com before 1087 which had the unique distinction of being a show where every match ended via DQ P Roth Jor no showed the weekend remaining in Mexico as apparently there were Visa problems with him coming back to Puerto Rico the August 13th show in monate Drew 2,422 for a main event of cologne and Rivera Jr over Dutch mle and Gonzalez the final anniversary show was August 15th in MZ which Drew 5,236 Mighty Kodiak was also scheduled he’s one of the WCW tag team of disorderly conduct but was denied permission by WCW to appear the TV show on Saturdays is averaging about a 12 rating the AWA in Puerto Rico on its August 9th TV show had a big surprise with the debut of Huracan Castillo Jr formerly wwf’s El maringo whose contract wasn’t renewed with the dropping of super Astros being attacked by Barabas Jr and his brother Barabas 3 on August 16th Castillo said that Savio Vega would be the guest referee for his match against Barabas Jr on August 27th in Bayamon it’s pretty clear that before vikor konz starts his iwa he’s getting Talent exposed with this promotion as coming starting August 26th of the black Superman Tony Norris formerly Ahmed Johnson in WWF as a heel Duke Dre Mexican minis mascara Sagrada and octagon Cheeto poy Chulo build as IW a world junior heavyweight champion Josel Toscano real name of Tarzan boy em Armando Fernandez in WWF and Ricky Banderas real name jilberto Coria they also announced that Joe Don Smith real name Jose Gonzalez not to be confused with Invader number one whose name is also Jose Gonzalez would be at the shows he’s been suffering from cancer Hugo savanovich who do Spanish announcing on WWF pay-per-view shows was the announcer most of the crew that was the top talent with that promotion including supermo Jose Estrada senior of early 80s WWF Fame and Jose Luis Rivera a late 80s WWF undercard wrestler who also worked with Estrada in WWF as a tag team called the Conquistadors recently disappeared over money problems in Memphis last week Steve Bradley won the Power Pro Title by turning heel on Kurt Angle with help from Jim cornette on August 7th at the new Daisy theater cornette claimed Bradley had the ability to be a bigger star than either Shawn Michaels or Rock wolfy D did a leap off the top of the cage in a cage Battle Royal on that show the August 14th TV show built up to an angle versus Bradley rematch with Brandon bter and cornette in the respective Corners Bradley saved the title getting dqd for hitting angle with the tennis racket after the match Bradley did a leg drop off the top onto Randy hailes with a racket over hail’s face Stampede Wrestling is expected to start on weekly television in Alberta next month the territory will be run similar to the old days with a weekly Friday night show from the Pavilion in Calgary being used as the television show long time is in really long time reader Greg Jackson will be getting married on August 28th and we want to send our congrats Missy Hyatt 35 was married this past week in New York to a doctor who isn’t involved in any way in the pro wrestling industry apparently there were some pro wrestling overtones when some of her family members found out Midway through the ceremony she had converted to Judaism Dr Bob BR of Utica New York sent a clipping of Jim Thorp who was renowned as the greatest athlete of the first half of this Century in many if not most circles who in 1950 was managing pro wrestler Sunni War Cloud there was an article in the program about Thorp that never mentions him wrestling professionally which may indicate Thorp worked as a manager in pro wrestling but never as an active wrestler on the subject of History Kevin von Eric appeared at a superstars of wrestling Indie show on August 14th in Sulfur Springs Texas he didn’t wrestle but he signed autographs posed for photos and was selling copies of his von Eric family videotapes Brian Christopher who hasn’t been around since tearing his ACL and undergoing surgery showed up on August 15th in Nashville to do an angle Christopher in his interview claimed that promoter Berke prenis and Colorado kid were roommates sharing a one-bedroom apartment in that he VC said he’d rather wake up next to a woman he challenged kid and his boyfriend also on the show The Hot Shots Cassidy O’Reilly and air Paris won the North American tag titles from the new South Cory Williams and Ashley Hudson Jerry Lawler also worked the show with Stacy Carter beating Recon subbing for Colorado kid in the main event Christopher helped Lawler by giving him a chain When Stacy distracted special ref Bill Barons before about 300 fans CWA promoter Peter William merged with the VDB promoter motion to save the tradition of the 60-day Handover Germany tournament which will feature miles zerno Danny Collins Christian Einstein bhart vanama carsten kretchmer Drew McDonald Eddie Stein block Denny Royal Eric Schwarz Robbie Brookside Johnny South and Tony stclair David Finley originally wanted to work the tour as well Fred blassie appeared at the Pennsylvania championship wrestling show on August 14th which included a King of the Ring tournament won by Glenn Osborne managed by blasie over Michael modus from California blassie said the two biggest bums that he ever managed were Hulk Hogan and Jesse Ventura blassie was giving his legit opinion because he’s always had a very low regard for Ventura he said Ventura’s book was probably filled with a lot of blank pages because he’s the biggest liar he ever met he said he loved the McMahon Family even Vince Jr because they’ve always taken care of him Northeast championship wrestling on August 25th in meville Pennsylvania at the county fair has Jimmy snooka King Kong Bundy Sergeant Slaughter Tom Brandy going to the clown demolition acts and cousin Luke Dory Funk is training 19 wrestlers this week coming from around the US and even England including Amy Duma who works some ECW shows of late and for Music City as Angelica and is said to be a good worker originally trained by The Hardy Boys the second extreme pro wrestling show will be August 27th in Rec California with big dick formerly big dick Dudley teaming with porn star Jason stclair they are also billing it as the US debut of UF o with Justin McCully versus Lee Young Gun they also issued a press release regarding the item listed here regarding Dan faren the company is run by Rob black from the porn industry along with Kevin kleinrock Pat Hernandez and Darren McMillan Dynamite D all of whom have worked with faren the claim is that Fen who had reached an agreement to handle the dressing room was then told he wasn’t going to be used because he was part of the NBC secrets of pro wrestling special they claim faren wasn’t dropped directly because he was involved with a special but because since he was and his job was to run the dressing room and since the person running the dressing room needs to have respect of the boys and the boys didn’t respect him because he exposed the