Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 November 10, 1997

Bret Hart gave notice over the weekend that he was leaving the World Wrestling Federation and his 20-year contract and officially agreed to terms for a two-year deal with World Championship Wrestling.

The 40-year-old Hart, who had along with The Undertaker been the face of the WWF promotion after the end of the Hulk Hogan era, had reportedly been more and more unhappy with the new cruder direction of the WWF and that, far more than money, played a part in his decision according to some close to the situation. Others have categorized it as simply a money deal and that any other explanation as to the main reason would be misleading. Both Hart and the World Wrestling Federation were attempting to keep the story under lids, so to speak, until after the Survivor Series PPV show in Montreal on 11/9, at which time Hart would have likely given an interview at the taping the next night in Ottawa, or an announcement would have been made by the WWF on that show or at least teased for hotline fodder. On the same night, on the Nitro from Memphis, Eric Bischoff would have also made an announcement about Hart coming to WCW. After the story got out on 11/4, the WWF did release a statement saying they were giving Hart the opportunity to explore other options. On the 11/3 Nitro, Bischoff teased a big surprise on next week's show which was to be the announcement of Hart coming to the NWO, although no doubt the NWO aspect would be a swerve similar to the introductions of people like Curt Hennig and Jeff Jarrett. The plan at press time was for Hart to continue with the WWF working all his scheduled house shows through the end of November, and then return for one final show on the 12/7 PPV show from Springfield, MA and he would start with WCW shortly thereafter. However, all plans could change since the story got out everywhere on 11/3.

Negotiations between Hart and Eric Bischoff went back about six weeks, known to only a few people, almost all of whom were sworn to secrecy. The two met three weeks ago in Los Angeles, at which time WCW officials seemed about 80 percent sure Hart was going to make the move, but Hart didn't make his final decision until the weekend. The top WWF officials were aware of the negotiations at least over the past two weeks, if not longer, as those aware of the story as it was breaking could see in the past two weeks certain phrases said on television that wouldn't have been said had they not been aware, although the finality of his leaving the company wasn't known until the weekend. As mentioned in last week's Observer, Hart had a clause in his contract that would have allowed him to get out of his contract with the WWF if he was unhappy by giving the company just a 30 day notice. Hart negotiated both that clause, and another clause giving him creative control of his character during those final 30 days, last year in negotiations that literally went right down to the wire as Hart was deciding between huge offers from both WWF and WCW. At that point he decided on the WWF offer more because of how he always felt the "story" of his career that he wanted to write was going to end with him riding off in the sunset as a hero in the WWF, something Hulk Hogan never did, legitimately out of loyalty to the company that made him a celebrity and the WWF fans, and also to avoid what he felt were potential pitfalls of going to a company where long-time rival Hulk Hogan was the biggest star. His "story" had to be amended to a "story" where he left the company that made him famous because he could no longer put up with the direction of the racial angles and antics of his most-hated rival and the company's pick to replace him as champion, Shawn Michaels, that had made him so embarrassed as to no longer allow his children to watch the WWF television.

Hart agreed to his 20-year-deal with the WWF on October 21, 996, with the plan at the time, which didn't quite materialize as promised, that he would be getting the title long-term beating Michaels at Wrestlemania. As the story played out, Michaels didn't last until Wrestlemania as champion, or until Wrestlemania where he was to put Hart over. Exact contract terms weren't known, but it is known that Hart was earning well over $1 million per year guaranteed on his Titan deal and the total worth of the contract between guaranteed money and other considerations over time was probably in the $10 million range. Hart chose the deal over a WCW contract that offered him a $2.8 million guaranteed figure over three years, figures that were $800,000 in wrestling income and another $2 million guaranteed for starring roles in two movies per year over the terms of the contract, at a time when Hart was contemplating easing out of wrestling and into being a full-time actor. The structure also allowed the huge wrestling contract to be picked up on the Turner movie studio books, making the wrestling company appear to be more profitable at a time when corporate restructuring with the Time Warner purchase was going on. That figure that didn't include potential merchandising revenue and bonuses for PPV appearances so it would in all likelihood also have been worth well in excess of $9 million.

All that is known about the WCW deal he agreed to is that it is similar to the original deal Bischoff offered last year although the money is scaled down because Hart insisted on working fewer dates, believed to be in the 125 to 140 range, than in the original deal because of his injuries, in particular his knee that has never fully recovered from an injury earlier in the year and a chronic bad wrist from numerous breaks and no time off to allow for proper healing. There may be modifications or changes in the movie role aspect of the deal as well. In addition, the contract is for two years rather than three, with an option for a third year. When Hart arrives, he'll immediately be inserted into the top of the mix within the promotion and used to get the new Thursday night live show on TBS over, as well as help the company's presence in Canada, where he is the country's most popular wrestler. Nitro just began airing weekly on TSN in Canada, and TBS just became a regular as opposed to a premium cable station throughout the country, giving WCW tremendously improved exposure in a country they've never really done a lot of business historically in. Even before Hart's signing, the company was making plans to run shows more frequently and market its product stronger in Canada in 1998. Although Hart would also help internationally, particularly in Europe, WCW doesn't appear to have any interest in cultivating that market after a series of largely unsuccessful tours in that part of the world over the years.

Hart, in one of the most memorable live pro wrestling interviews of all-time, announced literally hours after making up his decision, live in Fort Wayne, IN on Raw, his acceptance of the WWF offer while Vince McMahon feigned concern over a decision that he actually already knew. However, it didn't take long before Hart started getting disgruntled with the new direction of the WWF. After a few months, Hart devised his own angle starting with a double turn in his Wrestlemania match with Steve Austin, which would result in he, along with brother Owen and brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith, being the top babyface internationally, particularly in Canada, but as strong anti-American heels in the United States. During the summer, particularly in the wake of the WWF PPV show in Calgary which was the single most well received PPV show in company history, the angle appeared to be red hot. It had cooled and the focus of the company had shifted from Hart as the top heel to his long-time rival, Shawn Michaels, who he had a legitimate dressing room fight with earlier in the year due to a Michaels television interview referring to Bret having "Sunny days" which affected Bret's personal life, a line that he thought was unprofessional to cross. The problems between the two went back farther, dating back to Bret putting Michaels over at Wrestlemania in 1996, and then deciding to sit out to watch Michaels flop with the spotlight on him. With Bret gone and Michaels on top, things both did and didn't go exactly as Hart had surmised. WWF house show business flourished. At the same time, with Michaels as the focal point, television ratings hit company all-time record lows. Although a tremendous performer in the ring, Michaels was seemingly on a path of self destruction, as a perfectionist throwing unprofessional fits when the show didn't go exactly perfectly or if a few hecklers would get on his case. Michaels, claiming a career ending knee injury, walked out on the promotion just before he was scheduled to have to put over Sycho Sid for the WWF title on a live USA network special, and getting out of his scheduled match where he was going to have to put Bret over at Wrestlemania to boot. Many within the company blamed Wrestlemania's poor buy rate on the fact they had spent one year building up to one match, and then just a few weeks before the show, that match was pulled and they had to start building into a different direction. When it became apparent Michaels' knee injury, while legit, was nowhere near as serious as he intimated, he was scheduled to return. But before another scheduled match with Bret that he was supposed to lose on 6/8, this time it was Bret whose knee gave out and he underwent surgery. After some classic verbal battles on television, no match took place--in the ring. With Bret still recovering from his knee surgery, he and Michaels had a backstage brawl on 6/9 in Hartford, CT, resulting in Bret aggravating his knee and keeping him out of action even longer, and Michaels, claiming knee and neck injuries, walked out on the company claiming an unsafe working environment, just weeks after he attempted and failed to get out of his own five-year contract with the WWF so he could join WCW. Neither Hart, who by all accounts threw the first blow, nor Michaels, who taunted him into doing so by sarcastically responding to Bret's complains by saying something along the lines of "so what are you going to do about it," were punished for the fight, and instead officials seemed to beg Michaels to return, creating the sense of anarchy that has resulted in what some categorize as the beginning of the fall of a once great promotional power.

Eventually the two agreed to peacefully co-exist, agreeing to keep families and personal lives out of their interviews. Bret felt Michaels violated that when in a recent interview he brought up Bret's 83-year-old father Stu, claiming that he was walking around Calgary dead only his brain and his body didn't know it yet, although Michaels did apologize afterwards claiming that he simply got carried away performing for the crowd. Michaels antics in recent weeks, which even though his television persona pretends otherwise, were obviously encouraged and allowed by Vince McMahon, turned Hart off worse because his vision of pro wrestling dating back to his childhood was of something that a father could watch with his kids and not have to turn off the television set in embarrassment. Perhaps the final blow was when Titan made the decision to go with Michaels as champion over Bret in the Survivor Series, a decision that asks even more questions.

Of course that decision could simply by the latest in the line of short-term business decisions by a company that seemingly changes its direction by reacting every other Monday. Michaels had become such an effective heel that he literally had turned his rival, the anti-American foreigner, almost into a babyface in the U.S. At the same time, there were thoughts within the company that the Hart contract was a 19-year debt that in hindsight many were questioning, with the feeling being McMahon made the decision out of wanting to win a momentary battle that he and others hyped into the immediate priority in a bitter wrestling war and not necessarily a contract that made economic sense given the financial structure of the company. Certainly those in charge had to know how Hart would feel if asked to put Michaels over for the title which leads to the speculation that all of these actions by both Michaels and Hart to an extent were actually an expert marionette pulling strings of his two strongest puppets. Michaels' track record of finding a way numerous times to not drop titles (besides walking out earlier this year instead of dropping the title to Sid, he also quit the WWF in 1993 rather than drop the Intercontinental title, he was injured and failed to drop the IC title in 1995, and earlier this year walked out on the company at a time he and Steve Austin held the tag team title) and the fact he's refused to work more than once a week made any decision giving him back the major title to be one somewhat perplexing. Even more so to his most hated rival who valued the title belt to a degree that outsiders would find almost incredulous. Most of Michaels' juvenile television behavior that fans see were part of his new character orchestrated by McMahon where he continually does things "to try and get fired" based on the idea that "everyone" knows that earlier this year that is exactly what he wanted to do. Still, as noted below, it clearly rubbed Hart the wrong way, particularly when he jumped up and down and showed his bare butt on television, which over the past week many have given as the reason for an incredible 26% turn-off ratio of the Raw audience after that segment aired on 10/27, although Raw's 2.63 rating on 11/3 was right at its usual average. Michaels had already been put over British Bulldog for the European title in a match that was originally booked for Michaels to do a clean job in.

Exactly what is going to happen in Montreal is unclear. With Hart leaving, everyone will expect him to lose to Michaels for logical common sense business reasons. With wrestling the way it is today, the title switch shouldn't be taken as a lock, although obviously he will be dropping the title at some point very quickly.

WCW scored a second major coup with word that Bischoff and Ric Flair had basically agreed to terms this past week and that it was expected Flair would be signing a contract extension very shortly. Flair, whose contract expired in a few months, was someone WWF officials were highly interested in going after and who at least strongly considered the idea of such a move back.

The next obvious questions concerns the future of Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith. The belief is that both, who signed five-year contracts each over the past 14 months, will remain with similar roles as at present in the WWF and the situation with Bret has nothing to do with their futures.

Just a few days before Hart made his final decision to leave, he wrote a column in the Calgary Sun. Obviously much of the column was typical pro wrestling attempting to hype his next big match in the new in vogue more realistic insider fashion, but in hindsight, you can see where his head was at in other ways just before making his decision. The column was written as a letter to Michaels:

Shawn Michaels, you are a disgrace to professional wrestling. It amazes me that there was a time I actually thought you'd be the guy who could come up behind me and carry the ball when my time comes to retire. Now when you're behind me, I have to make sure I don't bend over. I am a second generation wrestler. Like a lot of second generation wrestler, I've paid my dues. The way you are degrading the business makes me sick and breaks my heart. That's not what Heartbreak Kid was supposed to mean. I told you, and Vince told you, to leave our families out of this. So you got on RAW and said that my father is dead. This time you're so far over the line that there's no coming back. Every so often, after you shoot off your mouth, you come to me backstage with a lame apology and a limp handshake. "Oh Bret, my mouth always gets me in trouble when I get goin' out there. You know I didn't mean nothin' by it."

Don't bother this time, I'm not buying it. I would not embarrass my father--who is not only very much alive but is still tougher today at 83 and more of a man than you will ever be--as you have embarrassed your father with your degenerate behavior. How humiliating for your poor father to have to explain your lewd gestures to her friends. You don't respect anybody, do you? What does Jose Lothario think of how you've made pornography out of what he taught you? Shawn Michaels, you are nothing more than a whore for this business.

You called me a paper champion because it bothers you that my contract is worth more than you and the whole Degeneration X put together. You said I wrestle because I need the money, but you wrestle because this business needs you. You are a festering cancerous tumor in this business. After Wrestlemania XII, I went home for a while to give you the chance to become "the man" because as long as I'm around you'll never be "the man." You were so bad at being "the man" that the WWF and WCW had the biggest bidding war in wrestling history to get me to come back. You'd have the World championship belt. But you don't. What do you have, besides a big mouth and a bad attitude?

Shawn Michaels, you said that beating the Undertaker makes you an icon. Not taking anything away from `Taker, but you weren't the first guy to beat him, you just did it too late. You said you're the only icon that can still go, not like the fossils. You're so beat up from taking completely overdone bumps like a Mexican jumping bean that you can't even work a full schedule like the older guys. You only wrestle about once a month and you're proud of that? Then people who think they know more about this business than they actually do, write about what a hard worker you are. Anyone can work hard once a month. You've barebacked your way to main event matches and they give you the best guys in the business to make you look good.

So you and your boyfriend, Hunter, think I'm told. Hunter said he's bigger than me in more ways than one, and then you pointed at Hunter's crotch and said he could put an eye out with that thing. Thanks for admitting that you know what Hunter has in his pants. So how come I have four kids and all you two have is each other? I'm not the one shooting blanks. By the way, you both looked very comfortable eating bananas together on Raw. Lots of parents tell me they won't let their kids watch the shows anymore because of you and they don't watch either because you're such an asshole. People are shutting the show off because of you! It took so long to make wrestling into family entertainment. Thanks for setting the business back 50 years! You are the one who is confusing expansion and destruction, not me. You, Shawn, are the destruction of this business. You make me sick. You said you're the best sports entertainer in the world. Don't even think about saying you're a wrestler. What I do is an art form and what you do is...what do you do, anyway, cause it's not pro wrestling anymore?

You called the WWF world championship a "tin title" but you're only saying that because you don't have the belt. When you did have it, you treated it like garbage and then threw it away! So now you want to try to win the title at Survivor Series? You'd better reconsider that because when I get my hands on you it's going to make the beating I gave you in the locker room last June look like a warm up. After that little scuffle, you went running to Vince, complaining that the work conditions in the WWF are unsafe. The only thing unsafe about the working conditions in the WWF is you, Shawn. You've gotten in the ring so "pilled up" lately that you can't even talk straight on TV. You'd better shake the cob webs free before you get in the ring with me at SS. This business has been my mistress for my whole life and I love her. You ar raping her and taking her dignity away. Don't count on my reputation for professionalism saving your ass at SS. You're the one who threw the rule book out the window. The 17 stitches you got at Hell in the Cell are nothing compared to what's coming at Misery in Montreal.


WCW HALLOWEEN HAVOC FINAL POLL RESULTS

Thumbs up 90 (43.5%)

Thumbs down 82 (39.6%)

In the middle 35 (16.9%)

BEST MATCH POLL

Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero 183

Randy Savage vs. Diamond Dallas Page 7

WORST MATCH POLL

Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper 83

Alex Wright vs. Steve McMichael 37

Disco Inferno vs. Jacquelyn 28

Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 11/4. Statistical margin of error: +-100%

The official cause of death of Brian Pillman will apparently be listed as a heart attack due to natural causes. At press time, the Hennepin County Medical Examiners Office had not released an official press statement on Pillman, but family sources said such a statement would be released later in the week.

Pillman was found dead at the age of 35 in a Bloomington, MN motel room at 1:09 p.m. on 10/5, the night after wrestling his final match at the St. Paul Civic Center and just hours before the WWF was about to go on the air with a PPV show.

