Wrestling Observer Newsletter


PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 November 24, 1997

After a week of both private and public comments in the aftermath of the double-cross finish in the Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart match at Survivor Series and Hart's subsequent leaving the WWF about one month earlier than originally planned, the basic gist of the story was covered here last week.

But anymore discussion of the decision making processes involved by Hart and McMahon as it related to the double-cross finish, there are a number of points both relating to this story and how it was presented in last week's issue, and to the historical nature of last week's piece that need to be clarified and discussed:

Bret Hart's heel turn in March was Vince McMahon's idea, that McMahon sold Hart on as mentioned in the story.  It was Hart's idea to remain a babyface in Canada and internationally while being an Anti-American heel in the United States.  However, it was Hart's idea all along to do a heel turn.  In the original plan formulated by McMahon and Hart in July 1996, when McMahon flew to Calgary to woo Hart, who was sitting out and attempting to break into acting, was for Hart to beat Michaels in a babyface match and win the title at the 1997 Wrestlemania, and then make a slow heel turn.  As that was going on, they'd avoid a third match for a long time until the heel turn was complete making Michaels that much stronger of a babyface.  At that point the agreement was that Hart would put Michaels over in the third meeting. That scenario changed when McMahon decided to take the title from Michaels to Sid, make Sid vs. Undertaker for the title the Wrestlemania main event, and then make Hart vs. Michaels as the semifinal.  Seeing that he would have to do two major jobs in a row, Michaels showed up the night he was supposed to drop the title to Sid, claimed he had a career ending knee injury, and later that night on television handed the belt back.

The decision by McMahon to pave the way for Hart to leave, largely stemming from Hart's huge salary and his refusal to renegotiate the terms, started the natural rumors about what the actual financial condition of Titan Sports is and why McMahon, in the middle of a wrestling war with only four true superstars, one of whom was mentally unstable and another of whom physical future was questionable, would want to hand one of the remaining two to his opposition.  Stories have come out in regard to Titan Sports wanting to make its bottom line look better for the company to go public, or to sell a percentage of the company to outsiders, thus infusing new money into the company, while the McMahon family would retain the majority interest.  Having in the best week talked with four different high-level executives in the company, all claim there is nothing to either scenario nor has there been any discussions at any time of either scenario.

The idea that Hart's salary was dumped as a way to open the door for a return of Hulk Hogan was discounted as a theory worthy of Oliver Stone.  McMahon, in a controlled Internet discussion after the 11/17 Raw, responded to a similar question saying, "Yes, one day the WWF might go public but there are no current plans for that to happen."  From all accounts, the WWF has been operating deeply in the red for most of the past four years.  According to one source, at the time McMahon offered Hart the huge contract last year, the company was losing about $135,000 per week.  Theoretically if a piece of talent in any sports or entertainment business such as this isn't worth the price he is asking, you don't pay him that price and if someone else will, you let them.  McMahon offered Hart the 20-year deal, at about $30,000 per week for the first three years as an active wrestler.  Since his company was losing so much money, one would think he, when making the deal, felt that Hart was worth more to his company than what he was offering to pay him at the time he made the offer to him.

The interesting thing about all this is that now, from all accounts, Titan Sports has turned the financial corner and is operating in the black.  In other words, during the same time period that McMahon brought Hart back and was paying him the huge money and the period he told him he was going to breach his contract because he felt he wasn't worth the money, Titan's financial situation had greatly improved, not gotten worse.  One could argue that is proof Hart was worth more than what he was being paid, although that isn't necessarily the case.  The biggest reason for the financial turnaround was from increasing the price of the In Your House PPV shows from $19.95 to $29.95 while maintaining (and in some cases even increasing) the number of buys, which over the course of a full year would add between $5 million and $6 million to company revenue, or almost by itself, wiping out that huge weekly deficit incurred throughout most of 1996.  This is not a judgement on Hart's value to the company financially, just a factual statement that from all accounts, the company could afford his salary today a whole lot more than it could at the time it made the deal in the first place.

In examining whether Hart was worth the money, there are many ways to look at it.  Based on the salary structure at Titan Sports right now, the answer would be no.  Did Hart generate twice the revenue of Austin, Undertaker and Michaels?  Probably not.  Based on our new phrase for the week, time honored traditions of the business, he was greatly underpaid.  If you figure Titan Sports will gross $80 million this year (that's a rough estimate), well, in the old days of NWA champions, the champion's cut was eight percent of the gross, which would mean by traditions of the business Hart would be worth $6.4 million.  If you go by McMahon's fathers' standards with Bruno Sammartino, Sammartino earned six percent of the gross at house shows with the exception of Madison Square Garden, where he was to earn five percent.  In the great traditions of the business, Sammartino never actually was paid nearly that much and ended up in court over being screwed on money, and McMahon Jr. settled out of court with him, but that's another story that will be repeated in the future as well.  But even at five percent, that's still $4 million per year.  If you argue with all the front office personnel that they didn't have in the past, overhead, travel expenses, etc., and that the champion doesn't stand alone above the competition as the NWA champs or Sammartino did in their day, even at two percent, which would always be considered a real bad payoff for a main eventer in the past, you are still talking about more money than Hart was earning.

If you determine what somebody is worth as to be what his value is on the open market (how one values what a home being sold is worth in a free enterprise economy), then that figure was already established as the $2.8 million per year by WCW making the offer.  But all those hypotheticals mean nothing.  The fact is, he had a contract and the company is now operating in the black.  They were not under any duress financially to remove the contract from the books at this point in time even if the company would like to claim otherwise.  They wanted to remove him, or his contract, for other reasons.  The contract did cause a salary structure argument internally, because no doubt people like Undertaker, Austin and Michaels, realizing what Hart was making, might feel in comparison they were underpaid and have a valid argument.  One of the reasons Michaels himself wanted out earlier this year was because McMahon wouldn't pay him what Hart made and what his buddies in Atlanta were making and what he felt his position in the business today was worth.  I can understand a few months back Titan wanting to restructure Hart's deal because the company wasn't doing well at the time and his salary was huge.  But right now, things had started to change and the problems now from an economic position make far less sense.  One Titan official said that McMahon knew ultimately that either Hart or Michaels would have to go, perhaps even that Michaels demanded it as a condition for him to return after he walked out over the fight.

When Hart returned from his knee injury, they felt his career was on its downslide and maybe he wasn't the same performer and given the decision, Hart was 40, Michaels was 32 and Michaels was costing half as much money and not a threat to the salary structure in regards to the other headliners pointing at his salary and thinking they were underpaid, and that Hart had 19 years left to be paid and maybe only one good year left in the ring.  Supposedly Hart himself had told other officials he thought he only had about 200 good matches left in his career, which may also have precipitated the decision in that direction.  Michaels, in the Charleston Post and Courier before the PPV stated, "The world should know this--this is not Bret Hart leaving.  This is Vince McMahon asking him to leave.  For me, it's only a good day in that people who are really somewhat intelligent will see who is really the guy behind the scenes who is causing Vince McMahon trouble.  Vince asked him to leave, but he allowed him to take care of things here, and I think that says a lot for Vince McMahon.  He simply didn't feel Bret was giving what he was getting."

Exactly what was offered Hart financially in regard to renegotiations is contradictory depending upon the source.  Jim Ross, on the WWF hotline, claimed the WWF wanted to lessen his huge weekly guarantee, but increase the money he would earn from PPV events so that he would actually wind up earning basically the same amount of money per year, just that it would come in lump sums after Titan would get the cash flow influx from a PPV rather than every week when Titan's cash flow was from house shows, or far less money coming in on those weeks.  Hart's claim is that they wanted to cut his weekly salary more than in half, but were going to make it up by increasing his salary in the latter 17 years of his contract when he was to earn far less since at that point he'd be retired from the ring.  Another source said they wanted to spread the big money aspect of the contract over five years instead of three, thus cutting the weekly salary from $30,000 to $20,000 per week but extending it two more years.  Probably more than one of these scenarios and possibly all were discussed at one time or another.  Hart and his financial advisers turned that down, not wanting to risk getting screwed, another of pro wrestling's time honored traditions, after he was no longer an active performer and had no leverage anywhere.  McMahon on television portrayed Hart as not being worth what they were paying him and wanting to get rid of him for that reason, a story that contradicts the other versions.

McMahon, on the 11/17 Raw, without actually using the words, tried to imply that Hart was unprofessional because he had refused to drop the title in the ring.  The wording McMahon used is that Hart failed to honor a time-honored tradition of the business (you do jobs on the way out of a territory).  For those with memories longer than two or three years, the realization is that any discussion of McMahon and time-honored traditions of the wrestling industry is worthy of not a chapter, but an entire book.  The only true time honored tradition of this business is that everyone in power lies and manipulates to get people to do things that are often against their best interest, or top talent with leverage agrees to do jobs, then holds up promoters at the last minute to squeeze money or promises out on that end.  And then everyone pretends to like each other, and that's not a digression from the actual issue.

Indeed, one could argue the core of the wrestling industry more than anything else was epitomized by this double-crossing on a finish that everyone involved had supposedly agreed upon.  How many jobs did Hulk Hogan, Junkyard Dog, Jesse Ventura and all the rest do on the way out when they were leaving their territories in 1983-84?  Zero.  They cut interviews for one promotion and showed up the next day with the WWF, with the promoter lucky if he got a telegram of resignation after the fact.  Just as people like Lex Luger, Curt Hennig and Rick Rude when they got the leverage, couldn't wait to screw Vince McMahon, so did the wrestlers of the past feel about people like Verne Gagne and Bill Watts.

But the reality is, Bret Hart got a finish changed on a television match to Hunter Hearst Helmsley from a pin to a count out; refused to do a job in a six-man tag in Toronto and instead had his brother-in-law Jim Neidhart do it; never refused to do a job in Detroit in the six-man although did refuse to put Michaels over for the title at that show as McMahon suggested as a compromise so Hart could lose the title to Michaels but not on Canadian soil before 11/10.  To add to the problems, the front office believed he had also refused to do a job in the six-man in Detroit (in reality he was never asked because the agents running the show didn't convey the plans made at a booking meeting two days earlier to him to avoid heat from him after he turned it down in Toronto, but then to avoid heat from the office, claimed he had once again been asked and refused, which unjustly intensified the heat between McMahon and Hart, going into Montreal the next day).

During the 11/2 conversation between Hart and McMahon where he agreed to put anyone over as long as it was after 11/13, unlike what was reported here last week, "anyone" at that point did not include Michaels but did include basically everyone else and he even mentioned Steve Lombardi since he had a match scheduled against him on the 11/15 Madison Square Garden show.  However, on 11/5, he finally agreed to put Michaels over as long as it occurred after 11/13 and thus not in Canada.  McMahon's portrayal to the fans, to the wrestlers, and to his own front office that Hart refused to drop the title in the ring has been vehemently denied by Hart and is also contradicted completely in documentation from Hart's legal representatives to McMahon sent the day before the show.  But it is true that Hart, all along, refused to do the job for Michaels on that specific night.  It is also true that McMahon agreed to several different finishes for that match that didn't involve a title switch during the week, would change them, and in the end on the last day supposedly everyone was on the same page with a finish, the same finish that was discussed at the production meeting the night before.

This is not to justify the position of Bret Hart at all, because these are two items unrelated to Bret Hart, but related to Vince McMahon, and also to Shawn Michaels.  If McMahon felt dropping the title in the ring was of such importance to the future of his company, why was the decision made to go to Michaels?  No questioning his talent at all and not taking seriously his asshole television personality as anything more than a contrived work.  Let's even for the sake of the argument throw out that he won't work full-time anymore and thus for house show business wouldn't be as valuable as a champion as a wrestler on the road every night.  He refused to drop not only the WWF title in the ring earlier this year which many in the company point directly to killing the buy rate at Wrestlemania, but several other titles on numerous different occasions since 1993, one of which he had legitimate medical reasons for and three other times because he simply walked out while holding a belt, whether it be a WWF belt, an IC belt or a tag team title belt.  He also had refused to do any jobs for anyone in the territory on numerous occasions, including to Davey Boy Smith in Birmingham, England.

How was Michaels' behavior, which certainly was not a romantic "time-honored tradition" of the business handled.  By changing the finish in England and giving him the title to avoid a conflict.  And a few weeks after that, by making the decision to give the WWF title belt to him once again.  In 1993, when Hulk Hogan was WWF champion, McMahon wanted him to drop the belt to Bret Hart.  Hogan, with the big guy mentality from the 80s, refused to lose to "little" Bret, basically hand-picked "big" Yokozuna to drop the belt to and quit the promotion over it, which for the most part created the heat with Hogan and McMahon and also for years between Hogan and Hart.  Both Hogan and Hart have made statements in recent weeks about looking forward to working with one another, despite their heat from the past.  WCW's plan at present is for Hart's first major match to likely be against Ric Flair, setting the stage for possible matches against Hogan or Sting.

It appears the tension between McMahon and Hart grew a lot worse in the week leading to the event for a number of reasons.  When the word got out, Hart was positioning his leaving as having something to do with the direction the WWF was going.  While he was unhappy with the direction and with Shawn Michaels, neither was the prime reason for his decision.  McMahon and others in the office were unhappy about that, and Ross on the 900 line, said that to say the prospective (since nobody was willing to publicly admit to the departure until after the show) departure was due to anything but financial reasons was ludicrous.  Since Hart was leaving, the decision was made before the weekend shows in Toronto and Detroit that he should do the job for Austin in the six-mans, since it wasn't for the title, that Austin was one of their top wrestlers and that Austin had put Hart over at Wrestlemania and Hart had never given one back clean.  Hart refused in Toronto, for reasons outlined last week.  He was never asked in Detroit, and the agents told the office he had turned it down again, putting more heat into the fire.

Bret Hart did not so much ask Earl Hebner to referee the match as much as know in advance that Hebner would be the referee when they had their conversation in Detroit the night before the show.  Referees for the main event on PPV are assigned based on who the company considers to be their top official, and Hebner has been the referee in the main event virtually every show.  If Hebner wasn't the referee, it would have been a tip-off to Hart that something fishy was going down and he wouldn't have allowed himself to be put into a compromising position.  Hart was aware of the possibility of a double-cross the night before but when Hebner swore he'd quit first, somewhat relaxed his guard in regard to allowing compromising spots in the match.  Officially, the referee assignments were made at the production meeting that was going on in Montreal at the same time Hart and Hebner were in Detroit, and as expected, Hebner was given the assignment for the title match.