Business Media week had a short item this past week saying New York based syndication house Mark Anthony entertainment would be joining with Las Vegas based Strongarm Sports to form a new group called wxo wrestling to be launched for syndication in January the only thing we’ve heard about the package is that Ken Resnik who has left roller Jam will be the announcer for the group there are rumors floating that they are trying to get Jim Helwig to be their top attraction the Memorial University of Newland is September will be holding a class on the appreciation of pro wrestling MMA UFC Japan announced its debut show for October 2nd at Tokyo bay NK Hall all that was announced is that appearing would be Yoji Andro KIRO yamia of panra and daut takas who got destroyed by Jeremy Horn at the last UFC show along with an amateur wrestler named Yano masutatsu there will be a four-man tournament plus three three super fights main event for the August 26th International Valley tudo championships in sou Pao Brazil is Carlos Baro versus Gary Meyers a lot of people are taking the Press statement Bob marowitz made last week regarding the future of UFC even if it doesn’t get approved in Nevada as a sign that it won’t be getting approved in Nevada which leads to a lot of skepticism about a possible comeback saturo sayama Sendo promotion in Japan is running shows on September 21st in Fukushima September 24th in Yamagata October at the Tokyo aryak Coliseum which will have to be a major show with some names and October 24th at Osaka furitsu jym which will be headlined by Arturo Mariano of Brazil against a Russian Valley tudo Champion named something approximating Mika betian two more matches were announced for the September 18th pancre pay-per-view Show sunay kikuta versus Eddie Millis not familiar with him American under panc cron Valley tudo rules and a pancreas Rules match with yashiki Takahashi versus Asami shabuya ECW it appears the first TV taping for TNN on August 14th in Toledo was a major behind the-scenes letdown and morale is bad but in a different way from months ago no paychecks are bouncing although there are people late in being paid but houses are down and few shows in recent weeks have reached the approximate Break Even figure of 1,700 paid there was at least late in the week at tentative plan for some major happenings on the TNN show at one point a plan for Jerry Lynn to win the TV title from Rob vanam on the first first show and vanam on the next show to win the heavyweight title from Taz this was before Taz signed and when he did that idea was dropped the actual story on Taz negotiations with the WWF were that Brad small who said he was representing Taz had called both WWF and WCW he asked for $450,000 per year and a maximum number of dates WCW never even responded WWF responded with a no thanks but eventually did counter with a lowball 00,000 downside guarantee offer and that was where ended Taz himself supposedly never even spoke with either Jim Ross or Vince McMahon daily variety played the story up as if TNN had anti up a seven figure three-year contract to get tazed to turn down lucrative offers by WWF and WCW top money in ECW is $3,000 per week Taz was earning in that range and may have gotten a raise out of this but the idea there was an aggressive bidding war for his Services is Pure Fantasy they did a title change on the first show by having Bubba Ray and Devon Dudley win the tag titles on August 13th in Cleveland and lose them back to balls Mahoney and Spike Dudley in Toledo even with the hype of the first TNN taping and it being the ECW debut show in Toledo they had to heavily paper the house to get a full house in a 2,300 seat building about 1,500 was paid Joey Styles and Joel gerner did the opens although the commentary was not done live in the building the plans for ECW to debut with history of ECW type shows on August 13th and August 20th was dropped and TNN ran roller derby 1 hour earlier and showed a replay of one of those Motors Sports chose to fill the vacant time slot it’s not clear what matches will air on what shows since they take two weeks of TNN plus one week of syndication in Toledo giant kimala 2 is now using the ring name Uganda L storm couldn’t work because on August 12th in Columbus Ohio which was his first match back since his injury at the ECW Arena he was power slammed Wrong by Rod price and his shoulder was messed up this led to hymon booking a just incredible in Van Dam versus Sabu and Jerry Lynn match which ended with credible getting pinned they did a jazz versus Steve Corino match for syndication Jazz winning of course since man onom violence isn’t allowed on TNN the language was also toned down for TNN but they did do a good deal of blood allowed a cheese grater to be used and Spike Dudley was power bombed through two flaming tables the other weekend show saw 700 fans in Columbus and only 1,000 in Cleveland in a 2004 400 seat building they’ve always packed in the past part of the reason for weak houses is the advertising budget has been cut back bandam was the only wrestler who was really over with the crowd in Toledo which was hot for the first match or two but dead the rest of the way the tag title change was said to have been decent but it got boring because it was too long tajer re beating super crazy was said to have been good but nowhere near the quality of the matches they had earlier in the year Nova versus little Guido Guido winning When Sally Graziano interfered ending with every everyone on the undercard running in a new Jack cleaning house with a staple gun was good but the Finish looked bad has only appeared about 30 seconds total doing an angle to build up for a match with Tajiri and Queens on August 26th on the first show and then doing a challenge for that match on the second show there wasn’t much to this week’s syndicated TV show the first 34 minutes were ads and repeated material mainly jazz versus Jason and Nova and cheddy versus during in roadkill from the pay-per-view the only new match was Nova and cheddy beating super crazy and Simon diamond with the TV debut of diamond Simon Says gimmick which definitely is going to need a lot of time because the people were groaning at the ECW Arena he talks in the third person like the rock which is dangerous because he becomes a cheap imitation of him tiedy and Nova won in about 5 minutes with the title wave on diamond after crazy turned on him and moon saled him twice the rest of the show was largely replays of the various Taz versus tajir angles WCW the latest on the Flair situation is that he was examined by his doctor who said due to his back injury that he should take a month off it’s no secret that Flair in the past has worked with injuries as are more severe but the company has killed his Zess for wrestling over the past week he did contemplate retiring he was not at the pay-per-view or at Nitro and while he couldn’t have worked he could have done