Reports from those close to the situation indicate that after nearly one month of tests, the coroners reported on 11/3 that they were stumped for a cause of the heart attack, although his heart showed an unusual amount of damage for someone of his age. This could have been partially hereditary given his family history, and also due to the amount of stress he had placed on his heart. Either steroids and/or cocaine have been known to cause heart damage which over the years can have a cumulative effect. It was no secret Pillman had used steroids dating back to his college and pro football days and through the early part of his wrestling career for obvious reasons, being that in all the aforementioned professions use was plentiful during the 80s and his own lack of natural body size was really the only thing holding him back from stardom. Toxicology reports did not reveal any intake of drugs that could have caused the death. The reports revealed the expected prescription pain killers, although not at dangerous levels. There were no traces of steroids or any other illegal drug found in his system. The steroid decadurabolin was the only illegal drug found in his system when he was drug tested by the WWF on 8/28, although the low levels and the fact that drug can stay in the system and show up in tests longer after usage than any other steroid, in rare occasions for more than one year after its last usage (although usually it won't longer than a few months), was the reason he wasn't suspended for what could have technically been ruled a failed drug test. There wasn't even any trace of alcohol in his system. There was an empty beer bottle found in his room along with several bottles, none empty, of prescription pain pills, when the police opened the door. Later reports indicated that while the bottle of beer was empty, the cap was still on the bottle and this it had broken and the contents of the bottle apparently spilled onto his clothes so it appeared he had never even drank the beer. The only strange drug found in his system, a prescription drug that he apparently did not have a prescription for was medication used to combat high blood pressure. This would not have been something he would have been taking medication for. Later reports have indicated that when he went on the road trip to Minneapolis for his first match of the weekend, he had run out of a certain pain killer and theoretically he had either asked for one from another wrestler or a hanger-on, and was given something that was actually not a pain killer. However, the amount in his system wasn't ruled dangerous and that was also ruled out as being a potential cause of death.

The toxicology report showing no traces of cocaine put tremendous heat on Gene Okerlund in WCW who had claimed to have the inside scoop directly from the doctor that Pillman died of a cocaine overdose. On 10/27, on a WCW Internet audio show with Mark Madden, Okerlund discussed this fact as his lead scoop. This naturally led to rumors running rampant as the week went on of that being the actual cause of death. Okerlund had all along privately claimed to have inside connections with the police and the doctors since Pillman's death occurred in the Twin Cities, where Okerlund lived for decades and regaled people with sordid tales, which apparently greatly differed at least from police reports of the scene at the motel room, and of what would be the final report from the corner. Okerlund nor any other WCW personnel never discussed this information publicly anywhere except on the audio show and not on the hotline.


The condition of long-time WWF icon Bob Marella (Gorilla Monsoon) had improved over the week although as of press time he was still listed in serious condition at Allegheny University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Marella was on a respirator and kidney dialysis much of the past week, and early in the week his condition was listed as grave after a heart attack on 10/26. By the end of the week he was able to be removed from the respirator and doctors were hoping to perform a much needed heart bypass operation when his physical condition improved to where he was considered out of danger. Doctors had, prior to the heart attack, recommended to Marella that he undergo a heart transplant but he was reluctant. He had more than 90 percent blockage in more than one ventricle.

Marella, a former amateur wrestling star at Ithaca College, made his professional name first as a heel after being given one of the all-time classic ring names, has been part of both the old World Wide Wrestling Federation and current World Wrestling Federation since the mid-60s and a famous title run against then-champion Bruno Sammartino while managed by Wild Red Berry. He later turned babyface, and was a long-time part-owner of the old Capital Sports (parent company of both the WWWF and early days of the WWF) before selling his stock to Vince McMahon Jr. in 1982. He had remained with the company ever since, both in his visible roles as a television announcer and later figurehead company President, and behind the scenes working the front office and giving the time cues at television tapings.


New Japan's final dome show of 1997 wound up on a flat note with a uneventful and largely disappointing show on 11/2 at the Fukuoka Dome.

The crowd was announced at 48,000, although those there live estimated the real figure as closer to 40,000 in the largest indoor stadium in Japan with a capacity of just under 70,000, which would be the smallest Dome show crowd ever for the promotion. Fukuoka has always been a tough sell even when the promotion was at its peak and the line-ups were attractive, which is why there had always been debates after the show in the past about trying it the next year and in fact, there was no show at the building in 1996 after doing annual events from its opening in 1993 through 1995.

New Japan has been the most successful promotion not only in the world, but in fact, in the history of the industry over the past few years when it came to successfully running stadium shows, but this card was a reality check of what many had noticed over the past year about the long-term future of the company. New Japan has remained successful on big shows this year, particularly packing its January Tokyo Dome and subsequent debut shows this year at both the Osaka and Nagoya Domes, after a second Tokyo Dome was somewhat of a disappointment although that was easily explained because the show was only booked after the agreement the company had made with Ken Shamrock and his match with Shinya Hashimoto would have been an easy draw. When Shamrock signed with the WWF, leaving New Japan with a Dome booked and no main event to fill it, the replacement, Naoya Ogawa, didn't have the box office juice to wrestling fans even though he was a well-known mainstream name from his days as a national hero from judo. In recent months, New Japan has done big business with the countdown to the end of the career of one of the country's all-time wrestling legends, Riki Choshu. However, that countdown has one big show left, and after that, there doesn't appear to be anything on the horizon for New Japan in 1998 as the lesson of this card showed.

From a Japanese fan standpoint, this card only had one ticket selling match, the Choshu vs. Kensuke Sasaki teacher vs. pupil match, given that it would be their last ever meeting, that Sasaki was the current IWGP heavyweight champion after being given one of the biggest pushes in company history (that doesn't appear to have totally worked), and that Sasaki has never beaten Choshu in a singles match. So as to put the result of the match in question, the match was made non-title figuring that usually when the champion is in a high-profile non-title match, it's usually an angle for him to lose to build up a title match. From a show standpoint, reports are it was largely a series of uneventful so-so matches with the exception of the one match you'd figure would be great, Shinjiro Otani's retaining of the J Crown against Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit). There were no real angles coming out of the show other than the continuing build for a Don Frye vs. Ogawa match, which is likely for 1/4 at the Tokyo Dome, and a post match angle at the party where legendary Holland karate champion Gerard Gordeau, who has done jobs in worked matches in the past to the likes of Akira Maeda and Antonio Inoki, and was the finalist in the very first UFC losing to Royce Gracie, challenged Hashimoto to a match at the Dome.

We don't have any gate figures at press time, but do know merchandise sales, particularly Choshu merchandise, which all sold out, were very high. That the company printed 8,000 programs for the event, which sold out in record time for a total of $135,000.

1. Kazuyuki Fujita & Takashi Iizuka (Takayuki Iizuka) beat Kendo Ka Shin (Tokimitsu Ishizawa) & El Samurai (Osamu Matsuda) in 8:46 when Iizuka pinned Samurai after a blizzard suplex. Said to have been an average match.

2. Akira Nogami (Akira Saeki) & Kengo Kimura (Takashi Kimura) beat Hiro Saito & Tatsutoshi Goto in a Heisei Ishingun vs. NWO match in 11:19 when Nogami pinned Saito after a german suplex. Also said to have been average.

3. Jushin Liger (Keiichi Yamada) & Tiger King (Satoru Sayama) beat Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa in 14:18 when Liger pinned Takaiwa after a super fisherman buster. This match had a story behind it being the first time Liger & Sayama, who are the two most noteworthy junior heavyweight wrestlers in the history of Japan (and arguably the history of pro wrestling itself) teaming up for the first time. It was said to have been a disappointment as Sayama blew up from being too heavy and didn't look good.

4. In another New Japan vs. NWO match, Michiyoshi Ohara & Hiroyoshi Tenzan (Kwang Kil Choi) & Scott Norton beat Tadao Yasuda & Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi in 12:26 when Norton pinned Yasuda after a power bomb. Norton suffered a legit leg injury during the match, but after the show appeared to be okay.

5. Otani retained the seven-belt J Crown title beating Pegasus in 19:28 with a springboard spin kick and dragon suplex for the pin. This was said to have been an excellent match. These two have had great singles matches in the past, but the high-flying junior heavyweight style doesn't play as well in a big stadium as it does in a smaller building.

6. Don Frye beat Kazuo Yamazaki in 12:21 with a choke sleeper. Frye again played heel, this time doing the Mike Tyson biting Yamazaki's ear and Yamazaki selling it like Evander Holyfield for the big heel spot. It's amazing how much heat a minor heel action can get when it's put in the framework of a believable looking contest. Frye gave Yamazaki a lot of offense and Frye had to escape to the ropes several times on submissions.

7. Naoya Ogawa beat Erwin Vreeker, a kickboxer from Holland, in 3:19 with an armbar submission in a nothing match.

8. Sasaki pinned Choshu using Choshu's own favorite lariat in 11:34. This match had a lot of emotion to it with Sasaki crying on his way to the ring.

9. Shinya Hashimoto beat Hubert Numrich, a 6-7 kickboxer, this time with something of a real reputation, from Holland with both NHB and K-1 experience in a round-style match with a facelock submission in 1:04 of the second round.

10. The finale, which was said to have been anti-climactic, saw IWGP tag team champions Keiji Muto & Masahiro Chono beat Tatsumi Fujinami & Genichiro Tenryu in 21:33 when Chono made Fujinami submit to the STF. Norton, Tenzan, Saito, Goto and Ohara were all at ringside and Goto & Ohara are apparently now official NWO members.


It would make a good story, considering what the lead story was in last week's Observer, to try and tie in the stupid angle WCW did on its Halloween Havoc PPV with the fake fan getting beaten up with the subsequent two near riots that took place days later.

However, even though the timing of WCW's angle couldn't have been worse, as fan violence and a general lack of respect by fans to the product has become more of a problem largely as fans imitate their so-called heroes television behavior, the near riots may have had nothing to do with imitation being in this case, the stupidest form of flattery. In the first incident, it certainly didn't due to the location where it took place. In the second, it may or may not have, although the ECW situation on 10/30 was clearly an example of a group of fans going to matches with the specific intention of causing a disturbance and starting a fight with wrestlers.

The first such incident took place on 10/29 in Tijuana, the Mexican border city across from San Diego, where WCW PPV shows don't even air although the show did take place just two days after the WCW Nitro taping not all that many miles away in San Diego. The second took place the next night in Plymouth Meeting, PA at an ECW house show, although that incident from all accounts was a group of five fans going to the matches with the specific intention of getting into a fight.

The Tijuana situation at a Promo Azteca show came during a post-match angle after the main event--a 16 man elimination tag match with Konnan & El Hijo del Santo & La Parka & Rey Misterio & Dandy & Lizmark Jr. & Super Calo & Hector Garza beating Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera & Los Villanos IV & V & Damian & Halloween & Silver King & Zandokan. It came down to Lizmark Jr. and Psicosis with Lizmark Jr. scoring a clean pin to win the match before about 3,500 fans at Auditorio Municipal, which between the match itself and the post match lasted 82 minutes making it probably the longest combination match and angle on a major league wrestling show probably in years. At that point Psicosis began complaining about the officiating when Santo, who Psicosis had eliminated next to last in the match, hit the ring and jumped Psicosis. At this point Rey Misterio Jr., who didn't work on the show but was in attendance, hit the ring and jumped on Psicosis, but then also attacked Santo. The idea appeared to be to set up a triangle match between the three, tentatively on 11/14 in the same building, although that depends on several outside forces such as possible commission suspensions based on the riot and potential WCW intervention since the match involves Misterio Jr. and WCW doesn't want him wrestling in Mexico anymore. Earlier this year Misterio Jr. and Santo had a classic match in Tijuana which resulted in Santo capturing the WWA middleweight title from Misterio Jr., and at the last Tijuana show, Psicosis scored a clean win over Santo in a match for a title belt that Psicosis was defending, not to mention Misterio Jr. and Psicosis' rivalry in that city dating back many years. However, since Santo has been put over big as a face in Tijuana, the crowd turned on Misterio Jr. when he attacked Santo. In their singles match earlier in the year, even though it was a total face vs. face style and Misterio Jr. definitely had his fans, it was Santo that was the more popular by a small degree. Misterio Jr. and Santo exchanged words, and eventually Rey Misterio hit the ring, and first attacked Psicosis, but then also attacked Santo. Damian and Halloween then hit the ring and began fighting with Santo, who had no allies, and also helping Psicosis against the Misterios, at which point the crowd began chanting for Konnan to make the save, apparently they believed, for Santo. Konnan started attacking the rudos, but then also joined in with the other faces in attacking Santo, which caused the crowd to go nuts since it appeared Santo was alone against everyone. A fan hit the ring and gave Misterio a dropkick. Another fan went to hit Misterio with a chair, but he ended up taking the chair from the fan which caused more fans to begin throwing chairs at the ring. Supposedly it wound up with more than 200 fans throwing chairs, and much of the rest of the audience, seeing that a riot was breaking out, leaving the building while this was all going on, before everything was calmed down. The idea they were apparently trying to portray is it being everyone for themselves for the triangle match, but with nobody helping Santo, it came off to the crowd that their long-time local heroes like Konnan and the Misterios had turned heel on Santo.

The next night at the ECW show at the National Guard Armory in Plymouth Meeting, PA saw a very different type of crowd disturbance. According to several witnesses, a group of three or five (the police claimed three people but some ringsiders said it was actually five) big tough-looking guys were at ringside at the ECW show looking for trouble from the start of the night. It was more likely coincidental the timing of this disturbance and the WCW angle, although there is always a possibility that the WCW angle glorifying fans fighting wrestlers may have put the idea into someone's head and that this is another example, and this may have been one harder to avoid than most, of problems that are happening with far too much frequency at ECW events.

The ring-leader, wearing a shirt that said "Fite Me" on the front and "Antichrist 3:16" on the back, were harassing the wrestlers throughout the show. One person close to the situation all night described those few as the worst group of wrestling fans ever to attend an ECW show. During the first match on the card, ECW security asked them to quit leaning over the rail and spitting and they shouted down security. The feeling was they should have been removed then and there, although Paul Heyman, defending his security team (which many fans close to the situation were critical of for not doing anything when it became apparent something bad was going to go down), claimed they were misbehaving but not doing anything that would warrant being thrown out. Others close to the situation said security realized to throw them out would end up starting a big fight and perhaps they were trying to avoid that. The fans did cause some minor changes regarding working the matches in that the wrestlers were all avoided where the fans were, and even Taz, whose gimmick is to stand up to fans, was avoiding doing anything near them. With just a few matches left in the show, with Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney vs. New Jack & John Kronus wrestling in the ring, and time running out on Mr. Fite Me and his group, trouble started.

According to reports filed by two Plymouth, PA detectives who happened to be at the matches, Richard Lefler, 26, and Mark Cheskey, 23 of Conshohocken, were spitting on wrestler Jon Rechner (Mahoney). According to the report, when Rechner was outside the ring in their vicinity, Lefler punched him in the back. When Rechner turned around to see who hit him, Lefler punched him in the face. At that point Lefler grabbed his hair allowing Cheskey to get in a shot on him. At this point Rechner started covering his face and throwing wild blows to protect himself. The ECW dressing room emptied at this point and it was ten to 20 minutes before the situation started getting back to order, with Mahoney, Axl Rotten, John Kronus, Shane Douglas, Tommy Dreamer and Buh Buh Ray and Big Dick Dudley among others joining in the fray. Reports are the Dudleys were going through the crowd like buzzsaws and that Big Dick seemed impervious to anything thrown at him almost like his pro wrestling gimmick. By the time the incident was over, about half the crowd of 800 fans were outside the building either trying to get away from the near riot or some trying to get close to it as the five fans and the wrestlers fought. There were fans injured being too close to the wild swinging wrestlers and fans, although there were no reports of serious injuries although ambulance units were on the scene. Just as the situation was calming down, approximately 40 police officers from several different neighboring municipalities including East Norristown, Norristown, Whitemarsh, Conshohocken, West Conshohocken and Whitpain, several dressed in riot gear and one with a police dog, arrived on the scene. Various reports from the scene claim that the wrestlers, who were trying to protect their own and whose actions were defended in the police report, in their exuberance, made things worse as far as getting the crowd all panicked, and that when the police arrived, the situation was calming down and their arrival made them worse again. Others said it was simply a bad situation. There was additional heat since ECW, according to a local newspaper story, had failed to get a permit to hold the wrestling show in the city, which was expressly specified in the contract they signed with the building.