It has been insinuated here and portrayed elsewhere that the double-cross decision came at a meeting at the Montreal Marriott the night before the show.  Such a meeting did take place as it does on Saturdays before every PPV show or Sundays before every Monday-Tuesday set of tapings.  McMahon, Jim Ross, Jim Cornette, Pat Patterson and Michaels were all at the meeting as were several others including Bruce Prichard, Sgt. Slaughter and production people.  The finish of the match and future scenarios in regard to the title belt were discussed at the meeting.  What was discussed was not a double-cross on Hart.  The scenario discussed at the meeting and fine-tuned was the scenario McMahon, Hart and Michaels had all theoretically agreed upon.  In Montreal, the finish would be that Hart would have the sharpshooter on Michaels when Rick Rude, Chyna and Hunter Hearst Helmsley would hit the ring.  Rude would never get into the ring but his briefcase would be thrown into the ring.  Hart would win on a DQ for the outside interference.  They were trying to create an ending for one big pop at the end by the fans in Montreal, since the outside interference DQ would be a weak "groan" finish for such a highly anticipated PPV match.  They appeared to have settled on Hart getting the briefcase in a struggle, and knocking out Chyna, who had yet to sell anything big in the WWF up to that point, and were debating the pros and cons of that finish.

The next night on Raw, Jim Ross would interview Hart and point-blank ask him the question about him leaving, using the Canadian newspaper clippings on the screen, and Hart would reluctantly, or maybe not reluctantly, admit that he was going to WCW.  Hart would say that he was going to remain in the WWF until the end of the month and work his final shows in the various arenas, and his final match would be the 12/7 PPV show in Springfield.  They would push that fact as a way to build up a big buy rate for the traditionally weak December PPV show.  Hart would say on his interview that he would defend the title against anyone in Springfield and wanted to leave the WWF with his head up and still the champion, since he would be doing the interview in Ottawa where he was the top babyface.  At that point Slaughter would announce the final four match, with Hart, Undertaker, Ken Shamrock and Michaels and Hart would react as if double-crossed by the Americans again and put in a situation where he didn't have to lose the fall to not retain the title.  I've heard two versions of what was discussed as rules of this match, one that it would be the first pinfall scenario in that the man who scored the first pin would become the champion.  The other is the final survivor, as with the Final Four match earlier this year on a PPV, after eliminations going over the top rope, would be the winner.  In either case, the basic gist would be that either Undertaker or Shamrock would put Michaels over in the end.  This was a scenario created by the WWF, discussed and agreed upon at a meeting that Hart wasn't involved in, to give Hart an out in the storyline world to say that the WWF in his final match put three guys, instead of one, in the ring against him and that he actually was never beaten by Michaels since the two had their personal issue with one another.

Part of the reason it was booked like this is because as of 12/1, Hart was under contract to WCW.  For Hart to work in Springfield and Portland, ME, Eric Bischoff had to okay the scenarios and he had agreed to allow that basic scenario to take place, which actually is where the story gets even more interesting.  Hart would then do the interview in Portland, where he'd apologize to the American fans, thank the organization for 14 great years (actually Hart started with the WWF in late 1984, so it's really 13 but everyone has been using the number 14 for so long I guess it'll always be 14), and leave on a high note.  Supposedly as of that point, McMahon wasn't even considering the double-cross and nothing of the sort was brought up at that meeting.  That does leave two questions.  Why did McMahon decide not to announce the show, as that decision was definitely discussed at the meeting, and why did Ross go on the hotline and hint that the match could be Hart's final match in the World Wrestling Federation?

By all accounts, everything else was just fuel for a fire that would explode just six hours later when Hart arrived in Montreal at about 4 p.m. after coming in from Detroit.  Hart and McMahon had the discussion.  Where Saturday's scenario fell apart was in that discussion.  Supposedly McMahon suggested he had another change in plans, and that he wanted Hart to lose the title to Michaels in a singles match instead of a Final Four match in Springfield.  Hart supposedly balked, because that wasn't the scenario he had sold Bischoff on, which is where Hart brought up the scenario of just handing the belt back to McMahon in Ottawa that according to Hart McMahon at the time agreed to but later McMahon portrayed to the wrestlers two days later as that being Hart's demand and not suggestion.  Hart was still going to finish out his contract by working all the house shows through the end of the month.  This could be confirmed because he had people contact friends in various cities to meet him after matches for the remainder of the month for his final hurrah in the promotion.  Hart at this point said he was still amenable to dropping the title to anyone after 11/13, including Michaels.  Supposedly Hart didn't turn down McMahon's proposal, only say he'd have to get Bischoff's permission since he'd be under contract to Bischoff at that point.

Clearly you can see the position McMahon felt he had been put in with the idea that his most hated enemy actually could have decision making power over his championship belt and this may be what caused the decision, perhaps an overreaction to that fact.  But at the same time, all these time frames were created and known by McMahon and in hindsight, he should have gotten the belt off Hart long before telling him they wanted to cut his contract, let alone before asking him to negotiate with WCW.  As it was, they were suggesting to restructure his contract informally at least, even before putting the belt on him in the first place at SummerSlam.  No doubt with visions of Madusa throwing the title belt in the garbage can at Nitro, this is where those close to McMahon claim he later said where he came up with the double-cross idea.  Only two people were involved in this, ultimately, the most important of all the conversations that supposedly led to the ultimate finish.  McMahon portrayed it to his staff and later to the wrestlers that Hart told him this would be his final match with the company, that he wouldn't drop the title, and that he wanted to hand McMahon the title the next night on Raw, and McMahon felt this was his last chance to get his title back.  "The only thing I asked for and after 14 years, I thought it was a fair request, is that they didn't beat me in Canada."

Hart said he turned down the request to put Michaels over for the title in an unannounced match in Detroit the night before the PPV because it would defeat the whole purpose of what the match had been built up for if he showed up for that match without the belt.  "He knew full well I'd be happy to drop the belt at the Garden.  I even suggested to him taping the show at MSG and airing the match (as a special event) on Monday and show everyone the title change.  Vince shot that down because it would cost too much to film there (Madison Square Garden charges around $40,000 for rights if a television event is filmed there).  I really told Vince I'd even put over Lombardi.  It was a problem between Sunday and Wednesday in putting Shawn over, but as long as I could get out of Canada, I'd put Shawn over anywhere he wanted."  McMahon told his staff after the fact that he did it because he couldn't allow the WWF champion to show up the next night on Nitro (the Madusa vision, even though it is exceedingly difficult to believe this would actually happen), or be announced on Nitro, as coming to WCW.  However, the WWF was at the meeting the night before planning on using that very information as a way to build its December PPV show.  "He gave Bret a lot of options, all of which Bret turned down," said one of the members of the inner circle.  "Bret said he wouldn't do it (the job).  Vince said his back was against the wall.  Vince wasn't happy with the decision he had to make and takes full responsibility for the decision.  It was Vince's decision.  Nobody else had input.  It was to protect the business from his standpoint.  He had to protect his title.  Bret wouldn't do business (the job).  We were told (by McMahon) he was going to show up in Memphis (the Nitro on 11/10, the day after Survivors) with the belt.  Vince claimed Bret didn't want to make the December PPV.  Bret took away every opportunity to get the belt back.  The only people who really know the whole story are Bret and Vince."

Yet another person close to the situation said that McMahon really didn't believe Hart would be on Nitro but was more worried since he'd agreed that afternoon to allow Hart to relinquish the belt on Nitro in Ottawa and afterwards was worried about what Hart would say in his last interview about why he was leaving, given what he had said in the newspaper and on the TSN television show over the previous week and since it was live TV, or talk in positive terms about where he was going.  McMahon could call for a commercial in the middle of the interview, but that also would make the company look like they were hiding something and the word of what he said would get out everywhere anyway.  "Vince was desperate because he didn't want Bret to put over WCW on (his) television."  He also told supposedly told the staff that Hart never offered to lose the belt in Madison Square Garden or anywhere else and that Montreal would be his last chance to get it back.  The Madusa story is another that wrestling history seems to have distorted.  The prevailing view appears to be that Bischoff offered Madusa big money to walk out on the WWF, show up with the belt, and drop it in the garbage.  The actual story is that McMahon fired Madusa without having her drop the belt five days earlier.  Bischoff, who clearly loves nothing more than rubbing McMahon's face in it at every chance possible, saw his opportunity and the end result was the end result.  This is not to say Madusa was right, or McMahon was wrong (in hindsight once again he should have gotten his belt back if it meant so much, and if the belt is just a prop, than everyone in the industry on both sides certainly overreacted to the Madusa incident), just that since the Madusa story was brought up by so many people, including high-ranking WWF officials, in the days following the double-cross, the actual story needed to be clarified.

I guess for curiosity and historical reasons, people want to know how many were involved in the double-cross.  It is in the WWF's best interest to keep the number low, because all those involved will be viewed warily by the wrestlers, and the already low trust level in a business that to be successful has to be built around trust, would be even worse when any of those parties are involved.  The circle admitted to were McMahon, obviously, Gerald Brisco, Hebner and perhaps Michaels.  Michaels has since told his friends in WCW, if his actions on Raw the next night didn't prove it, that he was involved in it, despite his reactions that night trying to prove to the world that he wasn't, I guess figuring that had he acted differently, Hart might have slugged him in the ring right at his moment of realization.  Clearly more knew.  Pat Patterson was the one who suggested the spot.  The guy who cued the music had to know, because Michaels music played immediately and Hart was the one scheduled to go over.  The production people in the truck had to know.  They pulled away from Hart almost immediately once he spit at McMahon.  If they didn't know, they should have assumed that was part of the angle and would have kept the camera on him and McMahon.  They also had to know to abruptly end the television show, which actually ended seven minutes, not five, ahead of the theoretical schedule.  We incorrectly reported last week that the ring announcer made the announcement of the title change immediately, as in fact, the show went off the air without such an announcement being made.  Hebner did run "faster than Donovan Bailey" according to a ringside fan out of the ring and through the dressing room into the awaiting car, but did not fly home, nor as reported did he miss both Raw tapings.  One could assume the double-cross had a back-up plan when you think about the spot Patterson offered in the match.  If Hart had reversed the sharpshooter before Hebner and Vince could get the bell rung, Hebner still would have been able to fast count him from the superkick, which he probably should have done because at that point the finish wouldn't have come off to the public as smelling so bad.

We've talked with four eye witnesses to "the fight."  Two had similar stories, basically exactly how it was reported on last week.  Clearly, Hart threw one punch.  It hit McMahon's left temple and not his jaw.  McMahon went down and on television on 11/17 claimed to one week later still have blurred vision and suffered a concussion from the punch and had a nasty black eye most of the week, which on television was somewhat covered up by make-up.  The other had very different stories, saying there was no fight, just a punch.  That McMahon was never helped out, but walked out on his own power, although McMahon definitely did suffer an ankle injury after the punch that wasn't as a result of Hart but in his either leaving or being helped out and someone stepping on it.  One even confirmed the story McMahon had on television and that two days later he tried to get across to the wrestlers, basically that McMahon let him punch him, and as he portrayed to the wrestlers, he was taking the punch for "all the boys" since Hart wouldn't do the right thing on the way out and he had to make the right thing happen for the boys and the future of the company.  There have been denials that Shane McMahon ever jumped on Hart, or that Davey Boy Smith ever jumped on Shane McMahon and that neither was involved at all.  On 11/13 Smith's attorney faxed a letter to McMahon saying that he had injured his knee in breaking up the fight and might need surgery.  One eye witness maintained there was no fight, only one punch, and Smith was never involved to have gotten hurt.  For whatever reason, and I guess this involves the machismo nature of the business, because the fight was an unfortunate after-effect of the double-cross, but that people on the WWF side, and even McMahon himself, are trying to give people the impression that had it been a fair fight, whatever that constitutes, that McMahon would have won, and/or that Hart backed down after the altercation from Shane McMahon and not visa versa, almost as if somehow the end result of the fight was more of a figurative instead of a literal black eye on Vince McMahon and the powers that be in the WWF, because he was the one with the concussion, than the double-cross.

The weirdest part of McMahon's speech on Raw on 11/17 was his broaching that subject, almost like a kid in a schoolyard who got decked and claiming it was a sucker-punch, and maybe it was, one week later after replaying it in his mind, decided that really he could kick the other guys butt.  It really shouldn't matter.  Clearly when it comes to the fight, both men were in the wrong.  McMahon to precipitate the situation after what happened and not walk away from trouble when he had good reason to expect it would happen.  Hart because he threw the first and only punch, even though he had warned McMahon earlier that he would.  Yes, it made Bret Hart a cult hero to the wrestlers, and the next night McMahon's former employees in WCW were all smiles, not just in the ring.  It was described as the climactic moment from the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" when Nurse Ratchett finally got it, and that somewhere in Pittsburgh, Bruno Sammartino was going to have a big smile on his face.  Hart wasn't apologetic about it and McMahon on television described him as "crowing" about it.  Many wrestlers, who in their dreams would have liked to have done it, were celebratory.  It was the right thing to do in the fantasy wrestling world, where the babyface gets screwed for so long that he finally decks the heel that screwed him.  But the cameras were off and this was the real world, and the real world doesn't operate that way.  With all the pressures and paranoia on both sides, a lot of it justified, one could see how things ended up as they did, but you are talking about a 40-year-old and a 52-year-old, both of whom are very intelligent, albeit very stubborn, and everything up to that point was business.  Bad business to be sure, but business.

The end result was two nine-year-olds, and the one who got the black eye going on television and crying about it.  It was so weird to see McMahon, on television, try and get over the idea that if they were to fight again, that even though he's 52-years-old, the result might be different.  Whether he believes it to be true, or because he's trying to somehow save face with the boys as a kid on the schoolyard does in the same situation, or even is true makes an issue of professional differences turn into nothing more than "my daddy can beat up your daddy" on the Kindergarten playground.  To the millions of wrestling fans watching, what does it say for the business McMahon was so intent on protecting when the television announcer and company owner says publicly that he thinks he could kick butt on the supposed five-time champion of the world?  Earlier in the week many in the company were thinking McMahon wouldn't say anything that negative about Hart and certainly not from that perspective, because they knew it would come off badly.  Let alone focus on the fight in that vain because even though most fans know pro wrestling is worked, they like in their own imaginations to believe that the wrestlers, particularly the main event wrestlers, really are tough guys, whether true or not, and not violating that is another of pro wrestling's time honored traditions.  Why, in Syracuse, NY a few years back, when Michaels was beaten up or whatever actually happened, that the WWF tried to put the word out it was by eight or nine people, rather than by one person who had three friends within him who were largely run off the scene by Davey Boy Smith?  Anyway, on 11/17, Ross, on the 900 line, said that Smith injured his knee in breaking up the altercation after the show in Montreal.