interviews or angles and at one point was booked to be at Nitro he won’t be appearing at the house shows that he’s booked on over the upcoming weeks against Goldberg and Ben Wa heat between the sides apparently hasn’t gotten any better as management was really upset he missed Nitro the past 2 weeks as punishment for it they gave the US title to Ben W last week literally at the last minute as that was not part of the original plans on the August 9th Nitro the plan was to introduce mang as Flair’s bodyguard and have him interfere to save the title they had already taped a thunder match that was to air on August 12th with David keeping the US title beating Bobby Blaze with Ming interfering that had to be eded off the show since they dropped the Ming angle and took the belt from him on that Thunder they also had to edit a Savage interview where he talked about how everyone had already seen the identity of the hve driver since they hadn’t apparently the plan for the humy driver was to get Carmen electr Rodman’s ex-wife to show up either on Nitro or at the pay-per-view they appeared to have a deal at a $2,000 price tag for one appearance enough so that Savage did the interview to build up the angle but it must have fallen through actually on August 5th Savage on his interview talked about running for president an angle which was not booked for him and he went off on his own t engine about the humy driver which didn’t take place about a bodyguard for Gorgeous George which didn’t happen and that he’d be having a new Mis Madness contest on the August 9th Nitro which also didn’t happen to make matters worse Savage hurt Evan kagis with the elbow off the top on the Thunder match due to Savage’s knee injury far more weight lands on the fo’s chest and taking the fall making the number three Charles Robinson and Huen to Guerrera he’s hurt with his finisher Nash is scheduled to return with Hall as The Outsiders in a about 6 to 8 weeks I guess the idea will be that they aren’t in WCW and are crashing the show like in 1996 is the explanation for him coming back so soon after losing a retirement match they could also do an explanation where Bishoff who gets the presidency and then turns heel seriously isn’t the angle a little old that a baby face gets power and immediately turns heel president then in a heel move allows them back the original plan was for Hogan and Bishoff to turn heill together on August 23rd in Las Vegas a correction from last week Hogan Dawning the red and yellow was not Hogan’s last ditch effort to keep from going Hill figuring it would get a face pop that was the booking committee’s idea to convince fans that Hogan wasn’t going to turn since judging from crowd reactions fans didn’t trust him as a face yet and his turn would come as no surprise it sure seemed they were building up to him turning on sting but you know how plans change there has also now been discussion of bringing heart back as a heel which makes absolutely no sense at this point there at this point is no locked in date or program for his return but the originally planned program and scenario with Hogan seems to have been dropped Nitro on August 16th drew a sellout 7,218 6,167 paying $1 122,123 to the World Arena in Colorado Springs Colorado it opened with this Whopper Sid Vicious is now 55 and zero yeah even though he loses nearly every house show match and has been on the losing side of tag matches nearly every week on Nitro he is undefeated he may even have more wins than Goldberg and he’s the Millennium man too and even though Hogan won the main event next week Sid will still be unbeaten anyway they announced Hogan versus Sid was the main event for the title lashu versus Huen Guerrera went 239 and they were having a good match until Sid beat both guys up and said he’d continue to do so all night long unless Hogan gave him a title match uh I already announced the title match at the start of the show Steve Regal versus Scotty rigs went 212 before Sid destroyed both guys originally Conan was booked with Regal with the same finish Conan complained about the usage and also said he hadn’t gotten his doctor’s release yet so rigs was put in his place Ernest Miller then came out and said he’d beat Mike Enos in less than four minutes figures this is the match Sid doesn’t interfere in Miller beat Enos in 212 when Enos was press slamming Sunny Ono Tony shuvani was talking about Enos who looks to weigh close to 270 press slamming Ono who weighs maybe half that as a great feat of strength Miller asked how much time it took and Dave penser said 3:39 so even when there is no point in lying and where the truth is more impressive than the LIE WCW lies kind of like that night in San Antonio at the Alamo Dome when they had 20,000 or so fans and shuvani talked about this great crowd of 12,000 fans Sid was backstage beating up La parka and silver King including power bombing parka on a bag of popcorn Mysterio Jr versus Lenny Lane for the cruiserweight title was actually an awesome match for its scant 231 before Sid showed up Loi had a sign saying he about he and Lenny that we dive with Greg lugus sting made the save and was going toeo Toe with Sid when Hogan limped badly I might add out Hogan said he beat Sid and then on August 23rd in Las Vegas challenged sting for a title match which sting accepted by this point in the show they had since winning streak for some reason up to 59 because as hean noted he’d beaten up nine people on the show actually it was eight and you know 55 plus 9 equals 59 icpb Public Enemy in 636 when Violent J pinned Johnny grunge after Vampiro gave grunge the nail in the coffin some of the stuff looked decent and some of it looked really bad Rocko Rock did do a cannonball out of the ring onto Shaggy two dope through two tables just before the finish this match was going on at 900 p.m. so the drop in audience when raw started was even higher than usual Harlem heat did an interview and challenged anyone shuvani tried to get heat over as being the greatest tag team in the history of wrestling I mean he used those exact words bookery is pretty good but Stevie Ray makes the Dudley boys seem like maawa and kobashi of the mid90s they showed a promo of Berlin shuvani talked about it being this mysterious guy when it’s already been revealed on Nitro that it’s Alex Wright Horus Hogan Brian Adams Scott Norton and Vincent came out for their blowup they challenged Harlem heat Norton and Adams ended up having words and they all turned on Adams who was clean shaven for his new role as a kiss Warrior Jean interviewed Kidman and called Kidman a chick magnet keep harping on that phrase and the poor guy will never get over in fact right after Overland called him that there were noticeable booze he brought up the name filthy animals for himself Mysterio Jr Eddie Guerrero and Conan they talked about the Nitro girls pay-per-view and Jee asked Kidman who the hottest was and he very apologetically said