The incident made a lot of local press, both in the newspapers and was carried as a top local news item on most of the area radio stations.

Wrestlers Rechner and Jerome Young (New Jack) went to the police station for questioning, largely to have complaints failed against the two fans, who were expected to be arrested on charges of assault, disorderly conduct and harassment and the two fans were taken to jail that night. Paul Heyman said that he was going to order Rechner to testify against the fans to get them put away, even if it meant him missing a major show. Just as the dressing room emptied, Heyman grabbed New Jack to keep him from joining in on the fight, largely because any problems with New Jack could reflect badly on the company at this point with the Erich Kulas legal and civil situations still pending.

There were reports that the police wanted the show stopped at that point, however Paul Heyman denied that being a problem. After everything got under a little bit of control, Dreamer got on the p.a. and got the fans who had remained in the building back into the show by saying that they didn't want to let the action of three people ruin the night for everyone else, and they went through with the three-way dance main event with Sabu going over Douglas and Dreamer.

Not to be outdone, the WWF on its live Raw show on 11/3 did its own fan out of the audience angle with similar results, in this case glorifying it even more allowing the fan (former Stampede wrestling performer Steve Blackman, a one-time roommate of Brian Pillman in Calgary in 1988, who for the past decade has been living in Pennsylvania teaching martial arts and will end up being the fourth member of Team USA replacing the injured Patriot with Goldust & Vader & Marc Mero vs. Jim Neidhart & Davey Boy Smith & Phil LaFon & Doug Furnas at Survivor Series), obviously a wrestler doing a martial arts gimmick the way the heels sold for him, who it appeared would wind up being the fourth member of the Team USA replacing Del Wilkes in the Survivor Series). Fan out of the audience angles are as old as carnival wrestling itself, in fact the mark who isn't really a mark out of the audience was one of the classic carnival wrestling cons, but in this day and age with real fan violence becoming such a serious problem, encouraging and glorifying it in any company at this point in time, and to an extent all three major U.S. companies have, is irresponsible almost to mind-boggling levels.

Just as an example over the past week of something we know happened specifically due to the incident in Las Vegas. The very next night, at the WCW taping in San Diego, during the commercial break, a fan threw something and nailed Johnny Grunge and security did throw him out. But those sitting near the fan reported that the fan had been talking the entire show about doing a run-in for self-publicity, talking over-and-over again about how the fan who did the same thing the night before really didn't get hurt or didn't appear to get in trouble.


Semaphore Entertainment Group held a press conference in Tokyo on 10/30 to officially announce in Japan its PPV card coming from the 17,100-seat Yokohama Arena on 12/21.

At the press conference representing SEG were company CEO Bob Meyrowitz, David Isaacs, who heads the promotion of the UFC, and Tank Abbott. What was officially announced at the show was a heavyweight title match with Maurice Smith defending, although no opponent was named. Negotiations for Royce Gracie to be that opponent were said to be serious, but the rumor mill has it that Gracie is leaning more toward doing a match on the Pride Two show on 1/18 in the same building against a Japanese opponent. The monkey wrench in getting Gracie vs. Smith could be SEG's offer of wanting Gracie to sign a two-fight deal to guarantee at least one title defense if he were to beat Smith, and that the Gracies probably wouldn't be as amenable to a title defense against a wrestler the calibre of Randy Couture or Mark Kerr. A two-fight contract wouldn't guarantee Gracie ever having to come back to defend the title if he were to beat Smith, but if he signed it and decided not to come back to UFC, he wouldn't be able to fight for another organization until fulfilling that second date, which would put his fighting career on ice. Another name mentioned as a possible opponent once again is Marco Ruas. As mentioned last week, the Japanese promoters aren't hot on the idea of Couture, who earned the title shot with a win over Vitor Belfort, who has no name in Japan, being in a drawing position in the main event. They also announced a match to create the first middleweight (under-200 pounds) champion with Kevin Jackson, the 1992 Olympic gold medal winning freestyle wrestler who is 3-0 in NHB competition, facing the winner of a match on 11/29 in Tokyo on a Shooto promotion Vale Tudo event between the Shooto world heavyweight champion, Ensen Inoue vs. Frank Shamrock. This would give the winner of the Inoue-Shamrock match, which could be a long and fairly brutal bout, three weeks to recover for a match with Jackson. Also announced is that there would be a four-man heavyweight tournament, and likely two or possibly three additional superfights. Rumors coming out of Japan from the press conference included talk of a match with Ruas vs. Mark Kerr, although we're told that there is almost zero percent chance of that match happening, and a first round tournament match with Abbott vs. Nobuhiko Takada plus a superfight involving Belfort, likely against a Japanese opponent. As strange as the Takada-Abbott match sounds, that match was very much being seriously talked about for a number of reasons, among them the belief there is still some drawing power left in Takada, that he personally needs redemption and that this show needs a pro wrestler for mainstream coverage and drawing power in Japan, and also the belief that under UFC rules that Abbott would beat him it would give Abbott a win that UFC wants him to have since they believe for marketing purposes he still has value to the company, which has always been a different controversial issue.

However, Takada was interviewed backstage at the 11/3 Kingdom show at Korakuen Hall and claimed he broke a rib from a kick and suffered a broken arm from the finishing armbar in the match with Rickson Gracie and that he hasn't been able to train since and wouldn't be able to return to competition until January. There was some hope his first match back would be on the Pride Two show on 1/18, although he may not be ready by then. Takada also claimed he went into the Gracie match with a neck injury and wasn't nearly at 100 percent.

The belief in Japan is that the only way this event will sell a lot of tickets is that if a big name Japanese pro wrestler is involved. There doesn't appear to be any way Masakatsu Funaki, who would be the best bet of all from a combination of both credibility and marketability, would do it because he's shown no interest and also due to the proximity of this show with his own Pancrase title challenge to Yuki Kondo, so they are left with a top name from RINGS (Kiyoshi Tamura, Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Tsuyoshi Kousaka being the best bets because there is no way Akira Maeda would do it, although this taking place in the middle of the Battle Dimension tournament makes any of those names exceedingly unlikely) or a joke like Koji Kitao, who has done UFC before (losing in less than one minute on a fluke punch to Mark Hall) and at this point probably wouldn't mean much when it comes to drawing anyway. The other problem is, if a Japanese pro wrestler is involved, there is a chance outside forces will pressure for it to be a work at the last minute to protect them (ie, Severn vs. Matsunaga) both in reputation and from injury and an obvious work at this point would be devastating to UFC's credibility. The problem is also justifying including a Japanese pro wrestler to the American PPV audience unless it's someone who is a legitimate proven shooter. Most reports indicate that the "shoot" match that at this point would be the most marketable in Japan would be Rickson Gracie vs. Maeda, which Maeda would likely never agree to unless it was his absolute final hurrah even though there is already a lot of hype building to that as Maeda's retirement match late next year.

UFC was also the subject in a huge front page story in the 11/1 Los Angeles Times entitled "Gory Sport Fights for its Life." The story, better researched than most on the subject, focused on the history of UFC, its beginnings, promoters Meyrowitz and Isaacs and all its subsequent legal, political and cable problems. It said that by 1994 (when the PPVs buy rates peaked with the second Gracie vs. Shamrock and first Shamrock vs. Severn matches) UFC brought in "a flow of cash like a Texas gusher." The story was very pro-Gracie, with Rorion and his concept of no rules fighting being portrayed as the purist who had to get out when Meyrowitz tampered with the pure form by instituting time limits and judges decisions, and more recently, the other various rule changes in an attempt to get the shows back on a cable industry that hasn't budged from its stance. The story called the Gracie family "perhaps the most remarkable family in the history of sports." It talked about the Gracie-Severn match and said how all the television went blank in the middle of the show (actually it was only about one-third of the homes) which caused UFC to have to implement time limits, which Rorion Gracie said would kill the show, ignoring the realities that if time limits hadn't have been imposed, Royce and Ken Shamrock may still be lying on the mat in Charlotte today waiting for the other to make a mistake. It portrayed the beginning of the fall when rival promoter Donald Zuckerman (EFC) booked a show in New York City which ended up undoing all the work UFC had done in getting a bill passed to allow UFC rules matches in the state. Actually the real set of dominos that have crippled UFC were largely three things--lobbying by Arizona Senator John McCain, a staunch boxing proponent; the appointment of Leo Hindery, a stanch UFC opponent from the start (who was quoted in the story as saying the first two things he did on the first day when he got his new job as the head of TCI was to find where the bathroom was in the building, and to cancel showing UFC), as the man to lead TCI Cable out of its own financial nightmare; and the series of articles in the New York Times which made UFC a national news story and caused all the politicians in the state legislature to do an about-face on the subject after voting on what the media portrayed as the wrong side of an open-and-shut brutality issue.

While the story did mention Rorion Gracie's belief that his vision of the sport would have blown boxing in the U.S. away in time and of McCain's own boxing background, it never tied in the point of much of the political infrastructure working against UFC (Hindery being an exception) had political and/or financial ties to the boxing industry.

In a somewhat related note, the 11/3 issue of Sports Illustrated ran a long feature on the World freestyle wrestling championships held in September. The superheavyweight on the U.S. team was Tom Erikson, who has done NHB (both in Brazil and with the now-defunct MARS and WFF in the U.S.), IWF and was negotiating at one point to do Pancrase as well. The story, which talked about Erikson, who is an Assistant wrestling coach at Purdue University, and his financial situation claimed that he sometimes competes in Tough Man contests (he had actually never done that) to stay solvent.


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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 11/7 TO 12/7
11/7 WWF Toronto Sky Dome (Undertaker & Austin & Love vs. Bret & Owen Hart & Smith)

11/8 WWF Detroit Cobo Arena (Undertaker & Austin & Love vs. Bret & Owen Hart & Smith)

11/8 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena

11/9 WWF Survivor Series PPV Montreal Molson Center (Bret Hart vs. Michaels)

11/9 K-1 Grand Prix tournament finals Tokyo Dome

11/9 Michinoku Pro tag team tournament finals Sendai

11/10 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Memphis, TN Mid South Coliseum

11/10 WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings Ottawa, ONT Corel Centre

11/11 WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings Cornwall, ONT Civic Center Complex

11/14 WWF Pittsburgh Civic Arena (Bret Hart vs. Undertaker)

11/15 WWF New York Madison Square Garden (Bret Hart vs. Undertaker vs. Austin vs. Michaels)

11/15 All Japan Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Kawada & Taue vs. Hansen & Duncum)

11/15 Kingdom Hakodate Live

11/16 WWF Baltimore Arena (Bret Hart vs. Undertaker vs. Helmsley)

11/16 Pancrase Kobe Fashion Mart Atrium (Kondo vs. Takahashi)

11/17 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Cincinnati, OH Riverfront Coliseum

11/19 Kingdom Sapporo Live

11/20 RINGS Osaka Chou Gymnasium (Han vs. Vrij)

11/22 WWF Greensboro, NC Coliseum (Undertaker vs. Michaels)

11/23 WCW World War III PPV Auburn Hills, MI The Palace (Three-ring Battle Royal)

11/23 All Japan Sendai Miyagi Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kobashi & Ace)

11/24 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Saginaw, MI Civic Center

11/24 WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings Fayetteville, NC Cumberland County Coliseum (Undertaker & Austin & LOD vs. Hart Foundation)

11/25 WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings Roanoke, VA Civic Center (Undertaker & Austin & LOD vs. Hart Foundation)

11/27 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Hayabusa & Shinzaki)

11/28 WWF Cleveland Gund Arena (Undertaker vs. Helmsley)

11/28 All Japan Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue)

11/29 WWF Boston Fleet Center (Undertaker vs. Michaels)

11/29 Shooto Vale Tudo Open '97 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Frank Shamrock vs. Ensen Inoue)

11/30 New Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (tag team tournament)

12/1 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Knoxville, TN Civic Coliseum

12/3 All Japan Niigata (Kobashi & Ace vs. Hayabusa & Shinzaki)

12/5 All Japan Tokyo Budokan Hall (tag team tournament finals)

12/7 WWF In Your House PPV Springfield, MA Civic Center

RESULTS
10/17 Naucalpan (Promo Azteca): Mosco & Super Crazy & Halloween & El Hijo del Diablo b Super Muneco & Pantera & Venum Black & Mr. Aguila, Ultimo Guerrero & Ultimo Rebelde & Jerry Estrada & Black Warrior b Lizmark Jr. & Super Astro & Salsero & Torero, Los Villanos III & IV & Black Magic & Pantera del Ring b Konnan & Mascara Sagrada & La Parka & Tinieblas Jr.

10/24 Naucalpan (Promo Azteca): Pantera del Ring & Super Crazy & Ultimo Guerrero & Ultimo Rebelde b Venum Black & Pantera & Torero & Salsero, Jerry Estrada & Villano III & Pirata Morgan b Mascara Sagrada & Tarzan Boy & Super Astro, WWO hwt title: Tinieblas Jr. b Pierroth Jr. to win vacant title

10/24 Reading, PA (Pennsylvania Championship Wrestling - 400): Julio Sanchez b Chris Kruger, Kodiak Bear b Gino Caruso, Agent Maxx b Mr. Ooh La La, Little Louie b King Sleazy, Mike Quackenbush b Reckless Youth, Dave Patera & Jihad Hussein won Battle Royal, J.R. Ryder & Blue Thunder b Patera & Hussein, Steven Dunn DCOR Spellbinder, Tiger Khan b Cheetah Master-DQ, Viper b Glenn Osbourne, Ace Darling & Devon Storm b Lance Diamond & Bart Gunn

10/25 Arabi, LA (Ultimate Wrestling Federation - 405): Bishop Steel b Viper, Dozer b Cajun Predator, Kevin Northcutt b Mr. Wrestling III (Dusty Wolfe), Menace II Society b Don DiBiase, Robert Gibson b Doink the Clown (Wolfe), Chris Adams NC Carolina Kid, King Parsons b Punisher

10/25 Manchester, NH (American Wrestling Federation): Tim McNeany b Brian Walsh, Knuckles Nelson b Specialist, Mike Hollow & Kid USA b Louis Ortiz & Astro Man, Bulldozer b Trooper & Chad Storm, Jim Cote DCOR Steve Bradley, McNeany won Battle Royal

10/25 Manati, Puerto Rico (WWC - 1,000): Herbert Gonzalez b Halcon Negro, Mohammad Hussein (Lou Fabbiano) & Victor the Bodyguard b La Ley & Black Feather, Puerto Rican title: Ricky Santana b Skull Von Crush-DQ, Carlos Colon b Glamour Boy Shane, Universal title: Rey Gonzalez b Dutch Mantel-DQ, Coal Miners Brass Knux match: El Profe b Rico Suave

10/25 Inverness, FL (World Pro Wrestling - 125): Jesse Dalton b Trooper-DQ, Jimmie Rogers b Faku-DQ, Dalton b Faku, Jerry Grey b War Machine, Bugsy McGraw b Executioner, Barbed wire match: Brutus Beefcake b Greg Valentine

10/27 Isezaki (WAR): Saito b Cosmos Soldier, Battle Ranger b Shoichi Ichinomiya, Osamu Tachihikari b Jun Kikuchi, Yuji Yasuraoka & Tadahiro Ishii b Hiroyoshi Kotsubo & Fukuda, Arashi b Yoshikazu Taru, Genichiro Tenryu & Masao Orihara b Abdullah the Butcher & Takashi Okamura, WAR 6 man titles: Koji Kitao & Nobukazu Hirai & Masaaki Mochizuki b Koki Kitahara & Nobutaka Araya & Lance Storm to win titles

10/28 Muskot, Oman (WWF): Dude Love b Jim Neidhart, Ahmed Johnson b Faarooq, WWF title: Bret Hart DCOR Undertaker, WWF tag titles: Legion of Doom b Godwinns, Ken Shamrock b Rocky Maivia, Tiger Ali Singh b Billy Gunn, Head Bangers b Kama Mustafa & D.Lo Brown

10/29 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Pancrase - 2,150 sellout): Satoshi Hasegawa d Kousei Kubota, Takafumi Ito b Ikuhisa Minowa, Yoshiki Takahashi b Kim Jong Wan, Keiichiro Yamamiya d Tra Telligman, Osami Shibuya b John Lober, Guy Mezger b Kiuma Kunioku, Yuki Kondo b Leon Dyke