As far as the tapings themselves and the supposed boycott, we were contacted throughout 11/10 as to what was going on.  Nearly all the wrestlers didn't feel like going to television in Ottawa.  Upper management was literally on the phone all night long after the show trying to pacify an upset crew of wrestlers who felt that they had all been double crossed.  Many wrestlers talked of quitting the promotion.  According to Hart, eight wrestlers called his room the morning of the show and he told all of them not to breach their contracts and to do what was best for their families and to attend the show.  One of those who called was Rick Rude.

As it was, only Owen Hart, Smith and Mick Foley flew home rather than worked the TV in Ottawa.  Neidhart was there, although he didn't work since his appearing would call too much attention to the fact the other members of the Hart Foundation weren't there and would likely get the Canadian crowd more up in arms on a live television shoot.  Foley, after one day, flew back and worked in the second night in Cornwall.  Clearly, Hart and Smith were furious about what happened and for family reasons were wanting to leave the promotion.  McMahon had made it clear that he isn't going to let either out of their respective contracts, which in both cases have a little less than four years left.  Reports that one or both had an out clause in their contracts similar to Bret were untrue, as Bret, due to his negotiating leverage at the time he worked out the deal, was the only Titan wrestler under contract who had such a provision.  Smith hasn't returned, with his only communication to Titan being the fax that his lawyer sent about his knee injury.  Owen Hart was talked into working on 11/12 in Barrie, ONT, enroute to a meeting in Connecticut the next day with McMahon.  Hart wanted some sort of an apology, and as McMahon later showed on Raw a few days later, he has in his own mind worked out that all the problems were Bret's fault and wouldn't do so.  Hart left the meeting and went home, and was removed from all of his house show bookings.  McMahon and Owen had a second meeting on 11/16, again not reaching a satisfactory ending.  The Titan position on the matter is that Hart is taking an hiatus to work everything out due to the family situation.  Others portray it as Owen being given a deadline, either 12/1 or 1/1 depending on the source, to return to work but he has until that time off to work everything out since the company realizes that he is in a bad position and that in no way is he at fault.  The bottom line is that both Owen Hart and Smith have families and can't work anywhere else, and whether they would like to leave or not, ultimately they don't seem to have much of a choice.

Yet another scenario to convince Bret to do the job in Montreal was proposed on 11/5.  In this one, proposed by Neidhart, Bret would have Michaels beaten in the middle.  The Hart Foundation would come out and attack Bret and put Michaels on top leading to the title change.  This was proposed to Bret as a way to put a lot of heel heat on his family after he left, to where he didn't lose clean, and his family could explain it on television as being mad at Bret for deserting them and going to the other promotion.  Bret nixed that one saying, "I'm not dragging my family through that crap again."

McMahon addressed the wrestlers in a meeting on 11/11 in Cornwall.  His story line was that it was Bret who changed his mind on an agreed upon finish on Sunday and wasn't willing to do anything but hand over the title belt on Raw when he announced he was leaving the WWF.  McMahon tried to portray Hart as someone who actually believed he really was a legend in Canada to make fun of his not doing the job in that country.  He brought up the idea of if Hart didn't do the job, that it would be a break in the historical legacy of the belt (forgetting that the belt's historical legacy already had a break earlier this year when Michaels handed it to McMahon rather than put over Sid).  McMahon claimed to have taken the punch for all the boys.  It's unclear exactly who believed what depending upon who one listens to.  It appeared even after the speech that most wrestlers poked holes through the explanation and most realized that Hart was never unwilling to do a job before leaving the company as it was portrayed, but some also bought McMahon's story.

The Bob Backlund vs. Iron Sheik finish on December 26, 1983 at Madison Square Garden was not a double-cross even though many throughout the years have claimed it to be, although most put no credence in that story.  The question as to whether it was or wasn't was resurrected after the Hart-Michaels finish.  It was a finish negotiated to where Backlund could save face and claim never to have legitimately lost the title, but that they could get the title to Hulk Hogan who had been promised it to jump from the AWA a few days earlier.  The Wendi Richter vs. Fabulous Moolah finish was a double-cross exactly as described last week.
The 1933 Jim Londos vs. Joe Savoldi finish was actually a pinfall, where Londos was under the ropes but the referee in Chicago, who was bought off before the match by rival promoters in New York wanting to discredit Londos as a world champion, counted to three anyway.  Before Savoldi went to New York to "unify" the title with their champion, Jim Browning, he first did a job for Strangler Lewis.  The reason for that was if any state athletic commission ordered a match between Londos and Savoldi to settle the controversy from Chicago, the belief was Londos, who was considered a very good legitimate wrestler, would win a legitimate match between the two of them easily.  So Lewis, who was one of the toughest wrestlers in history, was put in the Savoldi position, and there was little question that Lewis was out of Londos' league.  Londos in that era had a long history of avoiding Lewis since Lewis would never put him over and was a threat to shoot and embarrass him if they were ever to wrestle.

A generation later the situation with Buddy Rogers, one of the biggest drawing cards of his era and the first truly great worker in the business, and Lou Thesz, the perennial champion, was somewhat like Hart and Michaels in that Thesz would never put Rogers over for personal reasons, and Rogers would never have a good match with Thesz when Thesz went over, and would only work to make the match good if they did a DQ or time limit draw finish.  Although McMahon would like to portray things differently and maybe old-timers would as well, there are numerous historical precedents for what happened here.  And one more note is significant in that story.  Finally, in 1935, Lewis' camp and Londos' camp made peace and a match was arranged, advertised as "The last shooting match in history," (and you thought using insider terms was something that had just come up this year) between the two biggest superstars of the era, who hadn't worked together in years, probably because by that point Lewis realized his heyday was over and it was time to make the last big payday.  It worked met because everyone knew they hated each other and "wouldn't" work together, and maybe more than any other match would be the historical precedent for all the New Japan matches like Muto-Takada.  The show drew 35,000 fans and $95,000--both at that point in time all-time records for wrestling.  It was not a shoot, and Londos went over.  The U.S. attendance record stood until Rogers vs. Pat O'Connor in 1961, and the gate record stood until Thesz vs. Baron Leone in 1952.

So the battle lines were drawn for the next Monday night ratings war.  WWF had been promoting, "Why Bret Why?" a candid interview with Vince McMahon, plus promising McMahon would discuss the situation further after the show on AOL.  Bischoff beat him to the punch with an even bigger coup.  In the Nitro open, out came the newest NWO member, Rick Rude, who 24 hours earlier (and since Raw was a taped show, one hour later, still sporting a beard he had shaved off to further embarrass McMahon) was a member of Degeneration X.  Before getting into storyline matters, Rude stated that "Shawn Michaels never beat Bret Hart.  Vince McMahon told the referee to ring the bell and rob Bret Hart of the title."  Rude, in the truest time honored traditions of the business, a day or two after debuting with the WWF on 8/4 in Atlantic City and appearing without signing a contract, called Bischoff up and the two opened dialogue.  Whether they agreed at that point and held it off for the opportune moment, or whether Rude, one of the very few WWF television personalities to have not signed a contract, contacted Bischoff again this past week, figuring the timing wouldn't ever be so perfect for his leverage, is unknown.  He was among the group really upset with how McMahon handled things although it would probably be incorrect to describe this as anything more than a monetary deal that had been in some form in the works for three months.  By mid-week the two had struck an agreement to appear on Nitro before McMahon could give his speech, but still had to work out the legal issues with Turner because Rude had sued the company after his career ending injury in 1994.  "Rude was in the room when it (the fight) happened," Hart said.  "He didn't know what was going on (in regards to the finish) and was waiting to hit the ring (for the planned finish).  I got the impression that he, like a lot of people, had problems with the ethical side.  I knew he had a problem.  He called me Monday and asked me if I thought he should go to TV.  I told him, like everyone else who called, to go."

One thing can be said.  Even though this wasn't an angle, as an angle, it was more successful than any the WWF has run in a long time.  According to WWF sources, the Survivor Series is projected to do 250,000 buys, which would be an 0.89 buy rate--the best the company would have done since the Hart-Michaels match at the 1996 Wrestlemania.  Other U.S. sources weren't as positive in their projections, as Request and Viewers Choice early returns projected an 0.55 buy rate, which would be absolutely miserable if true.  The difference could be Canada, which would be really scary for the WWF if that was the case.  A buy rate through the roof in Canada, where the stories of Hart leaving made mainstream press the entire last week, and where the national angle and Michaels picking his nose with the flag should have fueled the patriotic fervor, which would be logically expected, could explain the difference.  Most WWF PPV events usually do better in Canada than the U.S. even without an angle geared toward the Canadian market as this match clearly was, and one of the reasons for the big drop in UFC buy rates was when they lost Canada.  McMahon's interview did strong quarter hour ratings although the end result was the typical Nitro win.  Nitro did a 4.11 rating (4.33 first hour; 3.94 second hour) and 6.18 share.  Raw did a 3.15 rating (2.95 first hour; 3.15 second hour) and 4.89 share.  McMahon's first interview segment went head-to-head with Guerrero vs. Malenko with WCW holding a 3.5 to 3.4 edge.  His second interview segment went unopposed and drew a 3.5 rating.

McMahon was unapologetic, some would say almost vindictive in spots, but also probably was persuasive on the surface to some who only half understood.  One has to think his cryptic remarks about Bret refusing to do the job came off as out of place as the Melanie Pillman interview (which also drew great ratings for a quarter hour) about Brian being a loving husband to fans who follow the storylines and watch as two hours of weekly escapist entertainment and saw him supposedly sleeping with Marlena the week before.  "Some would say I screwed Bret Hart.  The referee didn't screw Bret Hart.  Shawn Michaels didn't screw Bret Hart.  I believe Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart."  Later he went on to say "There is a time honored tradition in this business that if someone is leaving, they show the proper respect for the organization and its superstars.
Bret didn't want to honor that tradition."  McMahon explained that Hart's leaving was a joint decision between the two of them and said together they put together an idea to "orchestrate the opportunity for Turner to steal Bret."  He said that he felt Hart's salary was too high and that Hart felt he'd lost his spot to Michaels.  He claimed Hart had signed a three year contract at $3 million per year for 125 dates per year.  McMahon said that he is still contemplating legal action against Hart for the punch, saying it's up to how Hart reacts, apparently meant as a scare tactic for Hart not to knock McMahon publicly.  "I have no sympathy for Bret whatsoever.  No sympathy for a guy not doing the right thing for the business and the fans that made him.  Bret made a selfish decision and he has to live with it for the rest of his life."

McMahon came back later in the show and said wrestling was a strange business and he'd take Bret Hart back in the future, but he'd have to apologize and know if there was a problem in the future, he wouldn't let Hart throw another punch at him, describing the punch as him giving Hart "a free shot."  "Bret sold out but it's okay that Bret sold out.  I helped Bret sell out.  It's not a big deal because I helped him do it."  He claimed Hart loses credibility every time he says he didn't make the decision for the money.  "I regret I was forced into making the decision.  I regret Bret didn't do the right thing.  I regret that his fans are upset.  I regret that his family had to endure his tirade.  I regret that my son had to witness this.  It was the right decision for the fans and the superstars that remained here[...] I felt I had to do what I had to do.  I'm unwavering from that point of view.  Perhaps he's unwavering from his point of view."  McMahon said that Bret had a chance to prove he was the best there was, the best there is and the best there ever will be.  "It's just too damn bad that in the end Bret really wasn't the best there was, the best there is and the best there ever will be.  He had the opportunity to live up to that and he failed."  McMahon after the show went on AOL, where he said almost nothing and from all accounts, was shielded from all probing questions.  He claimed the vast majority of WWF wrestlers supported his decision (from all accounts that isn't the case although some did buy his explanation).

Bret Hart, who actually didn't watch Raw because TSN pre-empted the show on 11/17, but heard a tape on the phone, said he thought McMahon's arguments were pretty lame to anyone that knew the story and was actually disappointed in his comeback.  "Isn't there more of a time honored tradition to tell the truth to your top stars.  I don't know how anyone could expect me to apologize for what they did to me [...] Money was not a part of my decision.  It was an afterthought of my decision.  I'll always be thankful for the deal I got (from WCW).  But even on Saturday (11/1), I never asked McMahon about how much money he would offer me.  I asked him what (ideas) he had for me.  In my mind, I didn't do it for the money.  If it was for the money, I'd have left last year.  This was all about legacy, retiring to be a company spokesman and leaving the organization with a lot of pride."  In regard to a possible return, he said, "I don't believe I could ever work with Vince McMahon, Jerry Brisco or Pat Patterson again.  I'm very stubborn when it comes to my pride.  I don't think I can forget the finish.  I put so much pride into my ring work.  (Returning) would be like selling out my ethics to them."

And finally, Hart was scheduled for a return appearance on 11/19 on the TSN Sports talk show "Off the record" that he first appeared on 11/7.  However, when McMahon got himself booked on the show on 11/20 to do counter whatever Hart was going to say and do Canadian damage control, Hart canceled.  Hart scheduled an on-line chat for 11/21, and then wants to get on with his career, think about getting acquainted with the WCW product which he really doesn't know well, and leave this story for the history books.




SURVIVOR SERIES FINAL POLL RESULTS
Thumbs up 81 (35.8%)
Thumbs down 87 (38.5%)
In the middle 58 (25.7%)

BEST MATCH POLL
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels 147
Kane vs. Mankind 23
Shamrock & Johnson & LOD vs. NOD 19

WORST MATCH POLL
Truth Commission vs. DOA 77
Jammes & Gunn & Godwinns vs. Bangers & Blackjacks 55
Team Canada vs. Team USA 16
Steve Austin vs. Owen Hart 10

Based on phone calls, letters and fax messages to the Observer as of Tuesday, 11/18.  Statistical margin of error:  +-100%

To the surprise of virtually nobody, World Championship Wrestling broke its all-time gate record once again on the first day tickets went on sale for the Hulk Hogan vs. Sting WCW title match headlining Starrcade' 97 on 12/28 at the new MCI Arena in Washington, DC.