Kimberly let’s see they can’t show an ad for the thing on TV but they can plug it in commentary what a strange set of Standards life has Paige came out and tried to start an angle over Kidman saying his wife was attractive they ended up having a match Paige beat Kidman all over the ring Paige had him pinned several times and picked him up to deliver more punishment Kidman snuck behind him and cradled him at 320 Paige gave the ref a Diamond Cutter and Kidman and Diamond Cutter he took Charles Robinson’s belt off and began whipping and choking Kidman until Kimberly made the save boy that Paige really put Kidman over here just like flair did when he made unknown Steamboat into a superstar with one match 20 plus years ago disco did an interview and Ben W challenged him they had a very good match with Ben Wa winning with a diving headbutt in 613 shuvani actually called it a four-star match it wasn’t close but it was very good and worked hard at getting Ben Wa and the match over actually this was a better match than Ben Wa had with Paige on the pay-per-view Goldberg destroyed Barry Windam in 32 seconds with the spear and Jackhammer after laying out the rest of the rednecks and it wasn’t there crowd reacted huge as this was the role they want Goldberg to be playing he beat Norton and Vincent and Horus Hogan in a two on three and 656 this was really weird Adams interfered and was beating up Vince and Horus right in front of the ref I guess the rule must be if you wear the same t-shirt as the person you attack it’s not a DQ I know he wasn’t even wearing the same t-shirt finally T hit Hogan with a missile drop kick and Stevie Ray pinned him Adams actually showed some fire and got over with the run and went to the back and jumped into an awaiting limo with kiss on the license plate they were probably laying low in Colorado Springs because of how badly their movie Bond when it opened over the weekend Rick Shiner beat knobs in a very stiff match in 434 with a skyh high Bulldog After Jimmy Hart accidentally hit knobs with Steiner’s dog collar Saturn beat Bigalow in 724 Bigalow looked like he’d just come out on the bad end of a serious street fight after seeing his face I think I’d rather get in a street fight than have a nice worked match with Stevie Ray Saturn did an oai moon salt after a ref bump Canyon interfered Bigalow had him up for the greetings when Douglas shoved Canyon off the ropes and he collided with Bigalow and somehow Saturn wound up on top for the pin this reads a whole lot smoother than it looked Bigalow was really upset before the show about doing the job finally Hogan beat Sid in 10:34 of a terrible match that had a ton of heat when Hogan got the huge reaction last week people said well it’s Boise and he’s never worked there before and this week what can they say well I doubt Hogan had ever worked Colorado Springs before either schiner interfered and the fans started pelting the ring with garbage actually WCW loves how that looks on television is even though the ratings are going down and the house shows are going down they can figure people throwing garbage reminds them of 1996 when things started turning around sting showed up to even the odds and Hogan pin Steiner and the ref who hadn’t dced anyone up to this point and at the very least the fans should have been dced for throwing tons of garbage illegally over the top rope and counted the pin it wasn’t a good show but there were at least some positive booking ideas that at least seemed to be started Mike ten was off WCW Saturday night this past week because it would look stupid for him to be on that show and be in Sturgis for the pay-per-view which started immediately after the show ended he won’t be on this week because he was given the Friday taping day for the showoff they did an angle on the Jay Leno show on August 10th where Rodman was on as a guest and Savage came out as a surprise and speared the hell out of Rodman and they went over the couch the reason they was no live introduction of Chad Brock was because every mention of his name to the live crowd had been heavily booed and Dave pener was told specifically not to introduce him at the August 5ifth Thunder the reason the Goldberg versus Rocko Rock match was so long was because the benwa page match was supposed to go 9 minutes and ended up going less than 5 minutes and they had to pick up the time and it was the only match left it was also supposed to be a handicap match and in a sense it was but not officially and I’ve got no idea why the change was made Dustin rnold has been backstage at several of the shows and should be starting very soon they are planning an angle where Ray Lloyd formerly Glacier returns under the name Buzz Stern as a High School PE coach and Luther bigs a fat guy whose original ring name was big sexy which Terry Taylor and Kevin Nash liked so much they told him he couldn’t use it anymore as his out of shape student Memphis did this angle years ago with CW Bergstrom and Melvin Penrod and even though nobody in the universe remembers those two names it was pretty entertaining Kimberly has to be the least most well-known person in the 50 plus year history of TV Guide to ever get a cover shot I think Kevin Nash is probably the second least known person to make the cover Larry King on August 13th has a forgettable full hour on wrestling Reena Mero was the guest for the first 30 minutes and she said nothing King was pulling teeth just get a bad interview she wouldn’t even say she was ever angry with the WWF well I wouldn’t say I was angry she said that her husband had retired from wrestling and is now CEO of Reena Productions but jokes are too easy from that one she talked about movie and television offers saying she’d have a TV series for September 2000 when asked about Owen Hart she said she didn’t think she was qualified to talk about that she was bending over backwards not to say anything bad about WWF the funniest thing was a caller called up and yelled at her because she had talked of wrestling being scripted acting like she’d betrayed The World At first she defended herself by saying that the heads of the companies freely admit to it as well like the truth isn’t a good enough reason the caller a father who was so livid he was almost in tears because his kids Heroes were wrestlers was hilarious King was rolling his eyes at the caller stupidity but Sable after first saying that kids need to know the difference between fantasy and reality and when the caller shot back about her ruining it for kids by saying Santa Claus isn’t real she basically backed down and half-ass agreed with him speaking of Reena Mero while in Toronto a few weeks back she did reluctantly admit it had been discussed with her about being Hogan’s manager in WCW but to preserve all that’s left of her credibility she claimed in another Toronto interview about two weeks back that when she was on that WCW show it was because she was in Chicago the Day