Wrestling TidBits

Herb Kunze

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May 7, 1992, 10:04:08 AM5/7/92

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- Well, the news has already hit the net that Sid Justice has been
suspended for "improper conduct". Reports vary on the duration
of the suspension: indefinitely, 60 days, 6 weeks.
In any case, it looks like "improper conduct" means filling a
Visine bottle with someone else's urine and squirting that into
the test bottle at Vince's steroid test.
It's expected that the WWF will make up a cover story to explain
Sid's absence, with different variations being proposed depending
on the duration of the suspension. Steve Planamenta, WWF spokesman,
is quoted as saying to Alex Marvez "I can't say if the report
(regarding steroids) is true or false, because I don't know.
But I wouldn't fault you if you printed it."
The Ultimate Warrior will be programmed with Papa Shango.
Harvey Whippleman will now manage Kamala.

- As Gary Will posted, the Steiners won the WCW Tag Titles from
Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton earlier this week in Chicago. Scott
got the pin (on Bobby?) with the Frankensteiner at the half-hour
mark. After the match, Arn Anderson and Paul E. Dangerously
turned on Bobby Eaton, and Larry Zbyszko made the save. Looks
like Bobby & Larry may turn face.

- Davey Boy Smith suspended?

- WCW announced the tournament structure for the NWA Tag Title
tournament on the weekend. The bracketings (with seedings)
will be as follows:

The first round of the tournament will be presented on the Clash
of Champions on June 16th, and the subsequent tournament matches
will be presented on July 12th at the Great American Bash PPV.
By the time the Clash rolls around, the Steiners will be recognized
as WCW World Tag Team champions and the Freebirds will be recognized
as WCW US Tag champions.
The best match in the first round would seem to be Jushin Riger &
Brian Pillman vs. Chris Benoit & Biff Wellington. WCW is using the
tourney as a test run for some of this new talent, particularly
Benoit, and will make offers to those wrestlers that shine. In
this case, we can expect Benoit to put out a great effort. Chris
is one of the more gifted and dedicated wrestlers in the business.
He has had many ****+ matches with Jushin Riger in the past (see
below). Wellington was a very good performer when Stampede wrestling
was operating a few years back. Since then, though, he's floundered
a bit and may try to use this appearance to get a job with WCW.
Of the remaining foreign talent on the card, Hiro Hase and Akira
Nogami should be known to most of you from the WCW Supershows.
Outside of that, I'm also a little familiar with the Malenkos.
They are phenomenal technical wrestlers, so one wonders how they'll
mesh with Nikita Koloff.
The first semi-final match will be Steve Williams & Terry Gordy
vs. The Steiners. On the June 20th PPV, these two teams meet for
the WCW World Tag Titles, and whoever has the belts after that will
lose here, with the other team going on to win the tournament. That
sets up a feud between these teams for the WCW and NWA Tag Titles.

- WCW will air the NWA singles tournament as a special PPV event
later in the year. The tournament will take place in Japan and
will involve some WCW wrestlers. It will air on tape.

- Next week, the evening version of the Family Feud will feature
WWF wrestlers/personalities vs. WBF bodybuilders.

- Talk of Curt Hennig being pretty near ready to get back in the
ring again.

- On this weekend's WCW Saturday Night, Barry Windham wins the TV
Title from Steve Austin.

- WCW has filed a lawsuit against Lex Luger regarding Lex appearing
on WWF broadcasts to plug the WBF. WCW feels that the wording of
Lex's release explicitly stopped him from appearing in any capacity
on a WWF broadcast.

- Personal: Thanks to everybody who sent e-mail congratulations to me
for getting my M.Math. I will now work towards a PhD.