First day sales on 11/15 were 11,036 tickets for $389,910.  All of the expensive tickets went almost immediately, leaving only $15 tickets remaining in the building which at this point is being set up right now for an 18,975-seat capacity, although that number usually changes slightly once they set up the PPV and open up more seating.  As of the end of business on 11/17, those numbers had increased to 12,501 tickets sold for $423,431.  Since the show is still six weeks away, a sellout is a virtual lock and the gate is projected to be in the neighborhood of $537,000, which would be the largest live wrestling gate ever in the United States by a company other than the World Wrestling Federation.  The WCW all-time record will be set on 11/24 in Detroit, which will be the company's first show ever to top $300,000.  As of the end of business on 11/17, the numbers for World War III were 13,882 tickets sold for $393,520 with 2,200 tickets left remaining.  Up until the recent Halloween Havoc show on 10/27, no WCW event had ever topped $250,000.  The all-time record for Jim Crockett Promotions, the predecessor to the current WCW, was for Starrcade '86 at the Omni in Atlanta headlined by Ric Flair vs. Nikita Koloff which drew about $380,000, and the Starrcade at the Omni main event the previous year of Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes did nearly the same similar figure.  The famous Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich match at Texas Stadium in 1984 drew $402,000, while all of the $500,000 plus gates in North American history, of which there have been in the neighborhood of 15, were for major WWF events, mostly Wrestlemanias.  While the WWF has definitely sold more than 11,000 tickets on the first day for a few major events in the past (the record is believed to be 22,000 tickets on the first day for the 1990 Wrestlemania match headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior), the first day gate figure is certainly among the two or three biggest in North American history.  For world pro wrestling history, the SummerSlam on August 29, 1992 at Wembley Stadium in London sold more than 55,000 tickets (perhaps far more than 55,000 tickets as there have been claims as high as 80,000 although tickets actually were on sale for months after the big first day and the live estimate was a crowd in the 75,000 range) the first day which is believed to be the all-time record.  The biggest Tokyo Dome shows (the 1989 UWF's Akira Maeda vs. Willie Wilhelm and New Japan's 1995 Keiji Muto vs. Nobuhiko Takada matches) that have sold in the 30,000 to 40,000 range of tickets on the first day, all of which would be first day sales in the several million dollar range.  The 11/9 K-1 event at the Tokyo Dome sold out all 54,500 tickets the first hour tickets were on sale for a gate that probably topped $5 million.



The promotional war when it comes for the top spot in Vale Tudo between SEG's Ultimate Fighting Championships and KRS' Pride promotion came to the fore this week due to both groups running major shows in upcoming months at the Yokohama Arena.

Pride debuted with a show on 10/11 at the Tokyo Dome that drew in excess of 35,000 fans with a decent amount of papering, easily the largest crowd in the modern history of Vale Tudo (apparently in the heyday of Helio Gracie in Brazil in the 50s, he once fought before 80,000 fans) headlined by Rickson Gracie vs. Nobuhiko Takada.  Before that show, the promoters had a meeting in New York with SEG about working together in the same basic sport framework, and shortly after the meeting signed both Gary Goodridge and more importantly, Dan Severn to appear on its just, show six days before both were slated to appear on SEG's Ultimate Fighting PPV event in the United States.  Goodridge is believed to have been offered $20,000 for a match with Oleg Taktarov, and Severn was offered $40,000 for a match with Kimo, both figures were considerably higher than SEG had offered either fighter.  The rest of that is history, as Severn was injured in the Pride One match against Kimo, and SEG's planned main event of Maurice Smith vs. Severn fell apart ultimately just three days before the show.

However, the business rivalry has reached another stage with SEG running Yokohama Arena for its PPV show on 12/21, while the Pride Two event will take place at the same arena on 1/18.  In addition, SEG has tentative plans to run a second PPV show from Japan in May after a March show likely in either Louisiana or Mississippi.

The first legal step in the fight was the announcement on 11/13 that SEG Sports Corporation filed a summons and complaint in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Manhattan seeking an injunction against Mark Kerr for breaching his exclusive contract with SEG.  Kerr had agreed, and according to some sources, already signed a document to appear at the Pride Two Event.  Kerr had previously signed an exclusive contract with SEG that forbid him from participating in mixed martial arts matches with any other promotion provided the matches would be televised (Pride Two will be televised in Japan) or occurred within 30 days before and after of an SEG event (Pride takes place 28 days after Ultimate Japan).  SEG had already announced Kerr, a world class wrestler who is generally considered as one of the top five NHB fighters in the world with a 7-0 record including two UFC tournament victories as appearing on its Japan show, with Goodridge as his most likely opponent in a singles match.  Kerr had already pulled out of what was scheduled to be his first Japanese fight on 11/29 at the Vale Tudo Open in Tokyo for the Shooto promotion, apparently due to his SEG contract or perhaps because Pride offered him a bonus for debuting in Japan on their event.  This led to Shooto signing Tom Erikson for his Japanese debut on that event as a replacement, beating Pancrase, who had been negotiating with him, to the punch.

Kerr had already left the United States for a press conference in Japan for the Pride show when the summons was filed, and was apparently unaware of the situation when asked about it at the Pride press conference on 11/14.  He was served over the weekend after returning from Japan.  Kerr had been in negotiations for a singles match as the main event on the show against Royce Gracie, but at the press conference, it was instead announced that Gracie and Kerr would have singles matches against unnamed opponents.  Also announced at the Pride press conference were that Marco Ruas and Renzo Gracie would appear on the show, that there would be a rematch from the Pride One event with Bronko Cikatic of K-1 fame against Ralph White, and they strongly hinted of a match with Akira Shoji (who fought Renzo Gracie to the surprising draw at Pride One) vs. Juan Mott (who fought with the MARS organization and has a 1-1 record).  At the press conference, Pride announced that tickets to its second event would go on sale on 12/7 with tickets at $850, $250, $170, $125, $85 and $60 which would be the highest pricing structure ever for an event of this type in Japan.  Those close to the situation say that Kerr has told people that he absolutely won't be appearing on the SEG show.  Officials of SEG say that while they can't force Kerr to work on their show, that they are going to make absolutely sure that he doesn't appear on the Pride show.  Then comes the question as to the jurisdictional power of a decision in U.S. Federal Court over an issue that involves an American contract, but also a match in Japan.



New Japan announced much of the card for its traditional major show of the year, the 1/4 event at the Tokyo Dome, in a press conference on 11/13.
The line-up, which for the most part isn't all that interesting, continues to point to potential problems as far as the future of the organization being as bright as its recent past.  The show itself, being that it is the retirement card for Riki Choshu, will probably sellout in advance, so this show in and of itself is almost a gimmee.  But the line-up, coming off a Fukuoka Dome show that many were calling the weakest Dome show in New Japan history, begs the question as to where the company will be going with its Dome shows in 1998.

The matches announced were Koji Kanemoto vs. Kendo Ka Shin, Shinjiro Otani defending the IWGP junior heavyweight title against Great Sasuke, Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Yuji Nagata, Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Nishimura vs. Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi, Naoya Ogawa vs. Don Frye and the retirement deal where Riki Choshu has five matches, facing Kazuyuki Fujita, Yutaka Yoshie, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Takashi Iizuka and Jushin Liger.  Choshu will face each of them in one fall matches with very short, probably in the range of three or five minutes apiece, time limits.

The appearance of Sasuke has political implications, as it shows New Japan and Michinoku Pro Wrestling, which had worked together in the past, but were on the political outs when Sasuke started working with the WWF (rival to WCW, which has a business relationship with New Japan), have opened up doing business once again.  While Sasuke is no longer working with the WWF, he is still doing business with ECW, both working on their shows, and sending talent to their shows next year while his company goes on a hiatus.  Nagata, who is currently working for WCW, will be working just this show in Japan before returning to WCW, as this is not signifying his full-time return.  This isn't the same deal with Nishimura, who has been working for the CWA in Europe, and this probably does signify his return.  There is a symbolic nature of Liger being Choshu's last opponent, as Liger, before starting his career as Keiichi Yamada in 1984, worked as a teenage while training as Choshu's ring attendant.

No matches were announced for IWGP heavyweight champion Kensuke Sasaki, IWGP tag team champions Keiji Muto & Masahiro Chono, nor Shinya Hashimoto.  From what we understand the current plan is for Sasaki vs. Muto for the title to be the main event, and since they did the same match last year at the Dome (as Power Warrior vs. Great Muta) with Sasaki going over, that Sasaki may return the favor in the title match this time.  Hashimoto vs. Chono was scheduled originally as the main event for the first Nagoya Dome show in August, but it had to be canceled when Chono suffered his ankle injury.  From what we gather, it is more likely that they won't face each other, and rather that Chono might face Shiro Koshinaka or both would be part of a tag match with NWO vs. Heisei Ishingun, and that Hashimoto would be given another UFC/kickboxing type opponent for a mixed match.




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MAJOR EVENTS WRESTLING CALENDAR 11/21 TO 12/21

11/22 WWF Greensboro, NC Coliseum (Michaels vs. Undertaker)
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)
11/23 All Japan Women Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Hotta vs. Toyota)
11/24 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Saginaw, MI Civic Center
11/24 WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings Fayetteville, NC Cumberland County Coliseum
11/25 WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings Roanoke, VA Civic Center
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 (Michaels vs. Undertaker)
11/29 Shooto Vale Tudo Open '97 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (Frank Shamrock vs. Enson Inoue)
11/29 Russian Absolute tournament Moscow, Russia
11/30 ECW November to Remember PPV Monaca, PA Golden Dome (Bigelow vs. Douglas)
11/30 New Japan Nagoya Aiichi Gym (Hashimoto & Nakanishi vs. Sasaki & Yamazaki)
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 (Real World Tag League tournament finals)
12/6 ECW Philadelphia ECW Arena
12/6 World Caged Combat Championships Brisbane, Australia (one-night tournament)
12/6 JWP Yokohama Bunka Gym (Endo & Kandori vs. Kansai & Motoya)
12/7 WWF DeGeneration X PPV Springfield, MA Civic Center (Michaels vs. Shamrock)
12/8 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Buffalo, NY Marine Midland Arena
12/8 WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings Portland, ME Cumberland County Civic Center
12/9 WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings Durham, NH Whittemore Center
12/14 WWF Memphis Pyramid (Lawler & Jarrett vs. Michaels & Helmsley)
12/14 Kingdom Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Kanehara vs. Ismail)
12/15 WCW Monday Nitro tapings Charlotte, NC Independence Arena
12/20 Pancrase Yokohama Bunka Gym (Kondo vs. Funaki)
12/21 UFC Ultimate Japan PPV Yokohama Arena (Maurice Smith vs. Couture)

RESULTS

10/31 Naucalpan (Promo Azteca):  Ultimo Guerrero & Ultimo Rebelde & Mosco & Pantera del Ring b Pantera & Salsero & Torero & Super Muneco, Super Parka & Super Astro & Tinieblas Jr. & Tarzan Boy b Super Crazy & Pierroth Jr. & Jerry Estrada & Pirata Morgan-DQ, IWC hwt title:  Mascara Sagrada b Villano III

11/7 San Sebastian, PR (WWC - 350):  Bob Hayze b Jerry Gonzalez, La Ley b Mohammad Hussein, Lightning Kid b Rico Suave-DQ, Invader #1 b Victor the Bodyguard, Rey Gonzalez & Carlos Colon DCOR Dutch Mantel & Razor Ramon, Ricky Santana b Skull Von Crush

11/8 Manati, PR (WWC - 800):  Street fight:  Rico Suave b El Profe, Invader #1 b Victor the Bodyguard, Puerto Rican title chain match:  Ricky Santana b Skull Von Crush, Carlos Colon b Razor Ramon-DQ, La Ley & Black Boy b Bob Hayze & Mohammad Hussein, Lightning Kid b Sean Morley, Universal title double horse whip match:  Rey Gonzalez b Dutch Mantel

11/8 Elgin, IL (Pro Wrestling International - 500):  Adam Pearce b Jobu, Sonny Rogers & Rick Knight & Firefighter Jim b Jason Dukes & Amith Thunder & Suicide Kid-DQ, Trevor Blanchard b Hardcore Craig, Adrian Lynch b Whiplash, King Kong Bundy b D.C. Lightning & Wally Titleist, & Rob Petrie (where's Laura), Knight & Jim b Ron Creek & Kevin Steele, Billy Joe Eaton b Danny Dominion-DQ, John Burke b Ronnie Vegas, Titelist won Battle Royal

11/9 Agadilla, PR (WWC):  Street fight:  Rico Suave b El Profe, Invader #1 b Victor the Bodyguard, Puerto Rican title chain match:  Ricky Santana b Skull Von Crush, Carlos Colon b Razor Ramon-DQ, Black Boy & La Ley b Bob Hayze & Mohammad Hussein, Lightning Kid b Sean Morley, Universal title double horse whip match:  Rey Gonzalez b Dutch Mantel

11/9 Anaheim, CA (WPW - 500):  Piloto Suicida & Crazy Boy b Impacto & Zarco, Vampiro Canadiense & Chilango b Misterioso & Poison, Perro Aguayo & Roberto Paz b Kayam & Enigma de Oro

11/9 Washington, DC (Intercontinental Wrestling Council - 150):  Halcon Maltez b Furia del Ring, Poncho Tequila b Calo, Maravilla Azteca & Tigre Mexicano b Kuronte & Rey Viluvia, Zapatista & Bronco b Super Elektra & Humberto Garza Jr., El Satanico & Shu El Guerrero & Ranger b Ruben Juarez Jr. & Ninja & Atlantico

11/11 Cornwall, ONT (WWF Raw is War/Shotgun tapings - 3,754 sellout):  Randy Blackbeard b Andy Ellison, Adam Copeland (Sexton Hardcastle) b Christian Cage, Glenn Kulka b Doug Furnas, Steve Blackman b Phil LaFon, Mark Henry b Brooklyn Brawler, D.Lo Brown b Flash Funk, Interrogator & Jackyl b Don Dalton & Larry Rue, Brian Christopher b Devon Storm, Crush & Chainz & Skull & Eight Ball b Savio Vega & Miguel Perez & Jose Estrada Jr. & Jesus Castillo, Jerry Lawler b Marc Mero-DQ, Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes b Perez & Vega-DQ, Max Mini & Nova & Taurus (Octagoncito) NC Torito & Battalion (Piratita Morgan) & Tarantula, Scott Taylor b Eric Shelley *1/4, Dude Love b Rocky Maivia-DQ 3/4*, Vader & Undertaker & Ahmed Johnson & Steve Austin b Faarooq & Kama Mustafa & Maivia & Brown

11/11 Kushiro (Fuyuki Gun):  Yuki Lee b Miyuki Sogabe, Cooga & Chikako Shiratori b Yuko Kosugi & Sachie Abe, Jaguar Yokota & Sumiko Sakai b Fung Suzuki & Ryura, Hido & Yukihiro Kanemura & Mr. Gannosuke & The Gladiator b Super Leather & Gedo & Jado & Hiromichi Fuyuki

11/11 Kanazawa (All Japan Women):  Momoe Nakanishi b Sachie Nishibori, Miho Wakizawa b Miyuki Fujii, Manami Toyota b Emi Motokawa, Yumiko Hotta b Takako Inoue, Kaoru Ito & Kumiko Maekawa b Nanae Takahashi & Nakanishi