10/29 Yamaguchi (New Japan - 2,000): Akitoshi Saito b Yutaka Yoshie, Black Cat b Prince Iaukea, El Samurai b Negro Casas, Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani b Kendo Ka Shin & Norio Honaga & Jushin Liger, Takashi Iizuka & Kazuo Yamazaki b Kazuyuki Fujita & Osamu Kido, Michael Wallstreet & NWO Sting b Manabu Nakanishi & Tadao Yasuda, Satoshi Kojima & Shinya Hashimoto & Kensuke Sasaki b Tatsutoshi Goto & Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Michiyoshi Ohara & Masahiro Chono & Keiji Muto b Akira Nogami & Kengo Kimura & Tatsumi Fujinami

10/29 Tijuana, Nortecalifornia (Promo Azteca - 3,500): Felino Salvaje & Shamu II & Bola de Huma b La Sombra & Sisne & Forastero, WWA middleweight title: Kiss b Pierroth Jr., Elimination match: Konnan & El Hijo del Santo & La Parka & Rey Misterio & Dandy & Lizmark Jr. & Super Calo & Hector Garza b Psicosis & Juventud Guerrera & Los Villanos IV & V & Damian & Halloween & Zandokan & Silver King

10/29 Yonezawa (WAR): Yoshikazu Taru b Shoichi Ichinomiya, Battle Ranger & Masao Orihara b Tadahiro Ishii & Yuji Yasuraoka, Nobukazu Hirai b Osamu Tachihikari, Abdullah the Butcher b Lance Storm, Genichiro Tenryu b Nobutaka Araya, Koki Kitahara & Arashi & Jun Kikuchi b Koji Kitao & Masaaki Mochizuki & Takashi Okamura

10/29 Ormond Beach, FL (Born to Ride Wrestling free show): Malia Hosaka b Monica Sanchez, Molly McShane b Starla Saxton, Vampire Warrior & Hack Myers b Sonny T & Lethal Weapon, Hosaka b Blayze, Luna Vachon & Warrior b T & Riptide

10/30 Tokyo Ota Ward Gymnasium (JWP Plum Mariko Memorial show - 2,500): JWP: Devil Masami & Tomoko Miyaguchi & Sari Osumi & Commando Boirshoi b Hikari Fukuoka & Tomoko Kuzumi & Kanako Motoya & Rieko Amano, Independent: Kyoko Inoue b Esther Moreno, Big Japan: Aya Koyama b Nana Fujimura, Social Pro Wrestling Federation: Chiharu b Misa Okada, JD: Chikako Shiratori & Yuki Lee b Yoko Kosugi & Miyuki Sogabe, IWA: Emi Motokawa b Sachie Nishibori, LLPW: Harley Saito b Eagle Sawai, FMW: Crusher Maedomari b Kaori Nakayama, AJW: Kaoru Ito & Nanae Takahashi b Kumiko Maekawa & Momoe Nakanishi, JWP handicap match: Cuty Suzuki & Dynamite Kansai b Mayumi Ozaki

10/30 Bahrain, Saudi Arabia (WWF): Thrasher b Phineas Godwinn, Henry Godwinn b Mosh, Ken Shamrock b Billy Gunn, WWF tag titles: Legion of Doom b Faarooq & Rocky Maivia, Tiger Ali Singh b D.Lo Brown, Ahmed Johnson b Kama Mustafa, Undertaker & Dude Love b Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart

10/30 Matsue (New Japan - 3,100): Norio Honaga b Shinya Makabe, Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Negro Casas, Kazuyuki Fujita & Osamu Kido b Yutaka Yoshie & Takashi Iizuka, Kendo Ka Shin & El Samurai & Jushin Liger b Prince Iaukea & Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani, Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi b Akitoshi Saito & Kuniaki Kobayashi, Akira Nogami & Kengo Kimura & Tatsumi Fujinami b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto & Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Michael Wallstreet & Keiji Muto b Tadao Yasuda & Shinya Hashimoto, Hiro Saito & NWO Sting & Masahiro Chono b Junji Hirata & Kazuo Yamazaki & Kensuke Sasaki

10/30 Plymouth Meeting, PA (ECW - 800 sellout): ECW title: Bam Bam Bigelow b Spike Dudley, Buh Buh Ray & D-Von Dudley b Chris Chetti & Mikey Whipwreck, Rob Van Dam b Jerry Lynn, Justin Credible b Tommy Rogers, ECW tag titles: Tracy Smothers & Little Guido b Paul Diamond & Al Snow, New Jack & John Kronus b Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney, ECW TV title: Taz b Chris Candido, Sabu won triangle match over Shane Douglas and Tommy Dreamer

10/30 Ushihisa (Big Japan): Shunme Matsuzaki b Gennosuke Kobayashi, Takashi Ishikawa b Yuichi Taniguchi, Masayoshi Motegi & Makoto Saito b Yoshihiro Tajiri & Tomoaki Honma, Kendo Nagasaki & Kishin Kawabata b Zumbido & Minoru Fujita, Great Pogo & Shadow WX (Satoru Shiga) & Shadow VII (Rocky Santana) b Great Nakamaki & Ryushi Yamakawa & Takashi Okano

10/30 Momoishi (Michinoku Pro - 239): Super Boy b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Mens Teioh b Masato Yakushiji, Jinsei Shinzaki b Magic Man, Gran Hamada & Tiger Mask b Pero Ruso & Yone Genjin, Great Sasuke & Super Delfin b Dick Togo & Shoichi Funaki

10/30 Akiruno (IWA): Tigre Oriental b Yoshiya Yamashita, Peluseus b Yuji Kito, Great Takeru b Tudor the Turtle, Akinori Tsukioka b Takeshi Sato, Leatherface & Freddy Kruger b Katsumi Hirano & Daikokubo Benkei, Dan Severn & Great Kabuki b Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda

10/30 Nashville, TN (Music City Wrestling TV tapings - 400/200 paid): Shane Eden b Bulldog Raines, Blaine Boudreaux & Debbie Combs b Terry Golden & Candi Divine, Shooting Starz (Troy Haste & Jerry Faith) b Grunge Boyz, Wolfie D b Brickhouse Brown-DQ, Colorado Kid b Bonecrusher (Scufflin Hillbilly), Nick Dinsmore b Jason Lee, Trailer Park Trash b Buddy Taylor, Frenchie Riviera (Keith Arden) b Bobby Bronze, Golden b Derrick King, Raines b Brackus (not WWF wrestler)

10/30 Deptford, NJ (NWA): Overweight Lover b Gino Caruso, Reckless Youth & Bobby G b Lost Boy & Evil Twin, Twiggy Ramirez b Dave Keller, Patch DCOR Lance Diamond, Rik Ratchett b Lupus, J.R. Ryder b Hellraiser, Ace Darling & Devon Storm b Harley Lewis & Derrick Domino-DQ, Icon b Salvatore Sincere

10/31 Hiroshima Sun Plaza (New Japan - 5,300 sellout): Yutaka Yoshie b Shinya Makabe, Black Cat & Norio Honaga b Negro Casas & Prince Iaukea, Tadao Yasuda & Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi b Kazuyuki Fujita & Takashi Iizuka & Junji Hirata, Survival singles matches: Kendo Ka Shin b Koji Kanemoto, Tatsuhito Takaiwa b Ka Shin, Jushin Liger b Takaiwa, Shinjiro Otani b Liger, Otani b El Samurai, 2/3 falls: Akitoshi Saito & Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi & Kengo Kimura & Tatsumi Fujinami b Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto & Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Michael Wallstreet, Keiji Muto & NWO Sting b Shinya Hashimoto & Kazuo Yamazaki, IWGP hwt title: Kensuke Sasaki b Masahiro Chono

10/31 Rochester, NY (WWF - 3,756): Brian Christopher b Scott Taylor, Recon & Sniper b Blackjacks, Marc Mero b Sultan, Jesse Jammes b Goldust, Kane b Vader, Jackal b Brackus, Crush & Chainz & Skull & Eight Ball b Savio Vega & Miguel Perez & Jesus Castillo & Jose Estrada Jr.

10/31 Stamford, CT (ECW - 1,000): ECW tag titles: Tracy Smothers & Little Guido b Mikey Whipwreck & Chris Chetti, Paul Diamond b Al Snow, Tommy Rogers b Roadkill, Justin Credible b Jerry Lynn, ECW title: Bam Bam Bigelow b Spike Dudley, Shane Douglas & Chris Candido b Phil LaFon & Doug Furnas, ECW TV title: Taz d Sabu, Flag match: Tommy Dreamer b Rob Van Dam, New Jack & John Kronus won three way dance over Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney and Buh Buh Ray & D-Von Dudley

10/31 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Big Japan): Shadow VII b Zumbido, Aya Koyama & Neftaly b Miho Kawasaki & Nana Fujimura, Tomoaki Honma b Gennosuke Kobayashi, Kishin Kawabata b Ryushi Yamakawa, Yoshihiro Tajiri & Minoru Fujita b Makoto Saito & Masayoshi Motegi, Kendo Nagasaki & Yuichi Taniguchi b Shunme Matsuzaki & Takashi Ishikawa, Street fight dry ice casket death match: Great Pogo & Shadow WX b Great Kojika & Great Nakamaki

10/31 Nagai (Michinoku Pro): Yone Genjin & Pero Ruso NC Wellington Wilkens Jr. & Tiger Mask, Genjin b Magic Man, Jinsei Shinzaki b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Kyoko Inoue b Tiny Mouse, Masato Yakushiji & Super Delfin & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke b Shoichi Funaki & Super Boy & Mens Teioh & Dick Togo

10/31 Odawara (IWA): Yuji Kito b Yoshiya Yamashita, Tudor the Turtle b Tigre Oriental, Emi Motokawa b Sachie Nishibori, Takeshi Sato & Katsumi Hirano & Keisuke Yamada b Peluseus & Great Takeru & Akinori Tsukioka, Daikokubo Benkei b Keizo Matsuda, Freddy Kruger & Leatherface b Dan Severn & Great Kabuki

10/31 Takasaki (All Japan women): Kaoru Ito b Miyuki Fujii, Miho Wakizawa b Fujii, Yumiko Hotta b Nanae Takahashi, Ito & Kumiko Maekawa b Takako Inoue & Momoe Nakanishi

10/31 Clarksville, TN (American Wrestling Federation): Thrillbilly b Death Row, Frenchie Riviera b Shane Morton, Bill Dundee b Moondog King, Sherri Martel DCOR Debbie Combs, PG-13 b Ken & John Arden

10/31 Hayward, CA (All Pro Wrestling): Chris Cole b Jason Clay, Chicano Flame b Rick Turner, Boom Boom Comini b Donovan Morgan, Vic Grimes b Tony Jones, Dic Grimes b Maxx Justice-DQ, Michael Modest NC Robert Thompson, Lady Brenda b J.R. Benson

10/31 Bayonne, NJ (Jersey All Pro Wrestling): Car Jacker b Rick Silver, Twiggy Ramirez & Trent Acid b Kid America & Nick Byrd, Ace Darling & Devon Storm b Chino Martinez & Big Papa Kane D, Joe Rules won Battle Royal, Pit Bull #2 b Rules, Bobby G b Billy Reale, Patch b Wreakin Havoc, Don Montoya b Flash Wheeler, Angel Diablo b Chris Kruger, Lucifer Grim b Tower of Doom, Homicide DDQ Jay Lover

11/1 Salem, VA (WCW - 4,939 sellout): Bill Goldberg b Bobby Eaton, Meng & Barbarian b Public Enemy, Raven b Scotty Riggs, Lex Luger & Diamond Dallas Page b Scott Hall & Konnan, Chris Jericho b Steven Regal, Steve McMichael b Villano IV, U.S. title: Ric Flair b Curt Hennig-DQ

11/1 Elizabeth, NJ (ECW - 1,557): ECW title: Bam Bam Bigelow b Chris Candido, ECW tag titles: Tracy Smothers & Little Guido b Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney, ECW TV title: Taz b Jerry Lynn, All Weapons legal: New Jack & John Kronus b Buh Buh Ray & D-Von Dudley, Paul Diamond b Chris Chetti, Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon b Mikey Whipwreck & Spike Dudley, Justin Credible b Tommy Rogers, Rob Van Dam b Al Snow, Sabu won triangle match over Tommy Dreamer and Shane Douglas

11/1 Knoxville, TN (Tennessee Mountain Wrestling - 3,087): World Famous Spoilers b James Blevins & Bryan Wayne-DQ, Paul Ray b Johnny Raynor, Ricky Rocket b Stan Lee, Don Wright & J.T. Coleminer b Memphis Mafia, Dirty White Boy b Jeff Anderson-DQ, Jimmy Golden b Anderson-DQ

11/1 Akita (Michinoku Pro - 458): Pero Ruso NC Wellington Wilkens Jr., Masato Yakushiji b Magic Man, Jinsei Shinzaki b Yone Genjin-COR, Great Sasuke & Super Delfin b Naohiro Hoshikawa & Tiger Mask, Super Boy & Dick Togo b Shoichi Funaki & Mens Teioh

11/1 Portland, OR (Portland Wrestling - 600): Confusion b Tony Cosinga, Chuck Gordy b Ritchie Magnett, Lou Andrews b Chad, Josh Wilcox b Bruiser Brian, Bart Sawyer b Matt Borne

11/1 Howell, NJ (USA Pro Wrestling - 860 sellout): Dr. Hurtz b Mr. Mystery, Pit Bull #2 b Moniker, Coach Costello b Metal Maniac, Devon Storm & Ace Darling b Harley Lewis & Derrick Domino, Cousin Luke & Kid USA b Reckless Bullies, Tommy Cairo b Manny Fernandez (original), ECW title: Bam Bam Bigelow b Salvatore Sincere, Tito Santana b Masked Superstar (Bill Eadie)

11/1 Nashville, TN (Music City Wrestling - 337): Thrillbilly b Grunge Boy Ratt, Nick Dinsmore b Frenchy Riviera, Bobby Brawnz b Grunge Boy Flea, Colorado Kid & Shane Eden b Trailer Park Trash & Billy Travis, Centerfolds b Shooting Starz, Wolfie D b Flash Flanagan

11/1 Winnipeg, Manitoba (Power Pro Wrestling - 257): Brother Midnite b Bobby Jay, Angel McEwan d Rex Roberts, Robby Royce b Adam Knight, Todd Myers b Spice Richards, Buster Brody & Bugsy Slugg & The Bully DCOR Jay Sledge & Skar Gibson & Paul Marcoux, Chi Chi Cruz b E.Z. Ryder

11/2 Norfolk, VA (WCW - 7,057): Meng & Barbarian b Public Enemy, Bill Goldberg b Bobby Eaton, Raven b Scotty Riggs, Chris Jericho b Steven Regal, Lex Luger & Diamond Dallas Page b Scott Hall & Konnan, Steve McMichael b Villano IV, U.S. title: Ric Flair b Curt Hennig-DQ

11/2 Nakayama (Michinoku Pro - 593 sellout): Wellington Wilkens Jr. b Masato Yakushiji, Tiger Mask b Magic Man, Jinsei Shinzaki b Naohiro Hoshikawa, Pero Ruso & Yone Genjin b Super Boy & Dick Togo-DQ, Mens Teioh & Shoichi Funaki b Great Sasuke & Super Delfin

11/2 Kawagoe (JWP): Tomoko Kuzumi b Sari Osumi, Rieko Amano b Aya Koyama, Commando Boirshoi b Tomoko Miyaguchi, Devil Masami & Hikari Fukuoka b Kanako Motoya & Cutie Suzuki, Mayumi Ozaki & Amano b Kuzumi & Dynamite Kansai

11/3 Philadelphia Core States Spectrum (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 15,366/13,155 paid): Chavo Guerrero Sr. b Lenny Lane, Disco Inferno b Jacquelyn, Eddie Guerrero & Dean Malenko b Rey Misterio Jr. & Steven Regal, David Finlay b David Taylor, Yuji Nagata b Psicosis, WCW TV title: Perry Saturn b Inferno to win title *1/4, Chris Jericho b Scott Hall, Battle Royal had no winner, Ric Flair b Alex Wright **1/4, Ray Traylor b Steve McMichael, Street fight: Steiners b Public Enemy **, U.S. title: Curt Hennig b Lex Luger-DQ 1/2*