- Videotape: First, a brief summary. A while ago, I mentioned that I
was getting an e-mail note a day asking if I'd sell a video of "good"
wrestling. My response was consistent: I don't sell, I trade. This
requires that the interested party have something to trade - a problem.
So, I proposed making one 6-hour video tape of "good" pro-wrestling
that I would somehow distribute to interested netters. I talked via
e-mail with a group of about 20 netters. It was suggested that I
could mail the tape to person A, who would mail it to person B when
done, who would mail it to person C, etc. However, most people
complained about this idea for one reason or another: You need to
have two VCRs to dub the tape, you may have to wait for many people
to get through with the tape, you have to trust everybody that sees
the tape before you to be honest (i.e. that they continue sending the
tape, and they send the original and not a dub...). The new suggestion
was that I mail each interested person a copy of the master tape for
a fee. That's fine with me. The suggested fee ran from $20 up to $50.
I wanted the fee to be low enough to be reasonable and high enough to
disuade a few a people, so I don't get swamped. We settled on $25.
Next, with a group of about 30 netters, it came time to decide on
the matches that would be on the tape. We talked about matches via
an e-mail mailing list for several weeks. At that point, everybody
was educated on what was available to them and I asked for nominations
for matches to be put on a voting ballot. A total of 201 matches
(or interviews, angles, etc.) were nominated, totalling about 35+
hours. About 20 people on the mailing list sent in their rankings,
several told me they would abstain, and the rest were silent. I scored
the entries. As it turned out the top 25 items overall will fit nicely
on a 6-hour video. I grouped them in an appropriate way and will set
out to make the master tape in the next few days. When that's done
I'll let you know.
The match list is presented below. What's given is the match specifics,
the match time, my * rating for the match (out of *****), footnote number,
and the overall ranking of the match at the end of the voting. Footnotes
appear at the end of the match list.
I just wanted to say that I'm a little surprised at what made it on
the tape. Had I taken creative control myself, I probably would have
killed some things on the tape to make room for some Lucha Libre and
some shooting style wrestling. Democracy wins, however.
Here's the match list:

Match Time Rating FNote Rank
- Re-cap of the Dump Matsumoto vs. Chigusa Nagayo
hair vs. hair feud 43.45 ****3/4 (1) 13
- 08/28/85 - Chigusa loses a hair vs. hair
match to Dump (clip)
- 09/10/86 - Chigusa singing pre-match, Dump
runs in with scissors, beats up
Chigusa and tries to cut her hair
- 09/12/86 - Press conference contract signing
for hair vs. hair match; Dump tries
to beat up Chigusa afterwards with
a dead chicken
- 11/07/86 - Dump vs. Chigusa in a hair vs. hair
match
- Bull Nakano & Condor Saito
vs. Dump Matsumoto & Yasuko Ishiguro from Koga, 19.50 ****1/2 (2) 23
11/86 (shaky video quality)
- All Japan Women 05/19/91 TV
Aja Kong & Bison Kimura vs. Esther Moreno 27.14 ***** (3) 10
& Manami Toyota for the WWWA Tag Titles
(2 out of 3 falls)
- Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid from 1981 13.20 **** (4) 17
- Jushin Riger vs. Naoki Sano from 07/13/89 14.00 ****3/4 \ 10
- Jushin Riger vs. Naoki Sano from 08/10/89 15.00 ****3/4 | 8
(Riger loses the title) |(5)
- Jushin Riger vs. Naoki Sano from 09/20/89 8.30 ****3/4 | 12
- Jushin Riger vs. Naoki Sano from 01/31/90 15.20 ***** | 1
(Riger regains the title) /
- Jushin Riger vs. Pegasus Kid from 08/19/90 10.00 ****3/4 \ 7
(Riger loses the title) |(6)
- Pegasus Kid vs. Jushin Riger from 11/01/90 7.00 ****1/2 | 19
(Riger regains the title, last minutes only) /
- Keiji Muto & Masa Chono vs. 16.30 ****3/4 \ 16
Kensuke Sasaki & Hiro Hase for the IWGP Tag |
Titles from 11/01/90 (Muto & Chono win belts) |
- WCW SuperShow from Tokyo Dome 3/21/91 |(7) 25
Steiners vs. Hiro Hase & Kensuke Sasaki 15.00 ****1/2 |
for the WCW and IWGP tag titles |
(15 mins, real match length 18 mins) /
- Steiners vs. Road Warriors from Starrcade '89 9.20 **3/4 (8) 18
- Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen \
vs. Terry & Dory Funk from 1982 18.15 ****3/4 | 6
(tracking lines on video) |(9)
- Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen 8.00 **** | 22
vs. Abdullah The Butcher & Carlos Colon |
from 1986, Puerto Rico (crazy arena brawl) /
- Lex Luger vs. Bruiser Brody from Fort Lauderdale, \
Fl., 1986, in a cage match (raw, Brody shoots 9.44 **1/2 | 2
on Lex after ~5 minutes) |(10)
- WWF & SWS Wrestle Dream from Kobe, Japan, 04/01/91 |
Earthquake John Tenta vs. Koji Kitao 9.15 n/a | 3
(shoot, Kitao gets fired after) /
- WWF & All Japan Tokyo Egg Dome Card, 4/13/90
Randy Savage vs. Genichiro Tenryu 15.30 ****1/2 (11) 20
- WWF & All Japan Tokyo Egg Dome Card, 4/13/90
Hulk Hogan vs. Stan Hansen 19.30 ***3/4 (12) 15
- Fantastics vs. Midnight Express from Clash of 14.00 ****1/4 (13) 21
Champions I
- Eddie Gilbert & Terry Taylor
vs. Sting & Shane Douglas postmatch brawl 6.00 **** (14) 24
with Chris Adams running in. Great brawl
in concession stand, quadruple juice.
- Cactus Jack jumps off his house onto a mattress .45 n/a (15) 5
- Cactus Jack vs. Eddie Gilbert from Pennsylvania
Hall in Philadelphia, PA, in a best two
out of three match match, 08/03/91: (16)
- Match 1: Falls count anywhere 16.00 ****1/2 4
- Match 2: Stretcher match 10.00 ****1/2 9
- Match 3: Cage match 20.00 ***1/2 14