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

11/12 Toyoura (Fuyuki Gun):  Ryura b Kazuko Fujiwara, Sumiko Sakai b Sachie Abe, Yuko Kosugi b Yuki Lee, Chikako Shiratori b Miyuki Sogabe, The Gladiator & Mr. Gannosuke & Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido b Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado & Super Leather

11/12 Fukui (All Japan Women):  Nanae Takahashi b Miyuki Fujii, Sachie Nishibori b Miho Wakizawa, Emi Motokawa b Momoe Nakanishi, Kaoru Ito b Takahashi, Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue b Yumiko Hotta & Kumiko Maekawa

11/13 Youngstown, OH (WWF - 3,315):  Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes b Head Bangers, Rocky Maivia b Ahmed Johnson, Crush & Chainz b Savio Vega & Miguel Perez, Kane b Vader, Max Mini & Nova & Taurus b Tarantula & Torito & Piratita Morgan, Ken Shamrock b Kama, Dude Love b Jim Neidhart

11/13 Muronan (Fuyuki Gun):  Ryura b Sachie Abe, Jaguar Yokota b Suzuki, Jado b Gladiator-DQ, Cooga & Yuko Kosugi & Miyuki Sogabe b Chikako Shiratori & Yuki Lee & Sumiko Sakai, Mr. Gannosuke & Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido b Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Super Leather

11/13 Takaoka (All Japan Women):  Momoe Nakanishi b Miho Wakizawa, Sachie Nishibori b Miyuki Fujii, Kumiko Maekawa b Nanae Takahashi, Yumiko Hotta b Nakanishi, Takako Inoue & Kaoru Ito b Manami Toyota & Emi Motokawa

11/13 Nashville, TN (Music City Wrestling):  Flash Flanagan & Billy Travis b Bobby Brawnz & Black Hawk, Nick Dinsmore b Jason Lee, Doug Gilbert & Wolfie D DDQ Ken & John Arden, Terry Golden b Shane Eden, Thrillbilly b Dexter King, Jerry Faith & Troy Haste DDQ Ken & John Arden, Eden b Blaze Bordeaux, Gilbert & PG-13 b Flanagan & Trailer Park Trash & Travis

11/14 Pittsburgh (WWF - 10,213):  Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes b Head Bangers, Rocky Maivia b Ahmed Johnson, Crush b Jim Neidhart, WWF tag titles:  Legion of Doom b Kama Mustafa & D.Lo Brown, Hunter Heart Helmsley b Vader, Max Mini & Nova & Taurus b Tarantula & Torito & Piratita Morgan, Ken Shamrock b Faarooq, Falls count anywhere:  Dude Love b Savio Vega, WWF title:  Undertaker b Shawn Michaels-DQ

11/14 Dallas (CWA - 500):  Jason Galloway b Dave Donovan, Bobo b Rick Sweeney, Awesome Kongs b Kit Carson & Bill Irwin, Warrior 2000 b Brian Adias, Casey Cannon & Ced-Man b Black Bart & Hanging Judge, Mike Blackheart b Terry Garvin, Action Jackson & Warrior 2000 b Al Jackson & King Parsons & Baboose

11/14 Hakodate (Fuyuki Gun):  Chikako Shiratori b Sachie Abe, Cooga & Sumiko Sakai b Yuko Kosugi & Yuki Lee, Super Leather b Mr. Gannosuke-DQ, Miyuki Sogabe & Jaguar Yokota b Fung Suzuki & Ryura, Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado b The Gladiator & Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido

11/14 Nanao (All Japan Women):  Nanae Takahashi b Sachie Nishibori, Miho Wakizawa b Miyuki Fujii, Momoe Nakanishi b Takahashi, Takako Inoue b Emi Motokawa, Yumiko Hotta & Manami Toyota b Kumiko Maekawa & Kaoru Ito

11/14 Springfield, TN (Music City Wrestling):  Thrillbilly b Frenchie Riviera, Billy Travis b Shane Eden, Candi Divine b Debbie Combs-DQ, Ken & John Arden b Jerry Faith & Troy Haste, First blood match:  Wolfie D b Flash Flanagan

11/15 New York Madison Square Garden (WWF - 15,479/12,525 paid):  Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes b Head Bangers *1/2, Street fight:  Faarooq b Ahmed Johnson -**, Crush & Chainz b D.Lo Brown & Kama Mustafa DUD, WWF title:  Shawn Michaels b Brooklyn Brawler **1/2, WWF tag titles:  Legion of Doom b Savio Vega & Miguel Perez **, Kane b Vader ***, Max Mini & Nova & Taurus b Torito & Piratita Morgan & Tarantula, Dude Love b Jim Neidhart **, Ken Shamrock b Rocky Maivia, Undertaker & Steve Austin b Michaels & Hunter Hearst Helmsley

11/15 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout):  Satoru Asako b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa b Kentaro Shiga & Maunukea Mossman, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Masao Inoue & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi, Jinsei Shinzaki & Hayabusa b Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II, Steve Williams & Gary Albright b Tamon Honda & Takao Omori, Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace b Barry Windham & Justin Bradshaw, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama d Wolf (The Lacrosse aka Jim Steele aka Jim Rocha) & Johnny Smith 30:00

11/15 Glasgow, DE (ECW - 1,500 sellout):  Tommy Dreamer b Justin Credible, Spike Dudley b Erin O'Grady, Jerry Lynn & Tommy Rogers b Chris Chetti & Mikey Whipwreck, ECW tag titles:  Tracy Smothers & Little Guido b Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney, New Jack & John Kronus b Buh Buh Ray & D-Von Dudley, Chris Candido b Bud Liscious, ECW TV title:  Taz b Danny Morrison, Rob Van Dam b Sandman, ECW title:  Bam Bam Bigelow b Shane Douglas

11/15 Hakodate (Kingdom - 1,150):  Yoshihiro Takayama b Kenichi Yamamoto, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Shunsuke Matsui, Yoji Anjoh b Kazushi Sakuraba, Patrick Smith b Masahito Kakihara

11/15 Hamamatsu (FMW):  Miss Mongol b Miwa Sato, Kaori Nakayama & Aja Kong b Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya, Street fight no time limit:  Gedo & Jado & Hiromichi Fuyuki b Hido & The Gladiator & Imposter Great Nita (Hideki Hosaka), Mr. Gannosuke b Flying Kid Ichihara, Super Leather b Hisakatsu Oya, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Yukihiro Kanemura & Atsushi Onita b Mr. Pogo & Ricky Fuji & Masato Tanaka

11/15 Hampstead, MD (Mid Eastern Wrestling Federation):  Bam Bam Bigelow b King Kong Bundy, Little Louie b King Sleazy, Nikolai Volkoff b Doink the Clown, Malia Hosaka b Fantasia, Jimmy Cicero & Julio Sanchez b Christian York & Ramblin Rich, Quinn Nash won triangle match over Adam Flash and Mark Schrader, Salvatore Sincere b Pit Bull #2, George Steele b Mike Sharpe

11/15 Yaizu (LLPW):  Keiko Aono b Miho Watabe, Rumi Kazama & Yasha Kurenai b Michiko Omukai & Mizuki Endo, Shinobu Kandori b Sayori Okino, Carol Midori & Mikiko Futagami d Hikari Fukuoka & Commando Boirshoi 30:00, Harley Saito & Noriyo Tateno b Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima

11/15 Nashville, TN (Music City Wrestling):  Thrillbilly b Jason Lee, Nick Dinsmore b Frenchie Riviera, Debbie Combs b Candi Divine, Jerry Faith & Troy Haste b Ken & John Arden-DQ, Shane Eden b Trailer Park Trash, Wolfie D b Flash Flanagan

11/16 Kobe (Pancrase - 3,500 sellout):  Kousei Kubota b Omar Bouiche, Satoshi Hasegawa b Takaku Fuke, Osami Shibuya b Ikuhisa Minowa, Keiichiro Yamamiya b Takafumi Ito, Masakatsu Funaki b Jason Godsey, Yuki Kondo b Yoshiki Takahashi

11/16 Baltimore (WWF - 4,182):  Vader b Rocky Maivia 3/4*, Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes b Head Bangers 1/2*, Ken Shamrock b Faarooq DUD, WWF tag titles:  Legion of Doom b D.Lo Brown & Kama Mustafa DUD, Max Mini & Nova & Taurus b Tarantula & Torito & Piratita Morgan **1/2, Falls count anywhere:  Dude Love b Savio Vega **, Casket match:  Undertaker b Hunter Hearst Helmsley **

11/16 Dayton, OH (WCW - 5,528):  Chris Benoit b Yuji Nagata ***, Scotty Riggs b Steven Regal **, Chris Jericho b Alex Wright **1/2, Meng & Barbarian b Public Enemy -**, Diamond Dallas Page b Mortis **1/2, U.S. title:  Curt Hennig b Ric Flair-DQ *, Lex Luger b Scott Hall DUD

11/16 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 2,100 sellout):  Kentaro Shiga b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Masao Inoue b Satoru Asako, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Haruka Eigen & Masa Fuchi b Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota, Barry Windham & Justin Bradshaw b Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr., Steve Williams & Gary Albright d Johnny Smith & Wolf 30:00, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa b Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace & Maunukea Mossman

11/16 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (JWP - 1,500):  Sari Osumi b Nana Fujimura, Aya Koyama b Osumi, Tomoko Miyaguchi b Tiny Mouse, Devil Masami & Cutie Suzuki b Tomoko Kuzumi & Yoshiko Tamura, Dynamite Kansai & Kanako Motoya b Mayumi Ozaki & Rieko Amano, Yasha Kurenai & Carol Midori b Hikari Fukuoka & Boirshoi Kid

11/16 Kurobe (All Japan Women):  Nanae Takahashi b Miho Wakizawa, Miyuki Fujii b Sachie Nishibori, Takako Inoue b Momoe Nakanishi, Manami Toyota b Takahashi, Kaoru Ito & Kumiko Maekawa b Emi Motokawa & Yumiko Hotta

11/17 Cincinnati, OH (WCW Monday Nitro tapings - 13,877 sellout/12,988 paid):  Sean Morley b John Paul, Meng b Glacier, Alex Wright b Steve McMichael-DQ, Rey Misterio Jr. b Chris Jericho ***1/4, Diamond Dallas Page b Villano V, WCW cruiserweight title:  Eddie Guerrero d Dean Malenko ***3/4, WCW TV title:  Perry Saturn b Scotty Riggs *1/2, U.S. title:  Lex Luger b Curt Hennig-DQ *1/4, The Giant b Scott Hall-DQ 1/2*

11/18 Okayama (All Japan):  Tsuyoshi Kikuchi b Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Tamon Honda & Yoshinari Ogawa b Maunukea Mossman & Kentaro Shiga, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota b Masa Fuchi & Masao Inoue & Haruka Eigen, Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida b Barry Windham & Justin Bradshaw, Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. & Takao Omori b Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace b Wolf & Johnny Smith, Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama b Steve Williams & Gary Albright

11/18 Nagoya Nakamura Sports Center (WAR):  Osamu Tachihikari b Shoichi Ichinomiya, Fukuda & Hiroyoshi Kotsubo b Tadahiro Ishii & Jun Kikuchi, Yuji Yasuraoka b Battle Ranger, Masaaki Mochizuki & Takashi Okamura b Masao Orihara & Hidetomo Egawa, Nobutaka Araya b Daikokubo Benkei, Genichiro Tenryu & Lance Storm b Abdullah the Butcher & Nobukazu Hirai, Koki Kitahara b Arashi

Special Thanks to:  Bob Barnett, David Rude, Tim Noel, Dan Parris, Manuel Gonzalez, Mike Omansky, Chris Block, Larry Light, John DeGarmo, Joe Silva, Dan Parris, James Blair, R.W. Richardson, Edie Bailey, Marcus Watkins, Mike Mahoney Jr., Bob Pivoroff, Mark Coale, Wilson Rivera II, Andrew Ebbeskotte, Georgiann Makropolous, Gregg Leslie, Ernie Todd, Jesse Money, Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims



JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN

10/25 RINGS:  This was the first round of the Battle Dimension tournament.  1. Joop Kasteel beat Lee Hasdell in 8:55 with a necklock submission.  This was mainly a slapfest with some kicks.  It kind of fell apart after 3:00 as both got tired.  Neither showed much on the ground; 2. Illoukhine Mikhail upset Masayuki Naruse in 12:28 with a heel hold.  It went back-and-forth with some submissions and rope breaks and a few knockdowns.  Naruse's standing offense was good, but they were so loose in their holds on the ground that it didn't even look believable in a shoot context although the crowd got into some of the near submissions.  Even though these matches are mostly works, they should at least look believable; 3. Mitsuya Nagai beat Christopher Hazemann in 9:18 with a heel hook.  Hazemann has turned into a really good undercard worker for this style although he has no real headliner credibility with the fans.  Nagai has been doing this for so long that he knows how to have good matches so this was the best worked match on the show; 4. Dick Vrij beat Bitzsade Tariel in 6:07 with a choke.  Tariel trimmed down to 297 and actually looked better than usual, but that isn't much praise.  Most of the match had Tariel destroy Vrij, who sold it really well, like he was about to be put down for the count and was exhausted.  Vrij did get a few great kicks in for knockdowns along the way before it went to the ground and Vrij immediately choked him out.  A lot better than you'd think considering who was involved; 5. Tsuyoshi Kousaka beat Boris Jeliazokov after the 30:00 time limit expired via a 7-0 score.  This was a surprise in that it was clearly a shoot, and a good one at that, in the midst of a worked tournament.  Since Kousaka is one of the bigger stars and theoretically would need to win for future marketable matches in the tournament, you'd think they would protect him in the first round.  Apparently the belief was he'd be able to handle the first-timer without much in the way of risk, and to that degree Jeliazokov surprised everyone.  While he didn't have the submission experience to beat Kousaka and as the score indicates, it wasn't a close match, there was a dangerous situation because Kousaka's eye was busted open.  Jeliazokov, a junior national champion wrestler from Bulgaria, showed a lot of promise because he was able to avoid a lot of submissions while using his wrestling to maintain the top position.  Kousaka could never get the dominant position but was continually working for submissions from the bottom, but the few good ones he came close to getting were near the ropes.  It got dangerous when Kousaka, who has a lot of scar tissue above the eye from previous matches, had his cut opened and was bleeding really bad from the eye and they almost had to stop the match and probably in another situation (where a tournament that is basically booked to need a certain result would be screwed up) would have stopped a match.  This was a rare case where a shoot match was actually better than the worked matches on the show; 6. Akira Maeda beat Nikolai Zouev in 5:17 with a choke.  It was virtually all matwork and was decent.  Maeda still got a pretty big pop for winning.  After the match he challenged Rickson Gracie to a match under RINGS rules which to the mainstream was the biggest thing coming out of the card.  It also in another sense kills the Pancrase grandstand angle of Yoshiki Takahashi challenging Maeda.  Now that Maeda has brought up the subject publicly of wanting a match with Gracie, nobody really cares about a challenge from Takahashi and he doesn't even have to publicly address the situation; 7. Volk Han beat Andrei Kopilov in 10:52 with one of those Han type moves where he ties the guy up like a pretzel and grabs a shoulderlock somewhat in there.  This was below par for a Han match.  Kopilov was out of shape and it actually made Han look bad to sell so much and give him so many near submissions when he was noticeably blown up to try and make the match exciting.  In that sense, they didn't do a credible match because it didn't come across as believable nor was Han able to make it exciting; 8. Kiyoshi Tamura beat Hanse Nyman in 10:34 with a headlock submission.  This also wasn't at Tamura's usual level since Nyman really isn't much on the ground, and that's where Tamura excels.  It wasn't even as good as their previous meet a few months back that Nyman won.  As with the first match, it was hard to credibly do a standing fight with the 59-pound weight differential although it was a lot better in that regard than it should have been, and Tamura ate several good kicks to get the match over.  They didn't do a lot on the mat and that's Tamura's forte.  Actually this helped Tamura more based on positioning, as it was his match, and not Maeda or Han's match, when none of the three had traditional main eventers as their opponents, that was put in the main event.