visiting a friend and when she found out wrestling was in town bought a ticket to the show King noted that they asked Austin and Ventura to come on but they were too busy which sure made Goldberg and DDP seem second rap before they started DDP plugged his movie Goldberg plugged his although King was shocked to find out he even had won the he was a typical Jive talking BS conon guy Goldberg came off like a guy almost embarrassed about his success but a good guy overall Paige put Rena Maro over big time Goldberg Paige and Rena Maro all said that wrestlers should have a union Paige said he’d only be wrestling a little more than two more years before retiring I think there’s a rule that every wrestler has to say that on a talk show Billy Graham attended the WCW House show in Phoenix last week sting on the TV guy Channel when asked about coming from the ceiling said that because of what happened to Owen Hart to do so now would be disrespectful plus he said he’d have to think twice about doing it because of the safety factor a correction from last week power plant developmental guys Shannon Moore and Shane Helms are not Christian York and joy Matthews all four worked Music City as the Backstreet Boys but they are two different teams more and Helms are their real names and York’s real name is Jason Spence and Matthew’s real name is Adam Burch Little Genie who appeared on Nitro last week is jeie Duro a Johnny Rod’s student from New York the lawsuit that WCW filed against WWF regarding Restraint of trade because of the contract WWF signed with high road production that wouldn’t allow wrestling with shadows to air on a Turner Station was thrown out of court on August 6th Mark Madden on the web broadcast of the Hogan Nash match instead of calling it loser must retire was calling it loser gets time off sosis should be unmasking shortly there is more talk of a formation of a new group with Brad Armstrong C hent Guerrera and Chavo Guerrero Jr with Armstrong as the spokesperson apparently standards were relaxed on Nitro to where the word ass is acceptable which gave Hogan his new say your prayers eat your vitamins and kick some ass catchphrase David Finley underwent a second operation because after the first operation he still didn’t regain feeling in his lower leg WCW has talked about bringing back Jim nart the only regular house show of the past week was August 15th in Salt Lake City which Drew forth 4,668 paying 91,4 main event was Goldberg over DDP to keep Sid’s win streak alive The Sting versus Sid match was turned into a tag match with Booker T and Steiner involved and schiner did the job merchandise from August 9th through August 16th was 98,9 52 or $5.50 per head last week’s TV Guide had not only the WCW article but also a Rodman article which was actually a fascinating look at celebrity Hood in America and what it often breeds And the reporter clearly had no respect for him or the BS that goes with it at all the July 19th Rockford Register Star had an article on Rockford born Gorgeous George real name Stephanie bellers the funny part of the article is that in doing the background research on her the newspaper uncovered her criminal record they noted that WCW Savage her father and George broke off all communication with the paper when they discovered it bers 23 spent time in jail as a teenager for burglarizing a home and slashing a girl’s face with a broken beer bottle her dream was to be a Hollywood makeup makeup not make out artist she moved to Florida in 1997 and met Savage there bellers considers herself a positive role model for young girls she really said that and notes how her six-year-old son loves seeing her on TV and she’d never wear any Ring costume that wouldn’t be appropriate to wear in front of her son Gary Wright man who supplied her to local area bars as a stripper said she was a good dancer but in that business personality is more important and she wasn’t outgoing swole Randy Thornton was arrested for speeding and held when it came out he was months behind on child support Raven has been very vociferous about his unhappiness with the promotion he’s about 1 month away from returning to the ring he was on Mana in Chicago and ripped the company claiming they use camera tricks to make it appear some wrestlers aren’t as over as they really aren talked about the same problems everyone talks about he also went on the ECW website and said he’d rather be working for ECW he’s told a lot of people that when his contract is up which is about 10 months away he’s gone WWF a couple of other changes to the SummerSlam lineup the hardcore title match will be a three-way with Road dog added to the mix with Al Snow and Big Boss Man while this was not announced yet on television and wasn’t definite as of the last word they were considering some form of a tag team elimination match or Battle Royale type event basically just to get everyone on the card the teams talked about for the event were The Brood Hardy Boys acolytes Holly B Venus and Godfather and draws in Prince Albert although none of this was confirmed the December 12th WWF pay preview show will be from the NCR Center in Fort Lauderdale tickets for the Royal Rumble which will take place on January 23rd will first be put available on December 4th at the event at Madison Square Garden WrestleMania next year will be from the Anaheim Pond WWF and I presume WCW will as well will be advertising a lot of the house shows for the remainder of the year as the final shows of the Millennium as it turned out Steve Austin didn’t present an award at the Teen Choice Awards because he ended up winning the favorite wrestler award other nominees were Goldberg Rock and Undertaker WWF sent Deborah to be the presenter along with mini me from the Austin Powers movie Davy Boy Smith officially signed his new contract on August 12th in Stanford Connecticut and on that day he and wife Diana Hart Smith did a lengthy interview tape for television with Jim Ross that I presume will start airing on August 23rd on Raw this appar L is designed to turn into a very controversial segment because it’s supposed to be something of a shoot interview the idea appears to be that he’ll do about a month worth of Clips on raw and start in the ring around October publicly up to this point Smith has not really criticized the remainder of his family but has somewhat stayed out of the situation but there is a family Rift over it and privately things aren’t nearly as smooth as hinted in one of Bret Hart’s columns reports are that Smith looks like Scott Steiner 250 and ripped which is amazing on a lot of levels I saw a photo of him this week in a Japanese magazine and he looked huge he’s saying that his knees are 100% for the first time in a long time his back is in 100% but he’s saying it’s good enough to get by Barry Werner who will be editing the WWF magazines is actually the sports editor of the New York daily news it’s always fascinated me how the