Footnotes:
(1) Not a lot of pretty wrestling in this match, but the intensity of
the wrestlers and the crowd is incredible. Dump was out of control
in the match, using all kinds of weapons on Chigusa and the referee.
The referee juiced from a nunchaku blow.
(2) Chigusa Nagayo was attacked by Dump a month or two earlier to this
to set up their second hair vs. hair match, so Chigusa attacked Dump
here before the match. Chigusa beat up everyone for the first 6 minutes.
Match was a great brawl, with scissors, chain, oil can, nunchakus,
kendo stick and Dump playing babyface (she was AJW's big monster
heel, and is still emulated today by Bull Nakano and Aja Kong).
Dump and Bull were regular tag team partners at this time and when
the match finally got underway, they hedged about working against
each other to tease the crowd a bit. Eventually, they went crazy
on each other, and at the end teased the break-up before getting
back together. Commentary is in English.
(3) Aja Kong and Bison Kimura are both pretty large women, near or over
the 200 pound mark. They work incredibly hard. Esther Moreno was
in AJW from Mexico, and stole the show here. She juiced a gusher
and kept on working like a little dynamo, doing all kinds of nifty
moves: moonsault, moonsault out of the ring, Frankensteiner, etc.
Esther may be 100 pounds. Manami Toyota is a little bigger, but
still small. She's the most flexible woman in AJW. When she's
put in a Boston crab, the soles of her feet touch the back of her
head. Her ability to bend like this helps to sell a lot of moves.
I voted for this match as the best match I saw in 1991 in my year
end achievement awards.
(4) Sean Ryan tells me that this was Satoru Sayama's debut match as
Tiger Mask. The crowd went nuts for all of Tiger Mask's spots.
Dyanmite look great: really ripped, but nowhere near his steroid
filled WWF days (He was probably <225 pounds). This isn't their
best match, but I have no other singles match pitting these two
against each other (only tag matches involving them).
(5) The Jushin Riger vs. Naoki Sano series provided pro-wrestling fans
with some of the best matches we will ever see. Sano had been a
reasonable performer prior to this series, but would never have been
considered a main-eventer. Keiichi Yamada and Sano had trained
together and had, in fact, worked against each other in their
debut match in 1984. After winning the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight
Title from Hiroshi Hase, Riger handpicked Sano to be his first
feud. (Yamada maintains a strong control over Riger's programs.
He designs Riger's costumes, too). Sano didn't waste the chance
to shine. He did everything imaginable to get over with the
crowd, throwing caution to the wind to execute one more high-risk
spot. The 01/31/90 match was voted match of the year by the
Observer. It stands alone as probably the best match you'll
ever see. Yet, watching the series of matches in order is like
watching a great story being told. In their first match, both
guys got caught by the other's flashy moves. In the next match,
they had a counter move. In the next, a counter to the counter.
Unbelievable story-telling. Naoki Sano would end up leaving
New Japan Pro-Wrestling shortly after this feud to work
for Super World Sports. He dabbled a bit with shooting, and
is now the SWS/WWF Jr. Heavyweight champion.
(6) Jushin Riger's second title loss came at the hands of Pegasus Kid
(Chris Benoit). These two matches show you Riger losing the title
and then regaining it a few months later.
(7) Some IWGP Tag Title changes. The first match has Hiro Hase & Kensuke
Sasaki winning the belts from Keiji Muto & Masa Chono; they would
lose these belts a couple of months later to the Steiners. I guess
the first match is a little more intense because the crowd didn't
know what to expect and was very hot. In the Steiners vs. Hase & Sasaki
match, the crowd generally knew that Sasaki would be doing the job
and while the match was great, the crowd was a little less hot.
(8) I'm not sure why there was so much interest in this match. It
