WWF: Just days before the Rock Bottom PPV show, there is no finalized card other than Austin vs. Undertaker buried alive, Rock vs. Mankind for the title and Goldust vs. Jarrett with Goldust or Debra McMichael stripping in the middle of the ring depending upon who lost. It's a virtual certainty there will be a tag title match with Outlaws vs. Shamrock & Bossman. The eight-man gimmick match with Oddities & Luna vs. ICP & Head Bangers will be changed somewhat since ICP quit the promotion. They were mad about their role and apparently put up a big fuss about having to take the stunner from Austin on TV. Nobody was exactly sorry to see them go, although they did get a TV commercial for their CD on Heat once before they left. It may wind up with Oddities & Luna vs. Bangers & Singh & Babu, but that isn't a certainty either

The latest estimates for the Survivor Series PPV are a whopping 1.45 buy rate, which would be a $6.44 million company gross, a figure that will trail SummerSlam just slightly. That more than doubled what WCW drew one week later for World War III. In 1997, the top five grossing PPV shows were all WCW. In 1998, WWF will have three of the top four

The only domestic show of the past week was the Raw tapings on 12/1 in New Haven which drew a sellout 7,154 paying $150,511 and $49,450 in merchandise or $6.91 per head. It is expected that every show in December will wind up being sold out. Besides MSG being about 2,000 out with nearly three weeks to go and Christmas being one of the two best weekends traditionally for late business, Chicago on 12/26 was at 14,799 tickets and $320,115 which is almost guaranteed as an eventual sellout, the Raw in Tacoma is already sold out at 16,639 paying $387,470 and the Raw in Spokane is close enough. The advance for the 2/8 Toronto Sky Dome Raw that is already being heavily pushed as an attempt to draw 30-40,000 fans is at 16,394 paying $590,265. The MSG and Chicago shows have been changed again as Austin vs. Bossman with Austin winning and getting five minutes with McMahon, a big ticket seller, has been totally dropped and replaced in MSG with a street fight with Austin & Kane vs. Undertaker & Bossman and Rock vs. HHH for the title, while Chicago will have Undertaker & Rock vs. Austin & Kane. The January house shows will either have four-ways with Austin, Kane, Undertaker and Rock continuing the same house show pattern, except in cities where they've already done four-ways, in which they'll do mostly tag matches with those four, plus DX vs. Corporation matches and Shamrock vs. HHH IC title matches and Goldust vs. Jarrett matches

Jim Ross got the word while in England on 12/5 that his mother had passed away from a heart attack. She had been sick most of this past year and several weeks back was in rough shape. Ross actually stayed in England and did the show, but on the day of the show, began suffering from Bells Palsy and severe headaches while doing the show. By the next day, the right side of his face was paralyzed (he had the disease four years ago and his paralyzed temporarily the left side of his face, and it took along time before he regained most of his facial control) which is why he didn't do Raw and won't be on the PPV or the Raw tapings this week either. It was a shoot Continued on page 18.

Continued from page 15. when Ross would on Raw refer to his mother watching when the show got risque or his language got a little on the raunchy side. There is no prognosis as to when he'll be back on the air. Michael Cole did Raw with Jerry Lawler and the difference was more noticeable than you'd imagine. Cole tried, but the level of expectation of what the Raw announcer should be doing created by Ross is way out of his league, and to make matters worse, he started losing his voice midway through the live commentary session and was having a hard time talking in the second hour

On the show, they acted as if Goldust and Debra McMichael were both naked under their trenchcoats and shot the "exposing" from the side leaving everything to viewers imagination. Lawler went off on a subject having to do with gravitational pull of the Earth and lack thereof when Debra exposed herself. The Blackman vs. Singh match was interesting only because there was heat among the boys because Singh doesn't sell enough and a lot of people don't like his attitude. Basically Blackman, who is one of the tougher men in the company, was in there to give Singh an attitude adjustment so he was laying everything in very stiff and making Singh sell. They are trying to push the new Chyna as a sex symbol but she now looks more like a night-club female impersonator and God knows I see a lot of them around these parts these days. X-Pac & HHH vs. Shamrock & Bossman was a good match, but how can you have an outside interference DQ in a no DQ match