Daily News which is something of a rival to the post which has Phil mushnik’s column bends over backwards to run favorable stories about the WWF Sports Illustrated has gotten a ton of pro wrestling references in the past two weeks there was a photo of the 1976 Ali versus inoi match talking about famous made for TV confrontations in sports there was a scorecard item on Jesse Ventura largely with the head of the Minnesota Republican party ripping on him for doing the wrestling gig and for basically doing nothing at the legislative session there was a TV graphic noting that The Showdown at Sherwood Tiger Woods versus David Duval beat raw by 65% which is a totally misleading stat the real honest figure is 18% you get 65% by including the non-cable homes that don’t get raw in the first place which isn’t a fair comparison there was a column that mentioned the Sable lawsuit which actually was making fun of how the media has covered women’s sports since the World Cup making note that both Entertainment Weekly in time which are run by the same company so you have to give them credit for ripping them that never cover real women sports covered the Sable lawsuit and made fun of her for suing on the ground she did since she’s posing again in Playboy there was a story on sabled this week in the Canadian press where it says she’s touring with her publicity agent billing her as the fittest woman alive this no Talent artificial body who giving her her due probably does train hard is running around acting like she got this huge settlement all she got was the right to use the name Sable and Playboy spreads and an agreement that the real settlement can’t be released and that they can’t say anything negative about her Austin will appear on Conan O’Brien on August 19th August 22nd may be the last Arena style heat show Heat starting August 29th will be a magazine format show but I’m not sure what they’ll do as it regards heat on pay-per-view nights the plan for Jericho is for him to continue to interrupt interviews with the different Stars his first program may be with XO but he’ll start for sure working with a top tier wrestler Mick Foley filmed an episode of ABC’s Boy Meets World last week some new angles from TV this week Gangrel is calling The Hardy Boys who he’s joining with the new brood blue meanie who has dropped a lot of weight is back on TV with Stevie Richards and it appears they are going to be big Stevie cool and the blue guy which was pretty funny about two years ago and has long since run its course it’s hard to parody two guys who have long since become parodies a correction from last week on the report of the heat show that aired on August 15th it was Big Show and not Kane who choke slammed Bob Holly Bob and crash Aaron ogrady Holly or build’s cousins not Brothers o Grady’s physique sure looks a lot different than when he was in Memphis Shawn Michaels will be working 3 days a week as a TV sports caster for Ken TV in San Antonio covering High School sports some notes from the August 16th raw show Undertaker sh was doing a boring interview before Jericho interrupted it was clear Jericho is already like a god to about 20% of the audience after one appearance which means probably the rest will catch on pretty quick Jericho will be appearing this week to do an interview but not wrestle on the WWF House show in Winnipeg Jerry Lawler is actually getting a lot of serious endorsements in his mayoral bid a& E’s biography is not only working on a show on Owen Hart but also shows on Austin and fley UPN is spending $4 million 40% of its total promotional budget to promote Smackdown the network is going with the idea that the show is going to save a network that pretty well is dying at this point UPN has publicly said that the show is the Network’s top priority a lot of TV writers are noting the addition of SmackDown and ECW on TNN could lead to overexposure Paul Heyman response is that he is doing a show based on in ring rather than out of the ring and thus what they other guys are doing that is already Overexposed isn’t what he’s doing Vince McMahon’s claim is that his show isn’t wrestling so he’s not Overexposed we’re not wrestling we’ve never been wrestling and we refuse to be placed in the wrestling category that’s Ted Turner’s business and I guess it’s the guy on tnn’s business said McMahon there’s no point even wasting space with how silly that quote really is on so many levels McMahon also claimed that Smackdown would Within 6 months be the third highest rated show on Thursday night which means it has to beat out friends ER or Frasier by then second in one year and challenging for the highest rated in two years good luck Phil mushnik ripped UPN president Dean Valentine in this week’s TV Guide it was a very well-written article the kind wrestling fans will probably hate because the points he made aren’t even debatable mushnik called Valentine to task for saying the WWF was an incredibly mild form of entertainment saying even WWF fans know know that isn’t true and that if it was it wouldn’t be drawing the ratings it does and Valentine wouldn’t be interested airing it without those ratings at the press conference in Minneapolis Ventura was asked if he thinks Minnesota should have similar regulations of wrestling as Oregon Ventura said he thought drug testing was unconstitutional that’s like me saying I think abortion is unconstitutional after the Supreme Court has already ruled that it isn’t he said he’s not an advocate of drug testing unless there is probable cause this is the same person who told me specifically 1993 that 90% of the wrestlers who are making money are using steroids I guess testimony at two Federal trials and his own knowledge of wrestling bodybuilding and the drug scene in it some gyno here and there and look at so many of the physiques also doesn’t constitute probable cause seriously I have no objection to his belief wrestlers shouldn’t be drug tested but if he has that belief he should also be consistent and work toward getting the NFL the NCAA and the ioc not to mention numerous other jobs to stop drug testing their ath and employees because it would have to be every bit as unconstitutional we’re caught up on House show figures August 5th in dville Virginia Drew $ 4,364 paying $13,516 at the MCI Center in Washington DC Drew 15356 paying $388,900 August 7th in Pittsburgh Drew 13,736 paying $34,636 Louis Arena in Detroit drew a sellout 13793 paying $283,400 387 wwf8 straight sell out of the former Rosemont Horizon raw taping on August 18th and Milwaukee drew a sellout 14,170 paying $ 36,3 35 August 13th in Columbia South Carolina Drew $ 10,000 255 paying $224,950 August 14th in St Louis at the Keel Center Drew 12,100 paying $333,200 average with Austin out the house shows scheduled as six man’s on top saw Rock replace Austin teaming with and XO to beat Undertaker and Triple H and show Triple H doing the job except in Peoria where Undertaker had the