10/26 ALL JAPAN:  1. Misawa retained the Triple Crown beating Kobashi in 32:55.  This was another excellent match, although not at the level of their January match of the year and really no better than their Champion Carnival 30:00 draw match even though they pulled out more stops and scripted what on paper should have been a better match.  Both, particularly Misawa, seemed just a tad banged up but even so they were doing a lot of dangerous spots.  Misawa did the elbow suicida (a tope ending up with a flying elbow smash) and an elbow plancha (dive off the top rope to the floor landing with an elbow smash.  Kobashi used a regular plancha off the top rope to the floor which is no small feat for a 265 pounder.  It was slow paced, but built well as expected.  Kobashi did two half nelson german suplexes on Misawa (Tiger suplex '85), dropping him on his head both times for near falls, the second one with Misawa barely getting his foot on the ropes.  Kobashi came back with a power bomb and a moonsault for a near fall.  Misawa hit his own Tiger suplex '85 for a near fall.  After Misawa kicked out of Kobashi's lariat finisher and Kobashi out of Misawa's Tiger driver finisher, Misawa hit the Tiger driver '91 where he drops the opponent nearly on his head (this wasn't quite that dangerous but still on the neck and upper back) for the pin.  ****1/2

11/9 ALL JAPAN:  1. Williams & Albright & Lacrosse (now Wolf) beat Johnny Smith & Rex King & Bobby Duncum Jr. in 13:31 when Lacrosse pinned King after a splash off the top rope.  It was a so-so match, kind of sloppy until Smith tagged in and really got the crowd going after a dropkick off the top rope and a nip up, and later a german suplex for a near fall on Williams.  Albright did his trademark suplexes on King near the finish as well.  Finish was good.  **1/4; 2. Taue pinned Ace in 16:54 after a Dynamic bomb (Liger bomb).  At times the timing and offense by both men looked a bit off or awkward, but in a sense that is Taue's style to begin with.  The build to the finish was excellent.  At one point Taue DDT's Ace on the floor ending with a sickening thud.  Ace did a dropkick off the top rope.  Taue did a tope ending up as a head-butt.  Taue did a choke slam off the ropes for a near fall.  Ace came back with an Ace crusher and a moonsault getting a near fall.  Ace hit the cobra clutch suplex but Taue rolled out of the ring to save himself from the pin, and when he was rolled back in, he kicked out of the pin.  Taue used a german suplex, a dropkick and a high kick off the top rope.  The big spot was Taue going for his choke slam but Ace reversing it into his Ace crusher.  Taue came back with two choke slams before getting the pin.  The intensity in working toward the finish was excellent and both guys pulled out more moves than usual.  The only weakness is early in the match their moves were sloppy.  ***3/4


QUARTER HOUR WINNERS AND LOSERS
1997 fall season based on Monday night quarter-hour ratings from 9/1 through 11/10.

BIGGEST POSITIVES
Ric Flair +30
Disco Inferno +18
Billy Gunn +15
Jesse Jammes +15
Alex Wright +14
Steve Austin +13
Rey Misterio Jr. +12
Roddy Piper +12
Hugh Morrus +11
Bill Goldberg +10
Butterbean +10
Diamond Dallas Page +9
Syxx +9
Booker T +8
Faarooq +8
Goldust +8
Steven Regal +7
Mortis +7
Mini Torito +7
Ray Traylor +7
Brian Pillman +6
Vader +6
Max Mini +5
Undertaker +5

BIGGEST NEGATIVES
Scott Hall -37
Eric Bischoff -24
Scott Steiner -23
Head Bangers -21
Hulk Hogan -17
Ahmed Johnson -17
Rick Steiner -16
Chris Benoit -14
Stevie Ray -11
Jeff Jarrett -11
Godwinns -10
Eddie Guerrero -10
Perry Saturn -10
Lex Luger -10
Los Boricuas -10
Steve McMichael -9
Ultimo Dragon -9
Konnan -9
Hector Garza -7
Super Calo -6
The Giant -6
Larry Zbyszko -5
Flash Funk -5
Savio Vega -5

PUERTO RICO

Razor Ramon (Rick Bogner) arrived for a feud with Carlos Colon with them doing short matches with DQ endings due to outside interference from both Dutch Mantel and manager Rico Suave.  Bogner is using the old WWF Razor Ramon theme music and ring outfit.  They also have a wrestler here called Lightning Kid, who isn't Sean Waltman of course, but I believe a Florida independent wrestler, and Sean Morley returned from All Japan.  Morley had originally left the promotion both over money owed and also due to problems between this office and Morley's manager, Victor Quinones.

Over this past weekend the major show was 11/15 in Caguas with Rey Gonzalez defending the Universal title against Ramon and Colon vs. Mantel.

A wrestler working underneath here as Cowboy Bob Hayze also works under a mask as Halcon Negro.

Joaquin Padin Jr., who was the television announcer for WWC in the 70s and early 80s passed away a few weeks ago.


MEXICO

Caught a tape of the Tijuana incident where the fans threw chairs at the 10/29 show.  After seeing it, the report here made it out to be more than it was.  What happened was one fan, as they were doing the angle, got into the ring and threw a dropkick on Rey Misterio and ran out of the building to a pretty big pop from the fans.  The fans doused Konnan, Rey Jr., and company with cups as they took their attack on Santo to be a heel turn, but it was no worse than a "bad" NWO debris throwing scene.  There was a spot where a fan tried to hit Misterio (Sr.) with a chair and he blocked the blow and grabbed the chair from him.  Several minutes later, a fan threw a chair at the wrestlers and at that point a lot of chairs started being thrown.  Konnan and Misterio Jr., seeing this, got out of there quickly and once they were gone a lot more chairs were thrown.

News remains slow from here.  Arena Mexico on 11/14 was headlined by more matches in the Copa Victoria, with Apolo Dantes vs. ?, Blue Panther vs. Violencia, Emilio Charles Jr. vs. Fantasma, Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Atlantis, Lizmark vs. ?, Universo 2000 vs. Mr. Niebla and Black Warrior vs. Tigre Blanco.  The main event is a tag team with El Hijo del Santo & Bestia Salvaje vs. Negro Casas & Felino.  The show probably drew a little better than average since it would be Casas' first match back at Arena Mexico since losing the hair vs. mask match to Santo in September.

The original Mascara Sagrada is close to jumping from Azteca back to AAA, which shows just how strange this business is because he had more heat with Antonio Pena than anyone.

AAA's big show of the week was 11/15 in Reynosa with Vampiro Canadiense & Mascara Sagrada (the AAA version, not the Azteca version who is thinking of jumping back) & Heavy Metal vs. Cibernetico & Cobarde & Abismo Negro, a cage match with Latin Lover & Sergio Romo Jr. vs. Sangre Chicana & Sanguinario and a lumberjack match with Blue Demon Jr. & Frisbee & Los Chivas Rayadas I & II vs. Pena's Psicosis (formerly Leon Negro) & Maniaco & Pena's Mosco (original is in Azteca) & Pena's Histeria (original is in Azteca as Super Crazy).

Azteca's big show of the week was 11/14 with Sagrada & Tinieblas Jr. & Hector Garza & Tarzan Boy vs. Black Magic & Los Villanos III & IV & V, Super Astro & Zorro & Super Calo & Pantera vs. Jerry Estrada & Silver King & El Texano & Dandy, Salsero & Torero vs. Ultimo Guerrero & Ultime Rebelde with no referee and the flying extravaganza with Venum Black & Mr. Aguila & Oro Jr. & Skayde vs. Mosco & Super Crazy & Halloween & Jurassico.


ALL JAPAN

The annual tag team tournament started with matches on 11/15 and 11/16 at Korakuen Hall.  The early surprise team getting a push that surely won't last is Johnny Smith & Wolf (formerly The Lacrosse, real name Jim Rocha).  The Wolf name is from the video game character.  Anyway, Smith & Wolf surprisingly went to a 30:00 draw against Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama in the main event on 11/15, and followed it up with another draw against Steve Williams & Gary Albright on 11/16 before suffering their first loss to Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace.  The other 11/15 matches saw Jinsei Shinzaki & Hayabusa beat Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II when Shinzaki pinned Izumida, Williams & Albright beat Tamon Honda & Takao Omori when Williams pinned Honda after a backdrop driver and Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace beat The Blackjacks when Kobashi pinned Bradshaw after a lariat.  On 11/16, The Blackjacks beat Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. when Windham pinned Duncum and Misawa & Akiyama beat Izumida & Kimala II.

On 11/18 in Okayama in tournament matches besides Kobashi & Ace beating Smith & Wolf, in a key match, Misawa & Akiyama beat Williams & Albright in 20:41 when Akiyama made Albright submit to an armbreaker, and Kimala II & Izumida beat Blackjacks when Kimala splashed Bradshaw

10/26 TV show did a 2.9 rating while the 11/2 show did a 3.6 rating.


NEW JAPAN

The tag team tournament tour begins on 11/18.

Aside from the announcement of the Tokyo Dome line-up, the only real news was a strange worked shoot interview that Masahiro Chono did in the 11/12 Tokyo Sports.  In the interview, Chono said that All Japan's tag team tournament has a long history and is a stronger tournament than the New Japan tournament.  No doubt that's true most years and this year more than most because the New Japan tournament is so lackluster, but it's hard to believe a New Japan wrestler would say that publicly even though the NWO gimmick is to shoot.  I somehow can't imagine Kevin Nash going on Nitro and saying how Shawn Michaels match at the last PPV show blew away Hulk Hogan's even though it's a point nobody would argue about.  He said All Japan had stronger teams, that New Japan has some great businessmen in the front office and great wrestlers, but said that some of the decision makers in the front office are foolish.

10/25 TV show did a 2.6 rating.


OTHER JAPAN NOTES
Two new women promotions that had been rumored to be ready to begin made their official announcements this past week.  Kyoko Inoue announced that her new promotion, no name given, would debut on 1/9 at Korakuen Hall and that Inoue would have Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda, Yuka Shiina, Yoshiko Tamura, Misae Genki, Saya Endo and Tiny Mouse, all former AJW wrestlers who left when they weren't getting paid.  In addition, Aja Kong and Hiroshi "Rossy" Ogawa, the latter a long-time publicist and booker for AJW before leaving when the money ran out, announced they would be starting up in February a promotion called "Arsion."  Former AJW wrestler Sakie Hasegawa will work in the front office, while Kong will be the President and the booker.  The only names announced for this group as wrestlers were former AJW wrestlers Mariko Yoshida, Rie Tamada and Yumi Fukawa.

Got a tape of the K-1 Grand Prix show.  From what I gather from talking with people who have more inside connections to this group is that most of my suspicions about the product are correct.  Virtually all the one punch knockout matches are works.  The majority of the matches are shoots.  There are works done in which both fighters know ahead of time they are going to do a one punch knockout or a short match.  There are other longer fights that aren't what one would call works, but more fixed, in which only the loser knows ahead of time that he's going to lose and his job is to go down for the first believable blow, but the match itself has the winner actually trying to win so it's a real fight.  On the K-1, the Francisco Filho first round match against Sam Greco appeared to be a work and even Filho, who apparently isn't in on it, seems embarrassed when Greco goes down and doesn't even celebrate the win.  The other 15 second match which was Andy Hug beating Masaaki Satake looks worked when viewing it live, but the kick Hug threw at the finish was one of the most devastating kicks you'll ever see when watching it in slow-mo on the replay.  The semis and finals appeared to be complete shoots with nothing looking suspicious in the least and Ernesto Hoost's victory appeared totally deserved.  It didn't appear that any of the fighters after the first round weren't trying their bet to win.  Actually aside from Greco, none of the fighters appeared to be out there to do a job.  It was a really good show, one of the promotion's best shows to date, but I get into K-1 more for how they market their fighters to the public and their shows as a promotion as there is always something to learn about promoting when studying a company that can sell 50,000 tickets to a show in one hour.  It's also a very major league looking atmosphere as a show itself and the ticket sales and television rating for the show speak for itself as to the mainstream popularity this group enjoys.

Pancrase ran on 11/16 in Kobe before a sellout 3,500.  In the main event, champion Yuki Kondo beat Yoshiki Takahashi in 7:27 with a shoulderlock submission while Masakatsu Funaki beat Jason Godsey in 7:12 with an ankle lock submission.  The rest of the card all ended up going the time limit with either points or judges decisions determining the outcome.  The two top matches set up the 12/20 main event for Yokohama with Kondo defending the title against Funaki.  We are getting more and more reports of this group's popularity and finances being down and that some of the foreigners are being paid as little as $1,000 for fights.  Bas Rutten, who was supposed to return next month, said that he would be out of action for the next five months due to a number of serious injuries.