came in 18th in the voting. It's a pretty good match by North
American standards, but if you watch all the preceeding AJW and
Riger matches in the same sitting and then hit this match, you'll
probably be tempted to hit the fast-forward button. I guess I
really hated the cheap finish.
(9) A couple of very good Bruiser Brody matches. I'm not sure if the
match against the Funks is the All Japan Tag Tourney finals match
from 1982 or not. They had a few matches in this time frame and
(as is often the case in the world of video trading) I don't know
exactly which match this is. It is great, though. The fans
filled the ring with streamers during the ring announcements
(as is often the case in older Japanese matches), and the streamers
were swept out of the ring by an attendant. Later in the match,
Terry Funk would take a bump out of the ring and land in the
streamers, roll around a little, and be completely covered in
them (You honestly can't see him at all - the streamers were
about a foot high where he took the bump!). There are some tracking
lines on the bottom 10th of the screen that sometimes flare-up.
The match is so good that they are easy to ignore, though.
The second match is a brawl throughout the arena in Puerto Rico.
The cameraman follows the wrestlers when they leave the ring
and retreat to the locker rooms. They brawl up and down several
flights of stairs, through the showers, etc., and somehow end
up back on the arena field. Pretty insane. These matches may
actually give you an appreciation for Stan Hansen too if you don't
already have one.
(10) Two legitimate shoots. The first is raw camcorder footage of
a match between Bruiser Brody and Lex Luger from Florida.
The rating is for the actual match, which only lasted 5 minutes.
After that, Brody decided to have some fun with Luger, who got really
worried really quickly. Luger ended up throwing the referee aside
so the ref would have a reason to end the match and then Lex didn't
even wait for the cage to open, instead just climbing over it and
hightailing it back to the locker room. The other shoot is the
one that would see Koji Kitao get fired from SWS. This one is
filled with Tenta swearing at Kitao for playing dirty. These
were probably of interest more for curiousity than anything else.
(11) Genichiro Tenryu and Randy Savage have wrestled twice against
each other. This is their first meeting. I have both matches,
but this one is far superior, with some of that being due to
Sherri, and a little being due to the hotter crowd (this is from
the WWF's first Egg Dome show, where Vince papered the house with
American servicemen, so the reaction is very North American).
I believe this match has Savage's first power bomb bump ever,
and it was clear he didn't know how to take it properly.
(12) This is the highest rating I've ever given a Hulk Hogan match.
Stan Hansen carried the Hulkster through a very good match, making
the big guy look great at all the right spots. The Americans in
the crowd were into Hogan's gimmick, and the Japanese in the crowd
were into Hansen being over, so the crowd was very hot over all.
This match is available on a Coliseum Home Video, but it was
felt that the original match, with original crowd reactions
(I don't know if Vince changed them for the Home Video) and
Japanese commentary (as opposed to Sean Mooney, or whoever)
was highly preferred.
(13) I have a few matches involving the Fantastics and the Midnight
Express. This match was phenomenal. Everybody involved worked
incredibly hard.
(14) They brawled into the concession stands, whacking each other
with beer kegs, tables, garbage cans, and chairs. A really
good brawl.
(15) Cactus jumps off the roof of his house onto a mattress. I guess
some friends (or brothers?) are there and one tapes it on a
camcorder. Cactus would send this tape around to promoters to
show how crazy he is to see if he could break into the business.
(16) These matches are raw comcorder footage, and so we aren't treated
to the luxury of a variety of camera angles, etc.