night off and boss man took his spot the reader Pages Hall of Fame this year’s Hall of Fame voting looks to be one of the toughest when it comes to deciding who deserves to be inducted more if you were to put people in based on just Merit alone I think the list would be one Eric Bishoff based on the fact he caused a major change in wrestling with the creation of nitro two Masahiro chono new Japan’s definitive and probably most popular super heal three Carlos cologne for the fact he’s ruled Puerto Rican wrestling for as long as anyone can remember for shin Hashimoto a no-brainer first ballot pick along with mitsu Haru Misawa the model for a world champion not to mention he’s headlined so many shows with more than 50,000 people in the stands five Cactus Jack just on the basis of being one of the most unique character in this Sports history six juian liger another no-brainer the man who is most responsible for the change in many styles of wrestling which created athletes who can compete in any style at the highest level and he’s probably been in more fourstar matches than any other wrestler ever and continued to be even after injuries caused his style to change seven Shawn Michaels the last no-brainer candidate while hated by many he was without question the wrestler who will always be synonymous with the best us matches of the 1990s while some would argue for Bret Hart because of the early 90s from 1994 on Michaels was the best athlete in US Rings eight Fabulous Moolah she should be in just for being Moola nine Jim Ross the bar he created to which all other announcers are judged probably will never be equaled anytime soon people like folan Ken Shamrock Kanan Gran Hamada kg mudo and has Hiroshi are borderline choices people like Hamada and Han will get sympathy votes but they don’t have that something extra to get in personally I’d love to see Han in but the fact he completed only in rings will keep him out Shamrock mudo and Conan are the ultimate cases which you do a lot of thinking before making the decision for me Shamrock is the most compelling of the three because he helped to get reality combat over in the United States Conan would be one of those that have trailed off dramatically over the last few years after being online to get in considering he was on the way to becoming an all-time Legend in Mexico it’s amazing to look at him now in w C W mudo it can be argued should get in because if you put the other two members of The Three Musketeers in it really isn’t right to keep the third member out Jonathan dantony belrose New York I’m writing on behalf of Two Gentlemen who I believe should be inducted into the Hall of Fame you mentioned Curtis AIA as an incredible interview Curtis could incite a riot and brawl with the best he may have been one of the top three Brawlers of the 60s and70s and was a main eventer everywhere he held the wwwf tag team Team titles with Baron shuna went to several draws with Bruno samartino and held the United States title the North American Title and Hawaiian Ring magazine gold belt and tag team titles as well he was a main eventor in Honolulu for years as well as Australia he traveled several times in the 70s to all Japan and was an artist with words his bumps and brawling led him to be nearly crippled in his older years in Australia Curtis was one of the biggest names ever if Mick Foley is in the Hall of Fame so should Curtis AIA handsome Johnny bar learned most of his pure wrestling skills in the Navy he wrestled in New York as a rookie with Jean Duo as his partner magnificent Maurice the tag team was patterned after Buddy Rogers and Johnny Valentine and some other pretty boys teams they were successful on the East Coast although they were more show than substance after they split up baren headlined for Ed Francis in Hawaii for years from the early 70s through Francis reign as promoter bar and headlined against everyone around and held both the North American Title and the Ring magazine tag belts and rarely didn’t have a title he often was brilliant on interviews setting up matches with Pedro Morales Han Lee the Sheik the Destroyer Billy Robinson and he even wrestled Dory Funk Jr to a 60 Minutes draw Barn’s only problem is that he rarely wrestled outside of New York or Hawaii but the hick Arena was sold at every time he appeared and he could wrestle with the likes of Robinson Dory Funk and Carl gotch James Brooks Cornelius Oregon I found your selections for the Hall of Fame interesting almost every candidate can be criticized or be rationalized in being inducted I believe Carlos cologne should have been nominated for the Hall of Fame from the first year granted Jose Gonzalez murdered Bruiser Brody but it isn’t like cologne did it one can question cologne’s human decency and allowing Gonzalez to stay as a major fixture of the wwc and use his television show as an outlet to gain sympathy for him leading up to his trial but Gonzalez was one of the owners of the company Jerry Lawler did the same thing on the uswa television Show when he was under indictment in 1994 for allegedly having relations with a minor with far less outrage why should cologne be penalized for his connections with Gonzalez I find it to be far more disgusting that some of Brody’s friends went back and worked for wwc in the aftermath weren’t buck robley and Dutch Manel friends with Brody they had no problems accepting booking jobs and being employed as Talent with a company partially owned by Gonzalez wasn’t Victor konz involved in Booking Gonzalez in Japan for fmw based on his notoriety as Brody’s murderer one can bring up many other names who continued to work for wwc that were friends with Brody I find that more disturbing than cologne’s connection with Gonzalez most people would have quars about being associated with a murderer who killed a work acquaintance the only difference as cologne is being the exception granted he was the top star and could have easily rallied the company to expel Gonzalez from the company but he didn’t that’s the only problem I have with cologne unless he was involved in the cover up of of the murder that’s a whole different story but one must separate cologne the promoter top draw and Main Event wrestler to The Entity that Associates himself with Gonzalez as a friend and business associate cologne has been the biggest draw in Puerto Rico for years he was a consistent draw similar to what Dick the Bruiser the Chic and Jerry Lawler were in their respective territories they all remained the top stars in their companies until their company’s closed cologne’s company is still alive granted it doesn’t draw the money it once did but they’ve done a good job of keeping opposition from maintaining a foothold in being the dominant wrestling company on the island cologne is probably not a credible worker at this point but I base this on a presumption most us fans haven’t seen tapes of cologne since the 80s which were His Glory Days as