JWP is running a show on 12/6 at Yokohama Bunka Gym with the theme being interpromotional matches with JWP vs. LLPW headlined by JWP's Dynamite Kansai & Kanako Motoya facing LLPW's Mizuki Endo & Shinobu Kandori plus JWP's champion, Hikari Fukuoka faces LLPW's Yasha Kurenai.  The two groups are working closely together right as JWP's Kansai & Cuty Suzuki team with LLPW's Harley Saito against LLPW's Kandori & Rumi Kazama and JWP's Mayumi Ozaki in the main event on LLPW's next big show on 12/5 in Kawasaki.  The interpromotional stuff already started as the main event on 11/16 at Korakuen Hall on the JWP show which drew 1,500 was JWP vs. LLPW and the 11/15 LLPW show in Yaizu had Fukuoka & Boirshoi of JWP go to a 30:00 draw against Carol Midori & Mikiko Futagami.

Patrick Smith of early UFC fame returned to Kingdom for the main event on 11/15 in Hakodate which drew only 1,150 as he beat Masahito Kakihara in what surely is a worked match.  The Kingdom contracts that the foreigners get are pretty specific regarding finishes being agreed to ahead of time.  The next former UFC fighters coming to Kingdom are Wallid Ismail and Paul Herrera on the 12/14 Korakuen Hall show.  Ismail, with a 5-1 record in Vale Tudo with his loss coming against Pancrase's Yoshiki Takahashi, is a former Brazilian Jiu Jitsu world champion who once beat Renzo Gracie under sport rules.  He'll face Hiromitsu Kanehara in what some think will be a shoot match since Ismail is from the Carlson Gracie school as his fighters have yet to participate in worked matches.   Herrera is a buddy of Tank Abbott who is 0-1 in UFC and holds the dubious distinction of being involved on the wrong end of one of the fastest and most brutal knockouts in UFC history against Gary Goodridge, will face Kazushi Sakuraba.

Hideki Hosaka in FMW is now wrestling as The Imposter Great Nita, basically doing a gimmick similar to NWO Sting in New Japan.

WAR is doing a single elimination tournament starting 11/18 and continuing through January to crown its first Japanese heavyweight champion, with the winner getting Rikidozan's original Japanese heavyweight title belt from the 50s.  The seven-man tournament features Koki Kitahara, Arashi, Nobutaka Araya, Nobukazu Hirai, Yoshiaki Fujiwara (the only independent on the show), Genichiro Tenryu and Koji Kitao.

Add Big Japan to the list of financially plagued offices as the business constricts in Japan.  They canceled their tour from 11/29 to 12/3 but announced that its next show would be on 1/2 at Korakuen Hall.

IWA from 12/6 to 12/9 will have Tommy Dreamer, Doug Gilbert, Leatherface and Freddy Kruger on tour.  What's interesting about that is that in the past, the masked Kruger has been Gilbert.

HERE AND THERE

The final wrestling show ever at the Dallas Sportatorium was held on 11/17.  It had been widely reported everywhere, including here, that the decision to tear the building down and turn it into a drive-through liquor store had been rescinded.  Actually the story was that if the local CWA promotion could get the crowd up to about 2,500 paid, it would show that there was enough interest to save the building.  Considering that there were no Freebirds or Von Erichs to be found on 11/17, all the hype and pleading with fans to save the building resulted in 500 fans, by far the largest in the history of the promotion, but still not enough to save the lease.  For whatever it is worth, the final match in the building saw Action Jackson & Warrior 2000 beat Al Jackson & King Parsons & Baboose in a handicap match.  The CWA will continue to operate, moving their base of operations for weekly Friday night shows to the Longhorn Ballroom, which is a former famous Country-Western spot during the 70s that has housed pro wrestling in the past, and is located only a few blocks from the Sportatorium.

Speaking of Freebirds, on 11/12, the CBS affiliate in Chicago ran a story on Dale Hey, better known as Freebird Buddy Roberts.  He started getting a chronic sore throat in the fall of 1995 and six months later was diagnosed with throat cancer.  He had a partial supraglottic laryngectomy, but weeks later the sore throat returned and he went to a second doctor.  The second doctor said the first operation was not one that would cure cancer.  Six months after that he underwent a second surgery.  He has since filed a lawsuit against the hospital and first doctor.  They interviewed him.  He has a hole in his trachea and a faint, raspy voice.  Roberts, 50, began wrestling at the age of 18 and was best known in the 70s as part of a tag team with Jerry Brown as the Hollywood Blonds, often managed by Sir Oliver Humperdink (John Sutton).  After they disbanded, the had a brief run under the name Dale Valentine in Texas, as the son of Johnny Valentine, before hooking up with two young wrestlers named Michael Hayes and Terry Gordy in Louisiana and joining their tag team called The Fabulous Freebirds, who achieved huge success in Louisiana, Georgia and Texas during the 80s.

More on the Dan Severn-Dory Funk incident after the show on 11/7 in Gainesville, FL.  The two had been booked together a few times on indie shows and worked well together in the past.  The problem initially seems to stem from a match scheduled a few months back.  On the day of the show, Severn was asked by NWA President Dennis Coraluzzo to drop the NWA title to Funk, and refused to do so.  Severn, among other things, felt it wasn't right that he was asked at the last minute.  Coraluzzo asked because he was afraid that Severn was going to work a program in ECW with Taz, which was being talked about, and Coraluzzo wanted to get the belt off Severn before he left.  Since Severn never left for ECW, the issue for the most part was dropped.  Apparently Funk refused to dress in the same dressing room as Severn in Gainesville over the incident a few months earlier.  There was enough concern that promoter Howard Brody switched the order of the matches so that instead of Funk's match with Steve Keirn coming before Severn's, that Funk's match was moved to just before intermission.  Funk stuck around for the rest of the show since his wife Marti, a photographer, was shooting the card for the Japanese press.  After Severn won his main event over Typhoon, subbing for Greg Valentine, he was signing autographs.  Marti Funk was packing her equipment and talking with some friends.  Marti poured some bottled water on Brody as kind of a joke, but he didn't take too kindly to it.  She then did the same to Severn, who didn't appear happy about it and she said something about having a sense of humor.  It wound up with Severn saying something to Marti and Dory getting involved to ask what was wrong and it ended up with words being exchanged.  Since there were still 35 to 50 people around and Severn was embarrassed so many were watching, he asked to continue the discussion in private, but people seeing something was amiss followed them.  Before long Dory starts saying how Severn thinks he's above the wrestling business and Marti calls him names, and Dory challenges him to get in the ring.  Severn said that he respected Dory, but had nothing to prove to him, and then got mad at Brody feeling it was a set-up like the night Coraluzzo asked him to drop the title to Dory.  They talked for about 15 minutes before Severn finally agreed to get in the ring.  Apparently Severn was trying to avoid it but by that point with so many people watching felt backed against the wall.  When they got in the ring, they basically wrestled, it wasn't like a fight or anything but it definitely wasn't a worked angle.  While this was going on, the Alachua County Sheriff's Department showed up with six or eight officers and were about to go into the ring and break the "fight" up.  When the officers asked if the "fight" was real, the promoter, figuring if he said yes they'd be arrested, said no, and instead the police then wanted to arrest Brody for attempting to incite a riot.  As they wrestled each other with Severn, according to reports, being too fast and too technically advanced, Severn rolled out of the ring saying he had nothing to prove and left the building without showering and being very upset at the entire situation and left feeling like he didn't understand the wrestling business at all.

Former UFC fighter Brian Johnston, who did a job for Naoya Ogawa on 9/23 at Budokan Hall, is now in Minneapolis full-time with Don Frye training to be a pro wrestler under Brad Rheingans.

Music City Wrestling's biggest show to date will be on Thanksgiving night in Nashville with a ladder match between Wolfie D vs. Flash Flanagan with Jason Jarrett (Jeff's younger brother) as referee; Doug Gilbert vs. Billy Travis with a guitar on a pole; Colorado Kid vs. Terry Golden with the Kid's North American title against Golden's Southern title, Shooting Starz vs. Centerfolds in a tar and feather match, Steven Dunn vs. Rex King, Adrian Street vs. Frenchie Riviera, Sherri Martel vs. Lady Dee (Debbie Combs), J.C. Ice vs. Sheik Akman, plus Eight Ball of the DOA (home for the holidays) will work underneath.  They are also going to induct Christine Jarrett, Jim White, Billy Wicks (a huge draw about 35 years back), Don & Al Greene (the original Heavenly Bodies tag team), Mac York, Cora Combs, Paul Morton (long-time referee, father of Ricky), Eddie Marlin and Tommy Gilbert into the Nashville wrestling Hall of Fame, and that Jerry Jarrett would appear to accept such an award on behalf of the late Tojo Yamamoto.  Reports are that the scheduled 11/28 debut in Memphis has been postponed.

There was a ton of local publicity in Oregon a few weeks back for the pro wrestling debut of former local college football star Josh Wilcox.  Wilcox, whose father David was a fairly prominent linebacker with the 49ers in the 70s, has wanted to be a pro wrestler for years.  He is still negotiating to continue his football career with the Portland Forest Dragons of the Arena Football League.

A group called Intercontinental Wrestling Council ran shows on 11/8 in Greensboro and 11/9 in Washington, DC in a Lucha format bringing in Zapatisa, Super Elektra, Humberto Garza (Hector's younger brother), El Satanico, Shu El Guerrero, Atlantico (Atlantis' younger brother) and Ruben Juarez Jr.   Shows didn't draw at all.

NAWA on 11/22 in White, GA with Chic Donovan and Billy Black and War Zone Wrestling on 11/25 in Atlanta at the International Ballroom will offer $1 off any ticket if you mention the Observer at the box office.

Northern States Wrestling Alliance on 11/28 in Westland, MI at Wayne Ford Civic League has Greg Valentine and Honky Tonk Man appearing.

American Wrestling Council on 12/13 at the VFW Hall in Iselin, NJ has an eight-man tournament to crown a champion with Billy Kidman, Ace Darling, Reckless Youth, Don Montoya, Adam Flash, Steve Corino, Super Nova (ECW) and Devon Storm.

Perro Aguayo and Vampiro Canadiense worked Lucha shows on 11/8 in Santa Ana before 150 fans and 11/9 in Anaheim before 500 fans.

Jersey All-Pro Wrestling on 12/5 in Bayonne, NJ at Charity Hall with Pit Bull #2 and Samoan Gangstas appearing.

Southern California Championship Wrestling on 12/13 at the Boys & Girls Club of Echo Park, CA at 1 p.m.


NHB
Yoji Anjoh held his own press conference in Japan on 11/13 announcing that he would be part of the UFC PPV.  Originally the thought was to match him as a "safe" first round opponent for Tank Abbott, but the feeling I'm given is that they will try and match him against another Japanese wrestler and have them do a shoot match to help draw the live house.  It isn't definite whether that match, which would probably be promoted in Japan as a semi-main event, would even air on the PPV in the United States.

Royce Gracie on Vitor Belfort:  "He did too much steroids [...] Steroids will do real good for you in a fight for a real short amount of time, but you saw what happens after a couple minutes, you get tired and lose."  Royce also ripped Vitor's trainer, Carlson Gracie, who is Royce's uncle but there is something of a family feud between Carlson and his father Helio over who was actually the best fighter in the 50s.  He said that anyone with enough money could get a Carlson Gracie black belt.

Time Warner sent out a Q&A to people who had contacted them about UFC's not airing.  Their position is that since UFC has been banned in five of the major states that they do business in, they don't believe it is appropriate to carry the show.  When the question about ECW is brought up, since it hasn't been banned officially by any state, the response is, "We believe the entire category of extreme fighting events promotes violence for its own sake so we have decided not to provide any of these events."  So after all this time, they still have ECW and EFC confused.  In regard to the new rules they say that if those five states that ban UFC, rescind their ban than they will reconsider their position.  When the question of allowing boxing and porno movies but not UFC, the answer is, "Despite the recent regrettable biting incident, boxing is a sport that has been sanctioned for decades at the amateur, Olympic and professional levels.  Programming with sexual content is regulated by the Federal Government.  Neither is true for extreme fighting, so it is up to us to choose how to deal with these events."  When asked why Time Warner won't carry UFC events in states where they aren't banned, the answer is, "The company believes its policy must be consistent across the country.  So until these states end their bans, these events will not be carried anywhere."

There will be an Octagon Vale Tudo event on 12/8 at the Nagoya International Center Arena in Japan which will include three womens matches involving three pro wrestlers from the JD organization, Lioness Asuka, Megumi Yabushita (a former national judo champion) and Yoko Takahashi.  Asuka and Takahashi have both done Vale Tudo rules fights in the past.  In a mens fight, Seiichi Kato, 20, who is a student from the Pancrase dojo who has yet to make his Pancrase debut, will have a match on the show as well.

The match with Becky Levi vs. Reggie Bennett didn't take place on 11/15.  There is some talk the match will take place on 12/6 at the next IFC show.  There is also talk that Dan Severn will face Peter Williams of Lions Den on that show but it also is not a definite.  Severn is also negotiating to appear on the Pride Two show.  He was trying to get a rematch with Kimo inside an Octagon with no time limit, but last word is that Pride was instead offering him a match against Mark Hall.  SEG was attempting to get Kimo in its tournament for the PPV, but they wanted him to sign their exclusive contract and his father Dennis Leopoldo, who doubles as his manager, said that he wanted him to remain a free agent.

Due to the recent riot in Rio de Janiero, the Brazilian government is denying working visas to any foreign fighters coming in for Vale Tudo shows.  There was a show scheduled on 11/30 in which Americans Jason Godsey (Pancrase) and Mike Van Arsdale (who was in the IWF PPV show) were to be in a tournament, but it appears they won't be allowed in.  In the past, I know of several fighters that would go to Brazil with tourist visas rather than working visas to begin with.  The Brazilian promoters are hopeful this red tape will be cleared up in time for a show on 1/25.


ECW
The only house show of the week was 11/15 in Glasgow, DE before a sellout of 1,500 at the high school gym.  It was said to have been an average to below average show.  How's this for a first?  ECW champion Bam Bam Bigelow actually wrestled in the final match of the show beating Shane Douglas.  This may have been because he was arriving late since he worked an MEWF show in Hampstead, MD that same night (and since he had the later booking, his match on that show with King Kong Bundy was put on first).  Sandman had his first match back since being out for several weeks, losing a short match to Rob Van Dam.  He appeared to be in a lot of pain, but that also could have been because he took some shots earlier that afternoon in some sort of a boxer vs. wrestler exhibition in Philadelphia, but still took a few crazy bumps.

Francine was at the show in street clothes and on crutches from her fractured pelvis suffered last week and isn't expected back performing until the PPV.

With the PPV on 11/30, don't be surprised to see an ECW presence on the 11/24 Raw from Fayetteville, NC.  If it isn't there, it won't be because they didn't try.

The only matches announced for 12/4 in Revere, MA are a street fight with New Jack & John Kronus vs. Dudleys and Sandman & Dreamer vs. Sabu & Van Dam.  12/5 in Waltham, MA for a television taping will have Sabu & Van Dam vs. Sandman & Dreamer, Dudleys vs. Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney and FBI vs. New Jack & Kronus.