Herb...

Mats Wichmann

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May 7, 1992, 6:10:36 PM5/7/92

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hek...@jeeves.waterloo.edu (Herb Kunze) writes:

> - Well, the news has already hit the net that Sid Justice has been
> suspended for "improper conduct". Reports vary on the duration
> of the suspension: indefinitely, 60 days, 6 weeks.
> In any case, it looks like "improper conduct" means filling a
> Visine bottle with someone else's urine and squirting that into
> the test bottle at Vince's steroid test.
> It's expected that the WWF will make up a cover story to explain
> Sid's absence, with different variations being proposed depending
> on the duration of the suspension. Steve Planamenta, WWF spokesman,
> is quoted as saying to Alex Marvez "I can't say if the report
> (regarding steroids) is true or false, because I don't know.
> But I wouldn't fault you if you printed it."
> The Ultimate Warrior will be programmed with Papa Shango.
> Harvey Whippleman will now manage Kamala.

This puts me in mind of a comment I had wanted to make anyway. Wrestling
(esp.the WWF, which is mostly what I get a chance to see) is pretty
unpredictable. We've seen lot of predictions here over the months, including
plans for fueds, etc., and a lot of them have not developed. These guys seem
to be more adaptable than we here give them credit for. I'm curious if
fellow rspw'ers have comments on how much of the changeability is based on
"external events" - disciplinary actions, injuries, contract squables,
etc.; and how much of it is based on reactions to what works and what doesn't
(with crowds at local shows, for example).

Interesting how whatever happened with the Bullfrog happened _after_
the tour through Britain...just to give an insight into my ideas.

Does programming Shango with UW mean the end of Shango? Or is it enough
of an emergency measure that he may survive it to fued again....
--
Mats Wichmann
Systems Software Consultant
alruna!ma...@ossi.com (or ma...@netcom.com)

Sean P. Ryan, Hardcore Alaskan

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May 8, 1992, 1:22:43 PM5/8/92

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In article <1992May7.1...@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, hek...@jeeves.waterloo.edu (Herb Kunze) writes...

>
> (9) A couple of very good Bruiser Brody matches. I'm not sure if the
> match against the Funks is the All Japan Tag Tourney finals match
> from 1982 or not.

[...]

> Later in the match,
> Terry Funk would take a bump out of the ring and land in the
> streamers, roll around a little, and be completely covered in
> them (You honestly can't see him at all - the streamers were
> about a foot high where he took the bump!).

Glad you mentioned about the streamers because, yes, this match is the
tag tourney final from 1982. Can't remember the ending offhand, though.

************************************************************************
Sean Patrick Ryan, Hardcore Alaskan*****Internet: fs...@acad3.alaska.edu
WWIVnet: 220@9704*CFN: au414*IRC: RadioKAOS, Aoxomoxoa*Ph: (907)488-8365
BITnet: FSSPR@ALASKA****Snail: P.O. Box 83381, Fairbanks, AK 99708-3381
**"We'll be back, right after this, with more STUFF!!!" - Chuck Barris**
*Call me Pastor - Pastor - Pastor of Muppets I'm pulling your string...*
I'll do a disclaimer when they pry my cold dead hands from the keyboard.

Wrestling TidBits - 05/07

Herb Kunze

Mats Wichmann

Sean P. Ryan, Hardcore Alaskan