11/3 Hershey, PA (WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings - 5,661 sellout): Aguila b Super Loco (Super Crazy) ***, Marc Mero b Savio Vega, Dog Collar match: Vader b Davey Boy Smith, Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes b Jose Estrada Jr. & Jesus Castillo 1/2*, Ken Shamrock b Shawn Michaels-DQ **3/4

11/3 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Kingdom - 2,160 sellout): Shunsuke Matsui b Minoru Toyonaga, Kenichi Yamamoto b Masao Orihara, Masahito Kakihara b Felix Lee Mitchell, Yoshihiro Takayama b Yuhi Sano, Kazushi Sakuraba b Greg Douglas, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Yoji Anjoh

Special thanks to: Jonathan Browning, Matt Langley, David Williamson, Bill Walkowitz, Adam Pennison, John DeGarmo, Ron Rivera, Marcus Watkins, Trent Van Drisse, Manuel Gonzalez, James Titus, Bert Prentice, Georgiann Makropolous, Marcus Watkins, Bill Needham, Vern May, Roland Alexander, Dominick Valenti, John Williams, Bob Barnett, Jesse Money

JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
9/28 FMW: The Kawasaki Stadium show aired on a two-week tape delay in digest form on the Samurai Channel. Most of the undercard matches were edited down to about 5:00, and the best match on the show, the tag match with Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Kenta Kobashi & Maunukea Mossman didn't air at all, nor was it even acknowledged, I guess as part of the deal with All Japan to get them to work the match. After seeing The Gladiator vs. Masato Tanaka's match, if the tag match blew away everything else on the card, which was the report from everyone that was there live, it must have been one hell of a match. Similarly last year when UWFI used Toshiaki Kawada at its Jingu Stadium show, the Kawada match was edited off the UWFI home video of the card. Some comments on what did air. The show opened with a Royal Rumble style Battle Royal that went 28:49 ending when Tetsuhiro Kuroda pinned Ricky Fuji after a thunder fire power bomb (which is the hot move in this promotion due to it being Onita's finisher). After the match Kuroda was presented with a check for 10 million yen ($85,000), so the ridiculous AWA monopoly Battle Royal money tradition (not that AWA was alone with the fake money Battle Royals, but they were the campiest doing things like $500,000 and even $1 million Battle Royals) long after the AWA has folded. The match appeared to be awful, with only the campy ring entrance of Mr. Pogo II with the bleached blond hair, zubaz, t-shirt and cane ala Sandman and a few spots by the Head Hunters being decent. Then came a womens tag match with Crusher Maedomari & Miss Mongol beating Kaori Nakayama & Miwa Sato in a bad match. Hisakatsu Oya & Mr. Gannosuke beat Gedo & Jado to keep the World Brass Knux tag team titles when Gannosuke pinned Gedo after a splash off the top rope in a good match. Shark Tsuchiya's win over Aja Kong was heavily gimmicked, with tons of outside interference by Maedomari & Mongol (wearing an EC F'n W t-shirt). Tsuchiya pulled out a large knife and was carving Kong's forehead up with it and she was bleeding puddles. At the end Tsuchiya sprayed the fire extinguisher in her eyes. The gimmickry probably hurt the match more than helped it. The loser leaves town (yeah, right) Terry Funk vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki match for the Texas title ended with Funk scoring a pin after a moonsault. Funk juiced heavily. Gedo & Jado were interfering frequently to help Fuyuki, which brought out the Head Hunters to help Funk, one of whom splashed Fuyuki off the top right before the finish. Based on the clips it appeared to be a good match. Ken Shamrock vs. Vader was heavily edited and then cut short due to Shamrock's injury, but no question they were the stiffest on the show, pounding the hell out of each other in a UWFI style bout except using more punches. Vader had noticeable swelling under the eyes and he was beating on Shamrock good as well. The match was suddenly stopped early when Shamrock was coughing up blood, but it appeared they were building toward what would have been a really good match. The next match was a show-stealer with Masato Tanaka winning both the Independent and Brass knux heavyweight titles from The Gladiator. Most of this match aired and it was a ****1/4 match. It's generally a fair comparison to make of ECW and FMW because of the style similarities and both being kind of the cult garbage promotions in each's respective culture. The first two matches on this show were like bad ECW, maybe even worse than that. This match was a lot better than any ECW match that has been on television in a long time. It had both the wrestling and the brawling going for it, not to mention some high risk spots by a large man in Gladiator and built well to boot. Tanaka is a good worker and Gladiator can do impressive things but usually doesn't work smooth matches, but they really clicked here. Gladiator did an awesome running dive over the top. They used two table spots, the second of which was Gladiator teasing his "Awesome bomb" over the top through a table, but Tanaka thwarted him twice and eventually threw Gladiator over the top with an Awesome bomb, and actually Gladiator went too far and landed at a bad angle on his neck on the floor but still broke the table and didn't appear to be injured. When they got back in the ring, after several near falls, Tanaka hit a third power bomb for the pin. The main event of Atsushi Onita vs. Wing Kanemura was notable more for the explosions than the wrestling. The bombs were bigger than ever before so it was an interesting spectacle to watch, but as far as wrestling went, with Kanemura going in with the broken leg and Onita being so limited in what he can do, there really wasn't much to it other than the spectacle. As mentioned before, if you've never seen it before, the explosive bomb matches are riveting, but Onita has now been doing them for years and they all pretty well look the same and go the same way.

10/5 ALL JAPAN: 1. Johnny Ace & Johnny Smith beat Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa in 14:24 when Smith pinned Ogawa with a reverse DDT. A run of the mill All Japan undercard match without much heat. *1/4; 2. Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. beat Toshiaki Kawada & Masao Inoue in 15:07 when Duncum pinned Inoue with a powerslam coming off the ropes. The finish was supposed to be a reverse DDT off the middle rope but Duncum totally blew the spot. Inoue worked most of the match taking punishment. Duncum's selling is a lot better since he started coming to Japan but his offense still isn't up to par. *1/4

10/10 MICHINOKU PRO WRESTLING: This was the group's biggest show of the year from Tokyo Sumo Hall, which aired the entire show in its entirety on the Samurai Network. Overall I'd rate it as a very good show. 1. Yone Genjin beat Magic Man in 1:53. Magic Man is actually a magician who did about a five minute performance before his match that the crowd seemed to like. Miss Mongol (FMW wrestler Aki Kanbayashi) managed Genjin. At one point Magic Man "put a spell" on Genjin to get a momentary advantage. Genjin came back and got a submission using a form of a torture rack. Magic Man can barely work but it was short and except for the silly spell, it was at least a passable short match. DUD; 2. Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada beat Chris Candido & The Convict in 13:55. Convict is Los Angeles indie wrestler Sergio Torres, who is better known with a different mask as Super Boy. First half of the match was slow, but it picked up halfway through and turned into a good match. Hamada, a few weeks shy of his 47th birthday, has to be the best worker in the business for his age as he was easily the best performer in this match. Convict did a lot of hot moves including a splash off the top, a second rope moonsault and an Asai-moonsault which he was actually wide left with. Candido also looked good. Finish saw Hamada use a Frankensteiner off the top on Convict. He then climbed to the top as if he was going to do a crossbody, but instead grabbed the head and planted him with a DDT almost like doing a Buff blockbuster but instead ending as a DDT, similar to the finish of the Chris Benoit vs. Shinjiro Otani cruiserweight tournament final in 1995. Finishing move was excellent. ***; 3. Satoru Sayama beat El Satanico in 6:38. The gimmick here was it was the first meeting between the two, who feuded in Mexico over the NWA middleweight title in the late 1970s, since 1980 when Satanico won the belt and Sayama left Mexico. Life has changed a lot since then. Satanico is certainly no middleweight, nor for that matter, is Sayama, who seemed embarrassed going to the ring to be doing Lucha Libre after all the shooting in his blood. Still, even at 39, Sayama is the quickest man as far as movement in the entire business. His kicks looked great. He missed a tope giving Satanico an advantage and Satanico carried the body of the match. Sayama delivered a DDT, which is an interesting story in itself. When Sayama was in his heyday, he introduced the move, at the time called a Tiger driver (a different move is now called the Tiger driver today), years before Jake Roberts used it and named it the DDT. It was actually a move out of Lucha Libre that Black Gordman used as his finisher in Texas in the early 70s. Anyway, finish came out of nowhere with no build as Satanico was doing an old-style wrestler choke and Sayama grabbed the arm and put it in the cross armbreaker for the submission. Sayama looked better than he usually does, but finish came out of nowhere and match was too short. *1/2; 4. Undertaker pinned Hakushi (Kensuke "Jinsei" Shinzaki) in 12:18. Undertaker was managed by Bruce Prichard, who as Brother Love, was his original manager before Paul Bearer was brought into WWF. Undertaker got a good, but not a great reaction. Match was slow-paced, as both work that kind of style, but everything was solid. Highlight was a spot where Undertaker went to deliver a choke slam, but Hakushi got so high that he flipped in mid-air and landed on his feet, but Taker delivered an enzuigiri. Hakushi worked on the knee. He used a pescado but Taker caught him and rammed his back into the post twice. After Hakushi missed a head-butt off the top, Undertaker used a choke slam for a near fall and a tombstone for the finish. **; 5. Super Delfin & Naohiro Hoshikawa & Masato Yakushiji beat Dick Togo & Mens Teioh & Shoichi Funaki in 18:44. Excellent match, although slightly below the level of their ECW match and well below the level of their match of the year at the same building on the same day last year. Delfin was really juiced up and it was his first match back so he was the focus. Teioh came out in a fur coat. Togo wore a shirt that read "Dick Mania" on it. Last 5:00 were the non-stop big moves, near falls and dives ending when Delfin used his Delfin clutch to pin Togo. ****1/4; 6. Great Sasuke beat Taka Michinoku in 28:21. Sunny was the ring announcer for this match and she did a great job, as she pronounces everything correctly and takes care in getting names and foreign cities and phrases down. Victor Quinones managed Taka. Masakatsu Funaki was introduced before the match and watched it from ringside. This was a very good match, but not as good as their Calgary or Edmonton matches. The problem was that they were trying to drag it out and try and do a 30:00 classic match when these guys are really at their best at around 15:00. As great a worker as Taka is, when he tried to do a match this long, you could see his weaknesses in comparison to the top All Japan wrestlers. In addition, Sasuke, although he did all his spots, is lacking fire probably because of the pain from all the injuries. Match was well laid out, as they started doing Vale Tudo style spots since Taka did one match this year with Pancrase. They next built to doing typical pro wrestling matwork and submissions. They built to working on Sasuke's knee. Then Taka blocked Sasuke's trademark spots. Finally they both hit their big moves, but the crowd never really got with it after the explosive previous match because of the length of this bout. They did all their hot moves, with Sasuke doing the Asai moonsault and Rider kick (which actually fell a little short). Taka did his jump on the top rope, then reversed his position on the top rope and moonsaulted off the top onto Sasuke on the floor. After several near falls, Sasuke used a german suplex for the pin. ***3/4

10/12 ALL JAPAN: 1. Mitsuharu Misawa pinned Steve Williams in 24:21 to retain the Triple Crown. Match was slow for the first 10:00 but picked up and turned into a good match. This wasn't at the level of some of their classic matches over the past few years nor what you'd expect from a Triple Crown defense, but that isn't unexpected either considering Williams was working a long singles match. Misawa got the pin after two Tiger drivers. ***1/4

10/18 NEW JAPAN: 1. Don Frye beat Kazuyuki Fujita in 6:02 with the choke and body scissors combination. This was interesting because they broke pro wrestling down to its simplest level, working a believable RINGS-type style in which simply not breaking clean on the ropes drew tremendous heat. Frye wouldn't break clean twice and got booed like crazy. Then when Fujita wouldn't break, the face pop was huge. These two work well together given the confines that the style would allow, especially if you consider that both are rookies and that this was only Frye's third major league pro match. **1/4; 2. Ogawa beat Brian Johnston in 11:14 with the STO (a quick judo takedown) and choke finish. Johnston had a good presence in the ring and pretty much controlled the early portion of the match which was decent. Johnston was good considering this was his first pro match, but Ogawa really isn't of any help and looked bad. Johnston was out there too long, seemed to blow up and the match fell apart in the last few minutes. Ogawa sold twice that Johnston had knocked him down which got the fans into the match and put Johnston over. Frye and Ogawa had a pull-apart stare down after the match. 1/4*; 3. Shinya Hashimoto beat Zane Frazier in 1:05 of the third round with a cross armbreaker submission. It was basically Hashimoto selling early to get the newcomer over. Frazier did a worked boxing gimmick but worked boxing looks pretty bad. In comparison to a RINGS match, which is what this should look like, it was bad. Frazier only took one hard kick, in the second round, and the pro wrestlers that Hashimoto "works" with take flurries. Finish was decent. 1/4*; 4. Great Muta & Masahiro Chono beat Kensuke Sasaki & Kazuo Yamazaki in the non-title match in 17:30. About 8:00 aired on television. This wasn't much wrestling, mainly all story. Chono accidentally hit Muta with a flying shoulderblock and Muta walked out. This left Chono, the heel, in a one-on-two situation. So Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Hiro Saito interfered freely and Chono hit Sasaki with a baseball bat and hit Yamazaki three times with a bat to keep the heat up and have it make sense that Chono had Sasaki in the STF when Keiji Muto ran out for the apparent save. Muto then attacked Sasaki instead of Chono over teasing he'd attack Chono. This was actually done a little too quick for maximum dramatic purposes. Muto ended up pinning Sasaki after a moonsault. Not much in the way of wrestling at all as the match was mainly just a backdrop for the one spot to lead to Keiji Muto as opposed to Great Muta being an NWO member for the NWO Typhoon tour. *1/2

10/19 ALL JAPAN: 1. Maunukea Mossman & Hayabusa beat Kentaro Shiga & Jun Akiyama in 18:12. This was a great match. In particular, Mossman is showing incredible improvement--he and Tatsuhito Takaiwa may be the most improved wrestlers of the past year. Hayabusa is flowing with this style a lot better as he gets more experience at it and the guys he's working with are fitting into his strengths as well. All four looked good. Very physical but also a lot of fast moves and flying moves building to the near falls and saves. Finally Hayabusa pinned Shiga after a firebird (450) splash. ***3/4; 2. Tag champs Ace & Kenta Kobashi beat Taue & Kawada in 24:16. Match was joined in progress. They worked on Kobashi's injured leg early. This built into an excellent match with the fast-moving high-impact near falls and dramatic kick-outs and saves. At one point all the lights went out momentarily, but this was just a building power outage rather than an angle that got a big pop. There were some incredible exchanges with Kobashi involved against both men. Finally Ace hit the cobra clutch suplex off the ropes but Taue kicked out. After two more cobra clutch suplexes, Ace scored a surprising pin on Taue. ****1/4

10/25 NEW JAPAN: 1. Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura & Akira Nogami beat Hiro Saito & Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto in 10:02. Only 3:15 aired on television and it looked okay, with Nogami pinning Goto with a german suplex for the finish. After the match, Goto & Ohara destroyed the Heisei Ishingun flag. Kimura & Nogami of HI looked mad while Fujinami didn't seem to care about the flag angle; 2. Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima & Hashimoto beat NWO Sting & Michael Wallstreet & Tenzan in 15:10. Only the last 4:30 aired. Tenzan had to carry the match for the heel side since Sting and Wallstreet didn't do much. Boy is juice plentiful in this promotion right now and I don't mean blood. Nakanishi racked Wallstreet for the submission. Below average; 3. Shinjiro Otani pinned Jushin Liger after a springboard leg lariat in 14:27. The last 8:00 aired on television and it was the expected outstanding match. Liger hit a plancha early. Otani did all his trademark spots, and then kicked out of a fisherman buster, a super fisherman buster and a palm thrust all of which looked to be the finish. Liger tried a superplex, but Otani reversed it in mid-air and crashed on him, and immediately hit a dragon suplex but Liger kicked out. ****1/4; 4. Muto & Chono captured the IWGP tag titles from Yamazaki & Sasaki in 24:23. The last 13:00 aired on television. It wasn't that greatly early in Sasaki in, but picked up, particularly toward the finish that was dramatic and heated. Sasaki had his knee worked over much of the match and was doing a great job of selling. At one point he went for his Northern Lights bomb on Chono but dropped him because the knee gave out. Chono used a low blow and STF and Sasaki did a tremendous job of teasing the submission and came up with one of the more dramatic rope break spots you'll ever see. They kept working on the knee, and Muto got the figure four on in the middle while Chono put Yamazaki in the STF. Sasaki "held on" forever hoping for Yamazaki to break out and save him until he "finally" couldn't take anymore pain and submitted. Finish was excellent. ***3/4