a draw no wrestler has been able to replace cologne in the top spot even when he retired in 1993 no company in Puerto Rico has been able to produce any kind of a drawing card since cologne in his Heyday that’s a main reason cologne should be inducted juian lier is a definite he’s been a top worker for 11 years and was able to change his style as he got older without any complaints he’s still one of the best workers in the world I remember being a liger fan instantly in 1991 based on a one minute highlight package on a WCW TV show he got over instantly in Mexico in one match at triple Mania in 1994 it took lier only one minute to win over an audience that was used to some of the best flyers in the world Conan is an interesting choice granted he’s an average worker and a mid-card wrestler in WCW today but he’s one of the most important figures in Lucha Libre when it comes to both company politics and drawing power he was very instrumental in bringing in the talent when AAA was formed in 1992 he was a top draw in Mexico for most of the decade until he became a full-time worker in WCW he was at one time one of the top draws in the US in 1,993 and 94 he headlined practically every AAA show in California during Lucha lib’s hot period in the United States he was instrumental in building AAA and also in destroying and he jumped to promo AA and was able to lure almost all of the top tripa a talent to go with him he also Drew 48,000 fans for the first triple Mania in 1993 I find it difficult to pick most of the remaining wrestlers that you picked on your list who were top workers in the US in the 80s or ’90s I based this on most of them burning out too fast or having brief runs on top that were only 3 years granted saturo sama’s big run was only three years but he’s one of the greatest wrestlers ever in my opinion Eric bimon Howard Beach New York I think the four New Hall of Fame inductees are undisputedly deserving would it be out of the question to consider Michael hayen Terry Gordy as well as buddy Roberts together as the Free Birds I think the gimmick had enough strong years under its belt to overlook the Dismal late ‘ 80s period with people like Jimmy Garvin bad street and Little Richard Marley the Road Warriors are in even with their pathetic WWF run of the 9s Jim Ward Birmingham Alabama anorexia I just wanted to say thank you for your comments about Francine a few weeks ago the problem of women starving themselves is not restricted to women on television getting close to 30 I see so many teenage girls today who should be glowing with natural good health and instead they have the gaunt faces of famine survivors two girls have fainted in the last 18 months at the store that I work I picked one up and was afraid her bones were going to snap in my hands a lot of people seem to think the problem has been addressed because there have been TV movies about it and now it only takes place among gymnasts and models the problem is so many girls feel the need to look like models I would imagine that anorexia and bulimia are at least as big and as deadly a problem among women as steroids are among men actually probably a much bigger problem there is a book which is supposed to be published this fall or winter called from roller derby to Roller Jam I don’t remember the author no doubt it will mostly be a promo for the current product but I’m hoping it will be a decent look at the Glory Days as well I find myself watching very little wrestling on television these days from the US companies WCW has thrown away the cruiserweights one of their greatest assets Vince McMahon only had interest in them when he thought it was part of the answer of how to catch Nitro in the ratings maybe WCW will fall so far that they’ll try and push athletic wrestling just out of desperation Bill Mills o Clair Wisconsin wrestler of the decade as the 1990s closed down I keep getting asked on the web to name my pick as the wrestler of the decade just as you suggested in The Observer I don’t think there is much of a decision to make with mitsu Haru Misawa getting the nod nonetheless since I’ve maintained a very large tape list over the years using the Observer Match ratings when possible and my own when not and decided to write a program that would search the list and tally all of four star or better matches of the 9s the list includes all new and all Japan television through June and American television for the record I saw pretty much every all Japan New Japan WWF and WCW television show a lot of all Japan women and other Japanese fair from moku to Big Japan as well as a fair bit of other American stuff herb cuns waterl Ontario DM the wrestlers on the list for the most four-star matches of the 9s was maawa with 97 followed by Ken kobashi with 90 kosaki Ka with 80 juian lier with 72 and manami Toyota with 62 however liger had 41 fourstar singles matches the most on the list with maawa second with 31 kobashi with 30 kada with 27 and Chris benois and Toyota with 25 the list is dominated by Japanese with a top 25 wrestlers all either Japanese or wrestlers who primarily wrestled in Japan benois Steve Williams the top five who were largely American based were Cactus Jack 18 singles Four Tags 22 total Sabu 14 plus 3 equals 17 Ry stereo Jr 12 + 5 = 17 Brett Hart 14 + 2 = 16 and Steve Austin 9 + 7 equal 16 both Vader and Shawn Michaels were 13 + 2 equal 15 the list of those with more than 10 fourstar singles matches were lger 41 maawa 31 kobashi 30 lagger 27 Toyota 25 then wa 25 atani 22 Kyoko Eno 18 Koto 18 Cactus Jack 18 K mudo 16 El Samurai 14 Sabu 14 Bret Hart 14 Ultimo Dragon 14 Vader 13 Michaels 13 Akira hokuto 13 great Sasuke 13 shinya Hashimoto 13 Eddie Guerrero 13 Asia Kong 12 Ry stereo junr 12 this should be noted must not include his matches in Mexico bull Nano 11 kirat 10 and shirro koshinaka 10 it is kind of astounding to see the comparison of maawa lier Ka kobashi and Toyota when it comes to four-star matches with Michaels and Hart who are generally considered to be the ones who have had more great matches in the 90s but looking at it closely reveals something totally different top three from each year were 90 lier benwa and mudo tied 91 lier Toyota hokuto Jack and Eddie Gilbert tied 92 Ka lier Toyota and Kyoko Ino All Tied 93 maawa kaada and kobashi all tied 94 Sasuke and sabut Toyota and Steve Williams tied 95 Ben Wa mudo atani 96 Mysterio Jr Michaels then liger benwa and maleno Tide 97 maawa and aani Tide Koto 98 lier kobashi and maawa Ka the kaiwa and Jack tide whether it’s the Clash of Titans in the ring or the drama that unfolds outside it we’re here to break it down match by match Feud by Feud remember in the world of rest wrestling every day is a battle and every Victory is a story waiting to be told until next time keep the passion alive and never stop wrestling with the possibilities this is the pro wrestle machine
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this is crazy