They had Steve Williams and Kurt Angle train together and wrestle each other a lot at the last camp. It appears that they are targeting March or April to start Angle off, with a big push, possibly as a heel. It's interesting to note that when ECW did its clumsy crucifixion angle, Angle was furious due to his religious beliefs and basically threw such a fit Raven had to apologize for the angle in the ring and Angle never came

back. Glenn Kulka, who has been out for a long time with a bad knee, suffered a broken thumb training for his return. Steve Bradley was at the last camp and looked good enough that he was signed to a developmental deal. It is said Bradley got the best match out of Giant Silva that Silva has ever had

Among some of the extras used at the recent tapings. When Steve Austin was in the hallway with the shovel looking for Undertaker, the woman he walked by and had a brief conversation with was Stephanie McMahon, Vince's daughter. The guys in the bar harassing Chyna were Don Bucci (the guy she decked, who is indie worker Donnie B, actually younger brother of Super Nova), Danny Germundo (Inferno Kid) and Anthony Cramasta (Twiggy Ramirez). The Orderlies were mainly Jim Kettner ECWA wrestlers. The fan with the magazine centerfold of Chyna that Henry took was Kenny Infante (J.R. Ryder). The plant who got the ho's was an indie wrestler named Bulldog Blansky, whose name may be Bob Blansky and he's an assistant high school wrestling coach near New Haven

Head Hunters may be brought in as heels for the Latino show

FMW has opened talks to try and get talent for a PPV show in May and a proposed Yokohama Arena date in August

Terri Poch (Terri Power) hasn't been on TV although she's been at the tapings. She's had more surgery done and because they hadn't started writing the storyline that involves her and Sable

A 2/17 house show date in Knoxville is already sold out

Al Snow suffered a pulled hamstring in England

Austin appeared as a presenter on 12/7 at the Billboard Magazine awards

Marty Garner has been talked with about coming in as a gay manager for Too Much after they get married. The ceremony is scheduled for TV or PPV. Wonder if Lawler will give the bride away

Catching up on TV ratings, Live Wire on 11/28 did a record 2.1, Superstars on 11/29 did a 1.6 and Heat on 11/29 did a record 4.52 (and Pac Blue got a 3.0 as a follow-up). For 12/5-6 it was Live Wire at 1.8, Superstars at 1.6 and Heat at 4.08

The name Acolytes for Bradshaw & Faarooq is an assistant to a high priest. The Acolyte name was picked by Jackyl as a rib on the office for his previous portrayal as a religious fanatic cult leader

If you look at the Austin embalming angle again (like anyone would want to), you notice that the hearse had Ohio license plates and the funeral home had an Ohio state flag even though this was all supposed to be taking place in San Jose. The medical center was taped in Bexley, OH, a suburb of Columbus

Dan Rodricks in the Baltimore Sun ran a column on attending the Raw tapings in Baltimore a few weeks back. He noted that when the Oddities came out, the WWF actually ignited a device that emitted a sewage-like stench only noticeable to ringsiders to make it as if the Oddities don't bathe. What was interesting about the column is it was one of the first mainstream columns that didn't care about real vs. fake as opposed to entertainment, and in doing so recognized both good and bad entertainment. He wrote, "There are moments of absolutely spectacular athleticism--the best example of this Monday night was the match of Max Mini and El Torito, diminutive Mexicans who flipped and flew across the ring like aerialists with attitudes--and moments of lame shtick. Monday's Ladder match (Mankind vs. Bossman) was a yawn with rungs.

The Las Vegas newspaper had an article about time-share holders at the former Debbie Reynolds Hotel being upset about the changes in clientele the WWF will bring. They also complained the WWF wasn't letting them know anything about its plans, which the WWF responded to by saying it was because they really hadn't worked out the plans

Butterbean was on TSN's Off the Record and talked of a potential match with Bart Gunn. WWF has talked about doing Brawl for All rules shoot matches with Gunn against Butterbean or against some name UFC fighters although it isn't high on the priority list and nothing has been finalized

McMahon apparently wanted Rock to actually bend over and kiss his ass on the 11/16 TV show but Rock refused to do it.