SEPTEMBER BUSINESS COMPARISONS
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION

Estimated average attendance 9/96 3,872*

Estimated average attendance 9/97 4,348* (+12.3%)

August 1997 5,359

Estimated average gate 9/96 $62,253*

Estimated average gate 9/97 $78,666* (+26.4%)

August 1997 $87,580

Percentage of house shows sold out 9/96 0.0*

Percentage of house shows sold out 9/97 5.9*

August 1997 26.3

Average cable television rating 9/96 1.4

Average cable television rating 9/97 1.9 (+35.7%)

August 1997 2.0

Major show 9/96 In Your House (15,000 fans/11,969 paid/$210,290/est. 0.48 buy rate/est. $960,000 PPV revenue)

Major show 9/97 Ground Zero (4,963 sellout/$82,228/est. 0.45 buy rate/est. est. $1.58 million PPV revenue)

Buy rate -6.3%; Overall event revenue +41.9%

*Overseas shows not included in average

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING

Estimated average attendance 9/96 3,454

Estimated average attendance 9/97 6,811 (+97.2%)

August 1997 5,224

Estimated average gate 9/96 $40,403

Estimated average gate 9/97 $132,561 (+228.1%)

August 1997 $88,535

Percentage of house shows sold out 9/96 0.0

Percentage of house shows sold out 9/97 20.0

August 1997 40.0

Average cable television rating 9/96 2.3

Average cable television rating 9/97 2.3

August 1997 2.3

Major show 9/96: Fall Brawl (11,300 sellout/10,714 paid/$153,914/Est. 0.65 buy rate/Est. $1.62 million PPV revenue)

Major show 9/97: Fall Brawl (11,939 sellout/11,024 paid/$213,330/est. 0.53 buy rate/est. $1.74 million PPV revenue)

Buy rate -18.5%; Overall event revenue +10.7%

ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING

Estimated average attendance 9/96 2,100

Estimated average attendance 9/97 2,300 (+9.5%)

August 1997 2,315

Estimated average gate 9/96 $65,100

Estimated average gate 9/97 $74,900 (+15.1%)

August 1997 $82,820

Percentage of house shows sold out 9/96 60.0

Percentage of house shows sold out 9/97 83.3

August 1997 20.0

Average television rating 9/96 2.0

Average television rating 9/97 2.8 (+40.0%)

August 1997 3.2

Major show 9/96: Budokan Hall (16,300 sellout)

Major show 9/97: Budokan Hall (16,300 sellout)

NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING

Estimated average attendance 9/96 6,110

Estimated average attendance 9/97 5,010 (-16.4%)

August 1997 12,625

Estimated average gate 9/96 $308,530

Estimated average gate 9/97 $205,260 (-33.5%)

August 1997 $899,975

Percentage of house shows sold out 9/96 100.0

Percentage of house shows sold out 9/97 55.6

August 1997 75.0

Average television rating 9/96 2.0

Average television rating 9/97 3.1 (+55.0%)

August 1997 4.0

PUERTO RICO
Very little new from here. The major weekend show was 11/1 in Humacao with Rey Gonzalez defending the Universal title against Dutch Mantel with the loser getting horse whipped, Carlos Colon vs. Razor Ramon (Rick Bogner) and Invader #1 vs. Shane of the Glamour Boys. There is a wrestler in the area called Lightning Kid.

Villano III, Pierroth Jr., Jerry Estrada, Mascara Sagrada, Tinielbas Jr. and Super Parka are headed here from 11/26 to 11/29. Tapes of both AAA and EMLL air in Puerto Rico and are very popular, although the shows are on a several month tape delay. The aforementioned names are all Azteca wrestlers, but all worked for AAA at one time. WWC specifically didn't want young high fliers, but instead veterans with years of television exposure and name value.

MEXICO
The Promo Azteca television show, which has been in a revolving time slot and some weeks doesn't even air at all, will be put in a regular Noon Central time slot on TV-Azteca over the next few weeks.

There are negotiations as a goodwill gesture to send Steele back from Promo Azteca to EMLL, pending the approval of Victor Quinones, Steele's manager, who has heat with EMLL over Paco Alonso pulling EMLL talent from WWF to WCW after agreeing to work with WWF. There are a lot of road shows that are joint promotions with both groups that are drawing well.

Arena Mexico on 10/31 started a five-week long "Copa Victoria" double elimination tournament which will involve Atlantis, La Fiera, Lizmark, Brazo de Plata, Tigre Blanco, Mr. Niebla, Shocker, Fantasma, Dr. Wagner Jr., Mascara Ano 2000, Universo 2000, Emilio Charles Jr., Apolo Dantes, Blue Panther, Black Warrior and Violencia.

Azteca's big show of the week was 10/31 in Ectapec with La Parka & Tinieblas Jr. & Hector Garza & Lizmark Jr. vs. Head Hunters & Pirata Morgan & Black Magic, Super Astro & Super Parka & Super Calo & Tarzan Boy vs. Jerry Estrada & Dandy & El Texano & Pantera del Ring, Super Muneco & Salsero & Torero & Pantera vs. Damian & Halloween & Ultimo Rebelde & Ultimo Guerrero and Venum & Mr. Aguila & Oro Jr. vs. Mosco & Super Crazy & Jurassico.

ALL JAPAN
The line-up for the tag team tournament shows was announced this past week. The tour opens on 11/15 at Korakuen Hall with Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr., Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. The Lacrosse & Johnny Smith, Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs. Blackjacks, Gary Albright & Steve Williams vs. Tamon Honda & Takao Omori and Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida. 11/16 at Korakuen Hall has Misawa's team vs. Kimala's team, Lacrosse's team vs. Williams' team, Hansen's team vs. Blackjacks and Hayabusa's team vs. Omori's team. 11/18 in Okayama has Misawa's team vs. Williams' team. 11/20 in Kobe has Kawada's team vs. Williams' team, Hansen's team vs. Hayabusa's team and Lacrosse's team vs. Blackjacks. 11/23 in Sendai has Misawa's team vs. Kobashi's team, Hayabusa's team vs. Kawada's team and Williams' team vs. Blackjacks. 11/25 in Aomori has Misawa's team vs. Hansen's team. The two biggest shows of the tour are 11/27 and 11/28 in Sapporo. The first night has Misawa's team vs. Hayabusa's team, Kawada's team vs. Kobashi's team and Williams' team vs. Hansen's team. The second night has Misawa's team vs. Kawada's team, Kobashi's team vs. Williams' team and Omori's team vs. Lacrosse's team. The last round-robin show is 12/3 in Niigata with Kobashi's team vs. Hayabusa's team, Misawa's team vs. Omori's team and Kimala's team vs. Lacrosse's team. It's really interesting in that the tag team tournament is traditionally the best drawing tour of the year, yet All Japan didn't book major cards in either Osaka or Nagoya as it always has in the past, for this tour, limiting really only the two Sapporo dates as major shows during the entire tournament tour, which says something about the decline of the promotion even with its TV numbers strong. The two top point-getters coming out of the round-robin meet in the championship match on 12/5 at Budokan Hall, which is All Japan's final show of 1997.

There continues to be a lot of rumors of a Tokyo Dome show next year headlined by Misawa vs. Kawada to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Nippon TV network.

10/19 TV did a 2.8 rating.

NEW JAPAN
Besides the Dome show, the biggest show of the week was 10/31 in Hiroshima before a sellout 5,300 fans for "NWO Sold Out," the final event of the NWO Typhoon tour, with Kensuke Sasaki beating Masahiro Chono in 22:10 with a Northern lights bomb to retain the IWGP heavyweight title. It was a pretty loaded up show, as NWO Sting & Keiji Muto beat Shinya Hashimoto & Kazuo Yamazaki when Muto pinned Hashimoto after a Frankensteiner off the top rope in 21:10, a best-of-three-fall match saw Heisei Ishingun team of Akitoshi Saito & Akira Nogami & Kuniaki Kobayashi & Kengo Kimura & Tatsumi Fujinami beat the NWO team of Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto & Hiro Saito & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Michael Wallstreet when Fujinami used the dragon sleeper on Ohara in the deciding fall. The other key event was a Survival Series of singles matches with the masked team of Jushin Liger & El Samurai & Kendo Ka Shin going against the younger upcoming stars Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa. It opened with Ka Shin vs. Kanemoto, with Ka Shin scoring the upset in 11:00. Takaiwa then came in and pinned Ka Shin in 59 seconds. Liger pinned Takaiwa in 5:06. Otani pinned Liger in 3:36 leaving Otani with Samurai, and Otani pinned him as well coming out as the ultimate survivor in 5:36. This was strange booking since Otani already has the J Crown, and was about to get the big win over Wild Pegasus at the Fukuoka Dome, so apparently they are trying to build him up big at this point. After the Dome show, in Otani's post match interview, he was building up Ka Shin (who beat him in a non-title match on 10/23 in Kumamoto) and Liger as his top contenders.

New Japan made some minor changes in the tag team tournament due to the injury to Marcus Bagwell. NWO Sting will now team with Hiroyoshi Tenzan. Tenzan was scheduled as the partner of Michiyoshi Ohara, so Ohara's new partner will be his regular partner, Tatsutoshi Goto. If anything, it makes this tournament even more boring.

10/18 TV did a 2.9 rating.

OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Largely an uneventful week. The biggest show was JWP's Plum Mariko Memorial show on 10/30 at the Ota Ward Gymnasium in Tokyo before 2,500 fans. JWP, Big Japan, SPWF, JD, IWA, LLPW, FMW and AJW all provided one undercard match with their talent, and there was also in independent match with Kyoko Inoue pinning Esther Moreno. JWP's second bout of the show was the main event, with Mayumi Ozaki losing in a handicap match against Dynamite Kansai & Cutie Suzuki in 13:29. Ozaki, who delivered the Liger bomb which knockout out Mariko who never awoke from it, said that Mariko was her spiritual partner in the match although she ended up losing.

Michinoku Pro Wrestling, which is said to be in very bad financial condition coming off the 10/10 show because getting Undertaker and Sunny for one date cost $60,000, was continuing its tag team tournament this week that ends on 11/9.

Big Japan ran Korakuen Hall on 10/31 with a Dry Ice casket street fight match with Great Pogo & Shadow WX (Satoru Shiga returning from a short Puerto Rican tour) beating Great Nakamaki & Great Kojika in the finals when Kojika was put in the casket with the dry ice.

Dan Severn's final two matches on his IWA tour were 10/30 in Akiruno teaming with Great Kabuki to beat Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda, and 10/31 in Odawara where Severn & Kabuki lost the main event to Freddy Kruger & Leatherface.

Bull Nakano, 29, showed up backstage at an AJW show this past week. Nakano has been out of action for a long time after reconstructive knee surgery but is about ready to return. She ballooned up to 265 pounds, said to be looking like Yokozuna at that weight, before she could resume training, but is now said to have trimmed down to 143 pounds which would be the lightest she's been probably since she was in her mid-teens.

On 10/23 at Korakuen Hall, there was an interpromotional deal to determine the dropkick champion of Japan as a television game show deal. They had 20 wrestlers from various different companies including womens promotions with the idea being the champion would be the wrestler who could throw the most dropkicks in a 45 second time limit. Michinoku's Super Delfin and All Japan's Kentaro Shiga wound up tying with 15 dropkicks each.

Atsushi Onita underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on 10/28, but will return on 11/15. They are setting up an Onita vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki "interpromotional" feud as Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado challenge Onita & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Hido for the FMW Street fight six man titles on 11/24 in Enan.

Kingdom ran Korakuen Hall on 11/3 drawing a sellout 2,160. The crowd was drawn largely with the idea that Nobuhiko Takada might make an appearance (he wasn't scheduled to wrestle) and it would be his first public appearance since the Gracie match. As it turned out, he was there, but stayed backstage. Hiromitsu Kanehara upset Yoji Anjoh in the main event with an armbreaker finish in 8:47. Felix Lee Mitchell, who was 0-2 in UFC with losses to Mark Hall and Ken Shamrock, made his pro wrestling debut losing on the undercard to Masahito Kakihara in 3:26.

Pancrase ran 10/29 at Korakuen Hall before a sellout 2,150 with Yuki Kondo beating Leon Dyke in the main event. Guy Mezger beat Kiuma Kunioku in 11:12, while Osami Shibuya beat John Lober via judges decision and Tra Telligman (who lost to Vitor Belfort in Belfort's first UFC match) made his pro wrestling debut going to a draw with Keiichiro Yamamiya.

HERE AND THERE
Jeremy Sumpter, the 22-year-old Maryland area indie wrestler who wrestled as Big E Sleaze, died on 10/26, passed away due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

The Dallas Sportatorium appears to have gotten at least a temporary reprieve. After news reports of its imminent demise, promoter Mike Blackheart on 10/24 told fans it wasn't a done deal and if enough noise was made, they may save the building. Even though the shows draw between 75 and 150 fans weekly, the remaining die-hards made enough noise and the building lease to wrestling was extended and the building won't be torn down.

In the battle for the old USWA territory, here's the latest on the scoreboard. USWA no longer exists, however Jerry Lawler is continuing to run one show per week at a casino in Mississippi to hold onto that deal for himself using himself (despite a no compete clause in his USWA contract), Brian Christopher and Spellbinder as the top stars. In Louisville, the battleground is between Kentuckiana, a group run by Mike Samples and Jerry Faith, and Ian Rotten's IWA. Both will be running on Tuesdays and Rotten will be putting together television for local promotion for the first time using Les Thatcher as his announcer. Samples' group will start running the traditional weekly shows at the Louisville Gardens and has the old USWA time slot. Between the weekly Gardens rent and time slot costs, that's an $1,800 nut per week. In Nashville, Bert Prentice's Music City Wrestling, which through a deal with former USWA syndicator Bill Behrens and the World Wrestling Federation, is taking over the old USWA syndication, is battling with a group called New South Wrestling headed by former Prentice wrestler Farren Foxx and local mainstay Tony Falk. Prentice taped television on 10/30 with a three-camera shoot for syndication, drawing 400 fans to the old Nashville Fairgrounds, about 200 paying $3 a head and the other 200 from about 1,000 freebies passed out around town. PG-13 are in for that group and Doug Gilbert returns this week after Japan. They drew 337 fans to a house show in Nashville two nights later. There is talk of using both Tommy Rich and Adrian Street this month and they are going to attempt to use the Harris Twins (Skull & Eight Ball in WWF) when they are home in Nashville for the holidays provided WWF gives the okay. This group debuts on 11/15 on WLMT, Ch. 30 in Memphis at 11 a.m., the traditional time slot of USWA, and will run its first show in the Memphis market at the Big One Expo on 11/28, and plans to run once or twice per month in Memphis.

Former University of Oregon tight end Josh Wilcox made his pro wrestling debut to tons of local publicity on 11/1 in Portland for Matt Osborne's Portland Wrestling promotion. Wilcox beat Bruiser Brian in the semifinal before about 600 fans, a little less than double their weekly average, and was said to have looked really green, particularly in his punches. Apparently he was never trained at all in throwing punches. Matt Borne vs. Greg Valentine was scheduled as the main event, but Valentine no-showed and Borne instead lost to Bart Sawyer. After borrowing money from a few people to get his life back together and return to wrestling, Billy Jack Haynes once again has disappeared.

We have a report of a Tennessee Mountain Wrestling show on 11/1 in Knoxville drawing 3,087 fans which would be incredible if it's true, as the only names on the show were Dirty White Boy, Jimmy Golden and Buddy Landel along with the return of Ron Wright's brother Don, who wrestled and later managed White Boy and was given credit for drawing the crowd.

Rey Misterio along with a local Mexican wrestler have taken out a promoters license for Oregon and are looking at debuting mid-month.

Perro Aguayo, Vampiro Canadiense, Atlantis and Dr. Wagner Jr. are scheduled to work 11/9 in Anaheim, CA at the Swap Meet.

There is a show called combat wrestling, which will likely be similar to the IWF or a Japanese amateur sport of the same name, that will debut on 12/13 in San Jose, CA.

The rap band Insane Clown Posse will wrestle on 12/18 for Stranglemania Live at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit which will also feature a womens thumb tack death match.

Crusher Kline, an Ohio-based indie wrestler is headed to Bremen, Germany for Otto Wanz November tournament in that city.

AWF on 11/14 in Wittman, MA and 11/15 in Woeburen, MA has Tito Santana and Jimmy Snuka, plus Killer Kowalski as a manager. 12/6 in Manchester, NH has Snuka.

Ron & Brent West's United Championship Wrestling in Cleveland, TN folded after a show on 10/23 citing problems with the fire marshall.

Eastern Wrestling Federation on 11/20 in Bethlehem, PA at Castle Hill Ballroom.

All Pro Wrestling returns to the Pacific Coast Sports Gym in Hayward on 11/7.

National Championship Wrestling on 11/22 in Red Lion, PA has Sunny, Missy Hiatt and George Steele.

Jason Harrison's EWA will be running 2/14 in London, England with Sabu, Rob Van Dam, Mikey Whipwreck and Dirt Bike Kid in a one-night tournament.

NHB
I finally caught a tape of the Vale Tudo from Brazil where Gary Goodridge beat Pedro Otavio in the finals with the supposed groin claw. Actually that report turned out to be untrue, as the finish was clearly Goodridge knocking Otavio silly with a knee to the head and then hit a flurry of punches on the ground. A few minutes earlier in the grueling match there was a spot where Goodridge was trying to maneuver himself out of a defensive position and stuck his foot into Pedro's trunks and tried to push off. After Goodridge won, there were loud Portuguese chants of "faggot" for that move, but the move was a few minutes before the finish.

11/30 in Sao Paolo, Brazil will be a tournament featuring U.S. amateur wrestling star Mike Van Arsdale in his first NHB match.

John Lewis vs. Rumina Sato was added to the 11/29 World Vale Tudo show at Tokyo Bay's NK Hall. The two met last year going to a 24:00 draw, although Lewis dominated the entire match which didn't have provision for judges decisions.

Dieuseul Berto remains in critical condition at Bayfront Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL after an auto accident on 10/4. He is able to hear, but can't respond and is on both a respirator and kidney dialysis. He's had four surgeries including for a crushed femur bone and pelvis.

ECW
Aside from the problem at the Plymouth Meeting, PA show, it was largely a series of good house shows over the weekend. Reports are that with guys like Jerry Lynn, Paul Diamond, Al Snow, Justin Credible, Phil LaFon, Doug Furnas (the latter two of who may have worked their final weekend here) and now Tommy Rogers working as regulars, the match quality underneath is solid. This keeps the brawls to the top of the show, so the cards don't get to where all the matches are brawls which makes the matches look too similar.

Rogers debuted this weekend, losing to Credible twice and beating Roadkill, and looked good particularly a hot finishing move.

Plymouth Meeting, PA drew a sellout of 800 on 10/30. The debut in Stamford, CT on 10/31 drew about 1,000. That show saw several of the wrestlers use their old Titan gimmicks for Halloween. Snow came out as Avatar holding his mask. Credible wore his Aldo Montoya gimmick. Jerry Lynn came out with a mask as Mr. J.L. Shane Douglas worked as Dean Douglas and Chris Candido as Skip, with Douglas doing a speech trashing Titan about what a marketing genius Vince was in regard to his failed Titan gimmick. Rob Van Dam dressed up as Sabu and looked remarkably like him. Heel ref Jeff Jones dressed as former heel ref Bill Alfonso. Blue Meanie & Super Nova came out as Big Daddy Fool and the Heartburn Kid, coming out to Michaels' music, with Douglas & Candido destroying them. They had a Tommy Dreamer vs. Rob Van Dam flag match which saw Dreamer win and proclaim Stamford as ECW country. Joey Styles, who lives in Stamford, gave heel announcer/manager Lance Wright a low blow.

Dreamer was limping real bad all week but continuing to work.

Sandman didn't appear at any of the shows resting his internal injuries. There was a lot of heat early in the week between Sandman and Taz stemming from interviews both have given. Sandman was mad at Taz for running down Tod Gordon as the mole trying to ruin ECW from the inside, so he ran down Taz, but since then everything has been worked out. The heat was more between Taz and former good friend Perry Saturn on the belief that Saturn was going to copy Taz' gimmick when he won the WCW TV title in Philadelphia. Although there were similarities in wearing the hood and mainly using suplexes and submissions, you couldn't really call it a copy of the gimmick.

11/1 in Elizabeth, NJ drew 1,557 fans with Sabu beating Dreamer and Douglas in a three-way dance on top.

On TV this week, Styles did a monologue about the Rude/Bigelow/Douglas situation as a spoof on Jim Cornette, holding up a tennis racquet at the end of his speech. TV matches from the ECW Arena aired with FBI beating New Jack & Kronus for the tag belts with Dudleys interference (3/4*), Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney beating Dudleys (1/2*), Furnas & LaFon losing to Candido & Lance Storm in a solid match (**3/4) and Taz and Van Dam going to a no decision with outside interference from Sabu, Alfonso, Dreamer, Beulah, Pit Bulls, Lance Wright and finally Bigelow. This wasn't as good as some of the previous matches between the two. (**1/2).

According to Japanese magazines, Great Sasuke has agreed to work dates on 11/14, 11/20-23, 12/26-27 and 1/10 in ECW before undergoing reconstructive knee surgery.

WCW
Tickets for the Hogan vs. Sting match on 12/28 at the MCI Center (22,000 capacity not accounting for television production kills) in Washington, DC go on sale 11/15 in the Baltimore/Washington area at $100, $35, $25 and $15. This is almost surely going to be the biggest first day, biggest crowd, biggest gate, biggest PPV revenue etc. in the history of the company. The Hogan vs. Piper cage match from Havoc drew a company record for buys and gross revenue on PPV, an estimated 300,000 buys (1.1 buy rate) and $3.52 million. For all the complaints about how bad the "Age in the cage" match was (and it surely was that bad), the job of those on top is to sell tickets and Hogan is still the man in this business. The job of the guys underneath is to give you good matches. Between that PPV buy rate and the ratings of "Escape from Devils Island," which did a 4.2 in its premiere making it among the most-watched made-for-cable movies ever, Hogan's internal power is as strong if not stronger than ever before. Diamond Dallas Page on Nitro said he was in one of the two main events of the biggest drawing PPV in wrestling history on Nitro, although every Wrestlemania from 1987-1996 did in excess of 300,000 buys as did many other WWF PPVs during that time period, and that's with a much smaller total universe of homes. WCW has had numerous shows draw a larger buy rate in the past, but not more buys because PPV is in more homes now than during the 80s peak period in wrestling. Not to downplay these numbers, because they are bigger numbers than Hogan drew with the likes of Vader and in the retirement match with Flair, and with all the mainstream hype earlier this year for Dennis Rodman.

The new revised line-up for the undercard of the Detroit PPV show (Detroit advance has topped $340,000) besides the three-ring Battle Royal is a U.S. title match with no DQ with Curt Hennig vs. Ric Flair, a TV title match with Perry Saturn vs. Disco Inferno, a cruiserweight title match with Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero and a rematch with Ultimo Dragon vs. Yuji Nagata. They were planning on doing Steve McMichael vs. Bill Goldberg, but that's questionable due to Goldberg's groin pull. It appears The Giant vs. Kevin Nash match has been nixed by Nash, as on the TV interviews Giant talked about meeting Nash in the Battle Royal but never mentioned a singles match. We've also heard that Nash isn't going to be back in the ring until Starrcade. There has been tons of hype about Larry Zbyszko vs. Scott Hall, but I don't think that'll be taking place until Starrcade either, but they may do some kind of gimmick match with Zbyszko vs. Eric Bischoff before then.

The political situation in 1998 is going to be incredibly weird with Sting, Hogan, Flair, Bret, Piper, Savage, Hall and Nash all under one roof fighting for creative control so to speak. With the seven figures plus freed in the WWF talent budget by Hart leaving, don't be shocked to see members of the aforementioned cast who don't survive at the top of the hill to start looking to see if they can find the top of a different hill.

Nitro on 11/3 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia drew 15,366 (13,155 paying $219,323; $102,233 in merchandise). The show opened with two dark matches that didn't get over at all with the crowd. The legendary Chavo Guerrero Sr., at the age of 48, was brought in and beat Lenny Lane in a slow match although Chavo did use his moonsault block as his finisher. Chavo Sr. hasn't wrestled regularly in many years and it showed, and new fans have no clue about a guy whose heyday was the mid-and-late 70s. Disco Inferno beat Jacquelyn with the stone cold stunner. This didn't get over at all. After the match Harlem Heat destroyed Disco. TV show started with Eddie Guerrero & Dean Malenko beating Rey Misterio Jr. & Steven Regal in one of those AAA-type Parejas Increibles type matches. Misterio Jr. was awesome. It ended with Guerrero power bombing Rey, but as he climbed up for the frog splash, Malenko tagged his back and jumped in and got the submission with the cloverleaf in 3:52. Really this was the only good match of the entire show. They announced Roddy Piper suffered nerve damage in the face in the Havoc post-match to explain why he won't be on TV for the next few weeks. David Finlay pinned David Taylor with a tombstone piledriver in 2:59. Finlay is a great worker within his element since he's really solid but not flashy. He's not the kind of guy that'll get over in this country doing 3:00 matches. Bischoff did an interview saying the entire NWO including Hogan and Nash would be at Nitro next week and that he'd have a surprise announcement. He really ran down Vince McMahon and the USA network for trying to steal the thunder of "Escape from Devil's Island" and programming the Survivors flashback on the same night, and in a shoot, crowd about the rating saying that if it beat a 4.0 (which it did) that they promised to make a series out of it. Actually in trade journals they were already advertising that they were filming 23 episodes of the show, called "Shadow Warriors," starring Hogan and Carl Weathers and trying to sell the show overseas. Yuji Nagata beat Psicosis with the Nagata lock in 3:50. After the match Sonny Onoo put a 100 peso bill on Psicosis as severance pay. Mike Tenay explained what an insult that was because it's only worth $13. Then Larry Zbyszko ruined the entire angle saying that you could live in Mexico City for two years on $13. Raven did another interview. One inside rib was talking about sitting next to Teresa Hays in the third row at school. That's the real name of Beulah McGillicuddy. Perry Saturn won the TV title from Disco Inferno in 6:38 with a form of an armbar submission. Saturn was told not to do any high flying. His knee is clearly not 100% and his offense consisted of suplexes and submissions with no playing to the crowd. It didn't come off as a copy of Taz as ECW people had been talking all week about, but it was totally different than how Saturn used to work. Match wasn't good. Scott Hall came out wearing a tag title. I guess the angle is that Hall & Nash are going to proclaim themselves as the real tag champs since they never lost the titles and bought themselves belts. Hall then lost to Chris Jericho clean in 2:41 of a good surprise finish, and then beat him up after the match. Seems like we just saw that angle with Hector Garza. Larry Zbyszko made the save and challenged Hall to a match but of course Hall didn't accept. Mike Tenay did his final Lucha feature, explaining the names and illustrating 10 or 11 of the more prevalent moves of Lucha Libre. Now there's no excuse for announcers not to know what those moves are. This was an excellent feature. They did a Lucha Battle Royal which went nowhere for a few minutes until The Giant came out and destroyed everyone. Ric Flair beat Alex Wright with the figure four in 7:44 of a decent match. Ray Traylor pinned Steve McMichael in 4:44 of a really bad match. McMichael was distracted by Bill Goldberg for the finish, although it came off really bad. Steiners beat Public Enemy in a street fight when Scott pinned Grunge outside the ring in 5:35. Grunge went through two tables when Rick moved, or at least was supposed to move as he nearly lost his ear not getting out of there in time. Finally Curt Hennig beat Lex Luger via DQ in 10:26 when Flair attacked Hennig. Luger was mad at Flair for costing him his U.S. title match and the two had words as the show went off the air.

11/3 ratings saw Nitro do a 3.92 rating (4.28 first hour' 3.68 second hour) and 5.73 share for a show without Hogan, Savage, Piper, Sting or Nash to Raw's 2.63 rating (2.53 first hour; 2.73 second hour) and 3.96 share. The Nitro replay did a 1.57 rating and 3.28 share.

It was the typical pattern, with Nitro peaking from 8:45 to 9 p.m. before Raw and football started with Disco vs. Saturn and a Flair interview. Raw showed small growth (2.5 to 2.7) when Nitro went off the air even though it was Los Boricuas vs. Bad Ass & Road Dog, and peaked at 2.9 for Michaels vs. Shamrock. In the head-to-head segments, WCW drew a 3.68 to WWF's 2.57.

For 10/28, "Escape from Devils Island from 8 to 10 p.m. drew a 4.2 rating, from 10 p.m. to midnight the replay drew a 2.5 rating and from midnight to 2 a.m. another replay did a 1.1 rating. No doubt the hype from the previous night regarding the Hogan/Sting contract signing led to the gap between that and the USA network counter-programming that night. The WWF's Survivor Series flashback from 8 to 9 p.m. did a 2.8 rating, and from 11 p.m. to midnight the replay did a 1.1 rating.

House shows over the week saw the Saturday Night tapings on 10/28 in San Bernardino, CA draw a sellout 2,539 paying $35,554, a house show on 11/1 in Salem, VA drew a sellout 4,939 paying $86,745 and 11/2 in Norfolk, VA drew 7,057 paying $129,595. Flair vs. Hennig worked on top in both of the house shows.

Eric Bischoff had a meeting in San Diego with Armando Espinoza, who promotes WWO Lucha Libre shows in California about trying to get a WCW show on Telemundo (a spanish language TV network in the U.S.) for eventual quarterly Lucha Libre PPV shows similar to When Words Collide in 1994, and also promoting Lucha Libre shows under the WCW banner in strong Latin markets in the U.S. It's kind of funny that there was so much heat over the wrestlers working for Espinoza because supposedly of the fear of injury working outlaw shows, but at the same time Bischoff was negotiating to lease the wrestlers to work those same shows.

All of the Mexican wrestlers signed two-year contracts this week, and were all drug tested (given the nature and climate of the industry this week you can probably read into that) with the exception of Misterio Jr., who is still negotiating a new price. Not sure exactly what the deal is regarding them working in Mexico. They are all definitely not allowed to work indie dates in the U.S. It appears WCW doesn't want Konnan or Misterio Jr. to work Mexico at all, but that may not be finalized and they may be interested in working maybe two television tapings per month just to keep their names on top in the market. My belief is the others are all able to continue working in Mexico provided WCW gets first priority on the dates and that WCW gets a commission on their Mexican bookings.

Gedo was supposed to work first with Misterio Jr. and later with Lizmark Jr. on the 10/27 Nitro. The Misterio Jr. match was changed when they realized that they had flown Malenko in from Florida and he wasn't booked on any of the three West Coast shows so they put him in with Misterio Jr. Gedo-Lizmark was then scheduled but canceled as the show went on due to the Zbyszko-Hall segment on that show running long. A correction from last week, Gedo's real name is Keiti Takayama and not Akiyama. Gedo beat Psicosis at the Saturday Night tapings.

Marcus Bagwell is expected out for another three to five weeks after he had his meniscus removed from his knee.

Bill Goldberg is out of action suffering a groin pull over the weekend although he did a run-in at Nitro.

The results of the MRI on Syxx's neck were pretty bad as he had more damage than originally thought. He'll be out of action for a while.

Diamond Dallas Page reportedly had blood in his urine but he didn't miss any matches.

Kimberly also knocked heads with another Nitro girl doing a routine that was badly timed in San Diego, but she was also back on 11/3.

Other weekend numbers saw Main Event at 1.3, Saturday Night at 2.3 and Pro at 1.4.

Southern California indie Christopher Daniels should be getting a look-see.

John Nord & Barry Darsow worked the Saturday night tapings as a tag team.

To show just how ridiculous the treatment of the Mexican wrestlers has become, at the Saturday night tapings, Hector Garza had to put over Kendall Windham.

House shows this coming weekend in both Kansas City and Springfield, MO are already sold out, and the advances for Nitros in Buffalo (more than 10,000 tickets sold) and Cincinnati are through the roof.

WCW will book three dome shows in the early part of next year for Nitros--the Alamo Dome in San Antonio; Georgia Dome in Atlanta and Superdome in New Orleans, although all will be scaled for basketball arena seating (20,000 range) as opposed to opening up the full dome like New Japan does.

The first group of EMLL wrestlers, likely being Atlantis, Emilio Charles Jr. and Dr. Wagner Jr. are expected to debut on 11/10 in Memphis.

Lots of rumors about Scotty Riggs eventually joining Raven's nest.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported this week that the WWF's federal lawsuit against WCW was thrown out of court, but that was incorrect. The actual story is WCW had filed a suit against WWF for using the term Canadian Stampede for its July PPV being too close to WCW's Spring Stampede. The issue was settled out of court for no money, but with the proviso that WWF wouldn't use the name Canadian Stampede in the future.

Through an internet letter, Diamond Dallas Page was able to raise about $1,000 for the family of Brian Pillman.

WWF
The latest on Steve Austin is that he's working but doing very little. For example, in a dark match in Hershey on 11/3, he was in an eight-man tag and only tagged in once. He is going to wrestle Owen Hart at Survivor Series, and work mainly in tags and gimmick matches in November, but it'll be very limited in what he actually does. The word he's been getting from specialists hasn't been positive but it has to be hard to give it up when one is at the peak of his career and on top of the profession. It's going to be interesting to see how long on television they do these gimmicks where they tease he's going to wrestle but he never actually does wrestle.

Raw is talk on 11/3 in Hershey, PA drew a sellout 5,661 fans paying a city record $106,904 gate. The new deal is that Jim Ross and Jim Cornette announce the first hour, and they switch to the Ross, Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler trio for hour number two. There was no Cornette editorial simply because the show was booked with so many interviews but not as a sign they are dropping the feature. Show opened with Austin interview, and Ahmed Johnson came out to challenge him and Austin accepted for later in the show. Aguila (Mr. Aguila) debuted in the light heavyweight tournament pinning Super Loco (Super Crazy aka Histeria) in 5:11. Aguila was really green when it came to transitions because he's so inexperienced, but he may be in time the best high flier ever. His acrobatics were off the charts to the point people were blown away. Basically some missed spots and some incredible spots, including a space flying Tiger drop by Loco, a moonsault from the top rope to the floor by Aguila and a tope con hilo the likes of which have never been seen in this country before. The rest of the tournament was announced with Devon Storm vs. Taka Michinoku on 11/10 in Ottawa, ONT, and the rest of the first round will be Eric Shelley vs. Jerry Lynn and Brian Christopher vs. Flash Flanagan. Obviously the semis will be Taka vs. Aguila and Christopher vs. Lynn, and the final is just as obvious. Overall the tournament after all the waiting has to be considered a disappointment with only one true international star. Expect the WWF to sign Aguila and probably Pantera as well to a contract. Goldust & Marlena did an interview with an about face, as it was Goldust who said he didn't love Marlena anymore, was walking out of the marriage and had found someone else. The original plan was for Goldust to be the sympathetic character, but I guess since Pillman was such a part of the deal, they went in the other direction. After hyping the segment as Marlena talking about her 30 days with Pillman, Pillman's name, after lots of heat during the week about using that name to draw ratings again, was never even mentioned in the angle. The acting in this segment was just awful. Johnson came out for his match with Austin, but instead Kane came out and destroyed Johnson with two tombstones. Mankind then bent a steel rod on Kane's face, who sold it like he was shot, but then sat up like Undertaker. Austin came out and laughed about Johnson getting beaten up saying he'd have given him a worse beating. The NOD came out, followed by the LOD, and in the brawl, Austin gave Kama the stunner and left. Michaels & Helmsley did an interview. Fans chanted "Shawn is Gay," so he kissed HHH on the lips. He went to kiss Chyna but she didn't seem to like the audible. Michaels wanted to say he was God, as a spoof on Hogan's interview from last week, but HHH covered his mouth as a tease of not letting him say it and saying to be God you have to be as old as God and talked about the "Age in the Cage" match. Slaughter came out, and they put on helmets with windshield wipers on them. Slaughter ordered Michaels to wrestle Shamrock later in the show. In the latest in tackiness, they showed a mad Mero going into Sable's dressing room when she didn't have her top on yet and dragging her out, with her hands basically covering up her boobs. Mero beat Savio Vega with a low blow and the diamond cutter, called TKO, at 2:32. Michael Cole tried to interview Sable, but Mero drug her away mad while she was trying to wave to the fans. I guess there's no such thing as a good relationship in this profession. Vader beat Bulldog in a dog collar match in 3:35 dragging him around, and then Team Canada attacked Vader until Steve Blackman as a fan made the save. Team Canada began stomping Blackman until Vader covered him up to protect him. Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes beat Jose Estrada Jr. & Jesus Castillo in 5:22 of a bad match. Finale saw Shamrock beat Michaels via DQ when Rude and HHH interfered after the ref missed Michaels tapping out from an ankle lock, so the idea is that Shamrock has made both Hart and Michaels tap out in successive weeks as a way to elevate him to the top level. It was a good match, except Michaels was calling spots so loud you could actually pick them up on TV, and there were two badly mistimed spots, one of which Michaels was almost laughing about. After the match HHH gave Shamrock a Pedigree on the briefcase.

Goldust suffered a broken hand in three places in a 10/31 match with Neidhart but will be working this weekend. On television they are going to blame it on him punching the wall after the angle in the studio.

Patriot's doctor recommended that he retire because his tricep tears appear to be a chronic problem. Current feeling is that he'll undergo surgery and be out three to six months.

Danny Hodge, as part of the legends segment from Tulsa, was introduced by Jim Ross as the greatest wrestler this country has ever produced, which isn't far from the truth. Probably any listing of the best American wrestler ever would start with the names Dan Gable, Danny Hodge and Bruce Baumgartner and maybe Robin Reed.

11/15 in Madison Square Garden has Taker vs. Austin vs. Michaels vs. Bret in a four-way, Vader with George Steele in his corner vs. HHH, LOD defend vs. Owen & Bulldog, Johnson vs. Faarooq street fight, Goldust vs. Vega, Dude vs. Perez, Shamrock vs. Maivia, Bangers vs. Gunn & Jammes and a six-man minis match.

11/16 in Baltimore has Bret vs. Taker vs. HHH in a triangle for the title, Austin & Dude vs. Owen & Bulldog, Johnson vs. Faarooq.

11/22 in Greensboro has Taker vs. Michaels casket match, Austin & Dude vs. Owen & Bulldog, Johnson vs. Neidhart, LOD vs. Gunn & Jammes for the belts, Shamrock vs. HHH, DOA vs. NOD, Taka vs. Christopher, Mero vs. Vega and Vader vs. Kane (that program already started at house shows this weekend with Kane going over as he will go over everyone to get him over as the new monster heel). 11/28 in Cleveland has Taker vs. HHH casket match, Austin & LOD vs. Bret & Owen & Bulldog street fight, Johnson vs. Neidhart, Shamrock vs. Vega, DOA vs. NOD, Dude vs. Miguel Perez, Bangers vs. Jammes & Gunn, Mero vs. Sultan and Vader vs. Kane. 11/29 in Boston at the Fleet Center has Taker vs. Michaels casket match, Austin & LOD vs. Bret & Owen & Bulldog street fight, Shamrock vs. HHH, Johnson vs. Neidhart, Vader vs. Kane, Dude vs. Vega, NOD vs. DOA, Mero vs. Sultan, Bangers vs. Gunn & Jammes.

Weekend house shows saw 10/31 in Rochester, NY drew 3,756 and $52,113, 11/1 in Utica, NY drew 3,147 and $50,634 and 11/2 in Binghamton drew 3,177 and $52,012. These were all "B" team type shows since most of the stars worked the Middle East tour and were given the weekend off to rest up for television in Hershey, with the exception of using Austin in short main events.

PPV and TV tapings in late December and early January are Raw tapings on 12/29 at Nassau Coliseum and 12/30 in New Haven, CT, another Raw on 1/12 in Hamilton, ONT, Rumble on 1/18 in San Jose, tapings 1/19 in Fresno and 1/20 in Davis, CA. Other major market dates are 12/26 in Milwaukee, 12/27 at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago, 1/4 in San Antonio, 1/10 in Madison Square Garden, 1/16 at the Anaheim Pond and 1/25 at the Core States Center in Philadelphia.

The WWF's One Night Only PPV from all accounts did a disappointing buy rate. Sky Channel would only say the figure was "not as high as we had hoped." To make matters worse, Telewest Cable, the largest cable system in the UK didn't carry the event so it was primarily available only to dish owners.

Weekend ratings saw Live Wire at 1.4 and Superstars at 1.8.

THE READERS PAGES
PILLMAN

Let me take this time to compliment you on some excellent recent articles. Your coverage of the death of Brian Pillman was outstanding. You took the time to detail his life, from his struggles with cancer as a child, to his hard work in becoming an All-American defensive lineman to his entire wrestling career. Like the majority of fans, I only knew of Brian Pillman from his various wrestling personas. Your writing showed the real man. I realize that most people don't take pro wrestling seriously, but your writing could have been published in any mainstream periodical as a portrait of a man who struggled from the start of his life and it can be said that those struggles also resulted in his death.

I also want to compliment you on an article you did several months ago on the death of Joanie Weston. I didn't watch much Roller Derby but I can recall that as a child seeing my grandparents watching the San Francisco Bay Bombers on Sunday afternoons. It was a great tribute to a women who was a sports star long before Title IX.

Ronald Lancaster

VON ERICH

I'm a 16-year old pro wrestling fan who has read the Observer for just over two years. I think your coverage and analysis is a level above any other publication or any sort in this business. I furthermore believe the Observer is still going to be the future for intelligent wrestling fans because you are a notch above anything else out there. I'm writing after reading the letter from John Kashmer in the 10/27 issue. He talked about how angry he was that you wasted a number of pages on the death of Fritz Von Erich and other deaths. I couldn't disagree more. I didn't have the opportunity to see a lot of the earlier generation of American wrestlers. I think the purpose of newsletters such as the Observer is to allow readers to understand the wrestling business. You can get factual information anywhere. What you do is put everything into context. Thus, when you have stories like the one on Fritz Von Erich or the history of New Japan wrestling, you give readers an opportunity to understand the past. If you don't understand where the industry has come from, you can't fully understand what the industry is. Your historical articles are one of your best features. I wasn't around for most of what you are writing about, but I think that only makes those issues that much more valuable to me. It's just another piece of the puzzle in my attempt to have a comprehensive understanding of the wrestling world. Getting rid of such pieces would take away from what makes the Observer so useful. Keep up the fine work on historical information. Unlike the plans for next weeks PPV show, that information will never become irrelevant.

Todd Martin

Bethesda, Maryland

MICHAELS

I realize that the sports and entertainment industries are the home of some of the biggest egomaniacs on the face of the Earth, yet there is one man who takes the cake--Shawn Michaels. First, let me state that I believe he is one of the best workers on the scene. He's worked very hard to get where he's at. I remember watching him as a jobber for Kimala in Texas, his days as AWA tag team champion with Marty Jannetty and later his WWF days as the Rockets. I never thought he'd evolve into the main eventer he's become. In many ways, he truly is the main event and the show stopper. He's had many great matches with Bret Hart, Razor Ramon, Diesel, Mankind and most recent The Undertaker. Actually he's had good-to-great matches with almost every opponent. Yet, it is his on-camera persona and what I believe is his true personality that is downright repulsive.

In today's climate, I realize shoot interviews are in vogue. Most of the shoots are just works. So he now has free reign to be himself. Here are just some points of Michaels behavior that nauseate me:

1) He rarely does jobs. Bret Hart, Steve Austin, Undertaker, Road Warriors, Scott Hall and even Hulk Hogan have all done jobs of late, but Michaels doesn't.

2) When some fans didn't react to him as a babyface, he would break character on them to resort to vulgarity to them instead of remaining in character, even when he was on television.

3) By breaking kayfabe in his Madison Square Garden curtain call, he showed his total lack of respect not only to the company but to the wrestling business that has made it possible for him to have such a great living and live a lifestyle he wouldn't be able to obtain elsewhere

4) His agenda seems to only to worry about himself and his friends. When he doesn't get what he wants, he cries about it.

What he needs to realize is that he didn't make the wrestling business. It made him. Just like Nash and Hall. If it wasn't for Vince McMahon's creativity, none of them would be anywhere near their current status. As for Michaels' future dream of going to WCW, I just can't imagine how any company could squeeze all those big egos into one backstage area.

Joe Zanolle

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

PWI

I'm sure by now you've seen the PWI Top 500. A friend of mine and I were goofing on it pretty hard. "Hey, you know, Bart Gunn's way better than Dory Funk Jr. It must be true, they wrote it." Dean Malenko is a tremendous talent, but No. 1? I was shocked that they actually placed Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada and Kenta Kobashi in the top 15 but that same top 15 included Diamond Dallas Page, Lex Luger, The Giant and The Undertaker. Okay, Page has improved to the point where I could see him being in maybe the top 50. Undertaker is probably the most over gimmick performer ever. The Giant? Let's see in five years. But Lex Luger as the No. 5 wrestler in the world was way too funny to the point of being sick. Think about it. Year in and year out he's always been pushed and only the densest marks buy it.

As much as I mark out for ECW, in their employ is absolutely the worst wrestler I've ever seen. Big Dick Dudley blows up picking his nose. Crush and Jim Duggan can now look in the mirror and say, "Hey, at least I'm not the worst wrestler in the world." Mercifully they placed Taka Michinoku ahead of this tie-die wearing refrigerator.

Pat Crocker

Newport, Rhode Island

ONE NIGHT ONLY

The show would be best described as a good house show with a title change in the main event. There wasn't a real special feeling. The crowd was the typical British crowd, mixed reactions for the Hart Foundation but mainly positive. Bulldog got a good pop. Patriot was booed out of the building. The first six matches all had clean finishes. During the free-for-all, Shawn Michaels did a hilarious interview with Sunny which, to say the least, was risque. Most of Jerry Lawler's British material was typically lame.

Jonathan Browning

Mid Glamorgan, United Kingdom

The card came off as one of the better WWF shows of the year with the fans given all the fireworks and trappings of a U.S. PPV, the commentary team of Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler and a title change which sent shock waves around the arena. The commentary on the show was good throughout despite Lawler's continual attempts to injerect English phrases. Shawn Michaels drooled all over Sunny on an interview. Overall a thumbs up with a really good top half of the card. No hitches and the show came across just as good on tape as it was live. The crowd was red hot.

Martin Cox

Norfolk, United Kingdom

MISAWA

I have some comments about the recent Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jun Akiyama Triple Crown match. Of the 22:00 on television, there was less than one minute of submissions used. The psychology of the match came from dangerous back suplexes and released german suplexes, which is a much tougher style than before. Over the past year and in Misawa's title defenses, it appears he takes over and dominates his opponent the last four or five minutes of the match before he finally finishes him off. The conventional wisdom usually is that the challenger hits big moves near the end to build up to the finish. With this current title reign, they are building Misawa as the invincible champion and I can't foresee anyone beating him in the near future.

The talent losses in All Japan have been devastating plus the sudden decline of Steve Williams, Stan Hansen and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi. But the biggest loss of all was Jumbo Tsuruta. At that time he was ill, he was still capable of main eventing for a few more years. The six-man tags used to be the stalwart of the promotion with nightly four-star matches. Now it's surprising to see three or four a year. The biggest loss is that he could have gotten some of the other talent over like he did when Misawa pinned him for the first time.

A couple of points for the upcoming Observer awards. A lock for Most Improved has to be Tatsuhito Takaiwa. I had never seen him in a three-star match before this year, but he's been in numerous four-star matches in 1997. Two early darkhorse candidates for Wrestler of the Year are Koji Kanemoto and Jun Akiyama. Just about every singles and tag match these two have been in has to be considered among the best matches in their respective promotions.

Craig Collins

Ansonia, Connecticut