The television this past week aired the Taz & Dreamer vs. Sabu & Van Dam match from the ECW Arena.  There were a few nice moves but overall it was pretty bad.  It's clear that Dreamer should be taking time off due to his various injuries.  He can somewhat hide how hurt he is by working these sloppy brawl matches and in some circles people consider it gutsy or macho to be able to actually get in the ring and attempt to perform with all the injuries.  With his position as a leader in the company you can see his motivation, but it's clear his shoulder and moreso his heel, haven't recovered to where he's close to ready.  But it was really sad watching the match, and even sadder considering the lessons this business should have taught everyone that nobody wants to accept or learn.  A lot of people across wrestling really should try to heed lessons about letting their macho pride and headstrong determination get in the way of their common sense because the end result of that isn't pretty--basically a business and public that will forget about you and not care and wait for the next trained monkey to go jumping through the hoops.  The only other match that aired, and this was really just a few minutes of the finish, was Chris Chetti vs. Justin Credible, which was decent.  In the commentary, Joey Styles said that five years from now a match between these two will be headlining a national PPV show.  Maybe in 2002 he'll have the last laugh on that one, but people were laughing at that remark big-time all weekend.  Even with the push, at this point Credible comes across as just a prelim wrestler pointing at his crotch to try and get heat and by doing so comes across as a minor league imitation of the "big stars."  His spinning tombstone piledriver finish is pretty cool, tho.


WCW

Nitro on 11/17 in Cincinnati drew a sellout 13,877 fans (12,988 paying $222,450--an all-time city record; plus another $94,827 in merchandise).  The crowd was really hot and overall it was a good show.  In the dark match, Sean Morley from All Japan, Promo Azteca and Puerto Rico, got a try-out beating John Paul.  The show opened with an NWO interview where Rude was introduced.  They reiterated Bret Hart would be coming to the NWO, and throughout the show had bumpers of WCW guys saying they were in disbelief at the idea Hart would join the NWO.  They also announced Sting was injured in the attack the previous week.  Ray Traylor did an interview and the entire NWO jumped him and spray painted him.  Meng beat Glacier with the Tongan death grip in 2:56.  After the match, Barbarian helped out and Ernest Miller tried to make the save.  Meng put him in the move as well.  This sets up an added match (we can't miss this one) of Glacier & Miller vs. Faces of Fear at the PPV on 11/23.  Alex Wright beat Steve McMichael in 2:57 via DQ when McMichael threw down the ref.  At least it wasn't as horrible as their PPV match.  Rey Misterio Jr. pinned Chris Jericho in 6:31 with an incredible finish.  Misterio Jr. jumped onto the top rope and springboard reversing his position into the huracanrana.  They had one spot where they sort of lost it but most of the match was tremendous.  Bischoff and Larry Zbyszko argued and the entire NWO jumped Zbyszko and Bischoff threw a lot of kicks at him and really left him laying.  It was the same angle as before, but people were into it this time a lot more.  A fan tried to hop the rail and Bischoff had to sidestep him at the last minute.  Well, it's not like they aren't encouraging it.  A second fan later in the show also tried to get involved.  Diamond Dallas Page pinned Villano V after a diamond cutter in 3:22, then used the move on Villano IV as well.  One hell of a squash match with super heat.  Eddie Guerrero retained the cruiserweight title going to a double knockout with Dean Malenko in 11:39 after both collapsed after a backwards superplex while both were standing on the top rope.  An excellent match.  Perry Saturn retained the TV title beating Scotty Riggs in 5:37.  No heat but work was okay.  Saturn's knee still seems really bad.  Riggs did an awesome dive off the top over the guard rail onto Van Hammer, Scott "Sick Boy" Vick and Billy Kidman which was the highlight of the match.  Steiners were to wrestle Marcus Bagwell & Scott Norton.  In reality, Norton's knee is blown out and he can't work.  Apparently at the Fukuoka Dome, Satoshi Kojima stomped on it too hard and blew it out and he's expected out of the ring four to six weeks.  So the entire NWO jumped the Steiners in the aisle and spray painted Scott.  Lex Luger beat Curt Hennig via DQ in 6:44 when Hennig hit Luger with the U.S. title belt.  Hennig kept beating on Luger until The Giant made the save.  Finally Giant beat Scott Hall via DQ in 5:14 when the entire NWO made the save attacking Giant.

Guerrero may have suffered a groin injury in the match. Hennig needed five stitches and got a chipped tooth in his 11/10 match with Page.

Penthouse magazine is doing a story on Nitro.

Besides Glacier & Miller vs. Meng & Barbarian, also added to 11/23 Auburn Hills PPV is Raven vs. Riggs, Bill Goldberg vs. McMichael and Steiners defending the tag titles against Steve Regal & David Taylor.

Nash & Hall had tag belts made up for themselves doing the angle that they never lost them in the ring.

The new Thursday TBS show is going to be called "Thunder," but not "Thursday Thunder," because once baseball season starts in April, it'll be moved to Wednesday.  I think real life ends for all hardcore wrestling fans right around that point.

WCW Saturday Night tapings on 11/12 in Montgomery, AL drew a sellout 2,202 paying $27,050.  They did a British angle with Regal & David Taylor vs. Norman Smiley & Chris Adams.

Randy Savage addressed the Hart-McMahon situation saying that McMahon is really on a roll of bad decisions.  He brought up a match that no doubt his father told him where Buddy Rogers as booker and a ref conspired to double-cross Argentina Rocca, who had refused to do a job but that Rocca didn't react like Hart did.  He ripped on Michaels, admitting he had the talent in the ring, but said that his acting job in regard to pretending he didn't know wasn't very good and said the belt he carries is now a joke and so is he.

It now appears the angle planned for months in making Bobby Eaton & Joey Maggs into a tag team managed by Teddy Long has been changed to Eaton & Bobby Walker.

When running down the match quality ratings in last week's Observer for 1997, we inadvertently left out Chris Jericho, who with a 3.21 average on major shows would be near the top.

Referee Mark Curtis (Brian Hildebrand) is currently undergoing chemo and radiation therapy for his cancer.  We with him the best in his recovery.

Stevie Richards is telling people that he's getting out of wrestling completely.

The only house show of the week was 11/16 in Dayton, OH before 5,528 paying $82,743.

Mike Tenay will be producing a Brian Pillman WCW video with all the proceeds going to the Pillman family.  As of 11/18, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiners office, they still have not determined an official cause of death.

Syxx missed Nitro because he underwent neck surgery during the week.

The cruiserweight tournament we wrote about last week has already been put on hold, which has made a lot of the mid-card wrestlers who are unhappy about their lack of push and lack of upward mobility, that much more unhappy.

Major events schedule for February is Nitro on 2/2 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Thunder on 2/5 at the Astrodome in Houston, Nitro on 2/9 in El Paso, Thunder on 2/12 in Oklahoma City, Nitro on 2/16 in Tampa, Thunder on 2/19 in Birmingham, a house show on 2/20 in Las Vegas, Fall Brawl on 2/22 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, Nitro on 2/23 in Sacramento and Thunder on 2/26 in Cedar Rapids.

Weekend ratings saw Main Event at 1.5, Saturday Night at 2.1 and Pro at 1.4.

The 1/24 PPV show will definitely be called NWO Souled Out II and be from Dayton.  There had been talk due to the way the show bombed last year both from a buy rate standpoint and as a show, to not try and repeat the concept, but I guess they'll give it another try.

After the Nitro on 11/3 in Philadelphia, Steve Everett, the Center on the Eagles, who was shown on camera with two other Eagles in the front row, was arrested on the way home from the matches.  He was stopped for going 74 MPH in a 50-MPH zone, and arrested for a DWI and possession od drug paraphernalia (a marijuana smoking pipe).  No drugs were found in the car.

The current plan still seems to be that starting in January, the Monday show will become NWO Nitro, perhaps built around a feud with Hogan's NWO with he and Savage, against the Wolfpack, with the members splitting up and taking sides.  Some talk that Bischoff and Rick Rude would do the announcing for this show, which after the job Rude did in ECW, would be good for about one week at the most.  Thursday would be WCW Thunder, built around Flair, Sting, Giant, Luger and Bret Hart and they'd feud amongst themselves.  What would then make the PPV shows special is that all the big stars would be on the PPV and you'd have theoretical interpromotional battles there.  This could and probably will change 100 times between now and January, which is actually coming up shockingly quickly.

Bruce Hart is talking about re-starting Stampede Wrestling in Calgary with an affiliation with WCW as a way for the younger wrestlers to gain experience on the road every night.


WWF
Tentative line-up for the 12/7 PPV show is Michaels vs. Shamrock for the WWF title, Austin vs. Maivia for the IC belt, LOD vs. Billy Gunn & Jesse Jammes for tag titles, the finals of the light heavyweight tournament (Christopher vs. Taka Michinoku?), Sgt. Slaughter vs. HHH, Marc Mero vs. Butterbean in a four round boxing exhibition, Vader vs. Goldust, Kane vs. Ahmed Johnson, Truth Commission vs. DOA eight man tag and Kama & D.Lo Brown vs. Head Bangers.

Yes, there were matches this past week.

Raw was taped on 11/11 in Cornwall, ONT before a sellout 3,754 paying $46,619.  In dark matches, Randy Blackbeard beat Andy Ellison, Adam Copeland (a 23-year-old who has worked indies as Sexton Hardcastle and is said to have a great look) beat Christian Cage (who he has worked with for years in Canadian indies), Glenn Kulka (said to have great potential and got a big pop since he, being a football hero in Canada, was given a big local push as appearing on the show) beat Doug Furnas, Steve Blackman beat Phil LaFon and Mark Henry (said to have improved but still looking terrible) beat Brooklyn Brawler.  For Shotgun, D.Lo Brown pinned Flash Funk, Interrogator & Jackyl won a squash, Brian Christopher beat Devon Storm in what was said to have been the best match on the entire show, DOA beat Boricuas in an eight-man, Shamrock did an interview saying Bret Hart never submitted against Shamrock and that he was friends with Hart and would defend his honor which, being in Canada, got a pop.  It's such a weird reality because Shamrock and Hart had a match on Raw where they were feuding just a few weeks ago, and how they are supposed to be friends.  Actually Hart was probably more responsible than anyone else in getting Shamrock into the WWF as he was the one who sought Shamrock out and basically recruited him and helped train him.  Then came the Raw show.  Austin did an interview challenging Maivia, but the entire NOD came out and in the melee, Maivia stole the title belt.  Lawler beat Mero via DQ in 4:44 when Sable interfered.  Sable, who had a legit black eye from being kicked by her horse (they are selling both horses) had her glasses come off on purpose in the angle to give the illusion Mero had punched her, but due to second thoughts, in the commentary they changed the angle to just saying the truth about the horse and no insinuation Mero did it.  Jammes & Gunn beat Savio Vega & Miguel Perez via DQ almost immediately when Jesus & Jose interfered.  They did a Mexican minis match for 3:00 with Sunny as ref, until Kane came out and the minis scampered.  The Head Bangers cracked a gimmicked boom box on Kane, who didn't sell it, and ended up destroying both with tombstones.  Kane got a huge reaction.  Michaels & co. did an interview, ending up insulting Slaughter and beating him up and burying him under toilet paper made to be an "X."  Rude was in the segment which wasn't edited out and in the commentary, which was done live, you could tell they were kind of joking about it as Cornette said Rude was the typical insurance salesman, that when it comes time to collect on the policy, he's gone to Tahiti.  In the light heavyweight tourney, Scott Taylor beat Eric Shelley in 5:27 with a DDT off the top.  Both tried.  Both looked green.  The crowd could have cared less.  Mero did an interview where he called out Butterbean.  There was almost no pop when Bean hopped the rail.  They shoved each other with Mero taking the bump.  Butterbean actually has a PPV fight on 12/6 on the Oscar de la Hoya card, so he's doing this gig the day after, so he may wind up showing up with some marks.  Vader was supposed to wrestle Goldust, who showed up wearing panty hose, said he was injured, and hit Vader on the head with a hammer.  Slaughter did an interview saying he was going to wrestle HHH on the PPV.  It got a pop, but not nearly as big as one would have thought.  Finally Dude Love beat Maivia in 9:22 with an NOD run-in.  Austin made the save, used the stunner on Brown, but Maivia escaped with the belt.  It ended with a dark match with Vader & Undertaker & Dude Love & Austin beat NOD when Austin pinned Maivia after a stunner.  Austin tagged in only for the finishing move.

Speaking of Austin, at the PPV show in Montreal he got to meet Lee Majors, who played the television character his ring name came from.  Majors starred in a very popular television show in the 70s called "The Six Million Dollar Man," playing a character named Steve Austin.  When Steve Williams began wrestling, after a few weeks, he was told that he couldn't use the name Steve Williams because there was already a big-name wrestler with that name.  The night he was told, the promoter suggested the name Steve Austin to him, and since he couldn't come up with anything better, that was the name he used and has from that point on.

WWF is trying to lock up the Saddledome in Calgary to an exclusive contract.

WWF officials claim that despite what Eric Bischoff has stated about advertisers pulling out over the new direction, that they've had no negative feedback from advertisers and are 93 percent sold out through September of 1988. The heavy racial angle was dropped, although the Hart Foundation disappearing and they were the ones involved may explain some of it.  There were reports, denied within the company, that the USA network came down on WWF for the angle.  However, McMahon definitely did call up Phil Mushnick within the past two weeks furious at him for talking with people at the USA network regarding that angle.

It appears the attempts to bombard TV Guide with negative letters in regards to Mushnick did wind up working in reverse, as anyone who thought it out ahead of time would have figured.  Jim Cornette's editorial segments have disappeared on Raw since that time.

House shows during the week saw 11/12 in Barrie, ONT draw a sellout 5,369 paying $99,662, 11/13 in Youngstown, OH drew 3,315 paying $47,918, 11/14 in Pittsburgh drew 10,213 paying $181,798, 11/15 at Madison Square Garden drew 12,525 paid (15,479 total) paying $324,830 and 11/16 in Baltimore drew 4,182 paying $79,378.

In Pittsburgh, Michaels replaced Hart against Undertaker and lost via DQ in the main event.  No announcements were made about Bret, Owen or Bulldog not appearing.

At MSG, Howard Finkel announced the new revised line-up, but again didn't acknowledge Bret, Owen or Bulldog not being there.  They announced George Steele would now be in Dude Love's corner against HHH, rather than in Vader's as advertised, and that Brooklyn Brawler would get his title shot for winning the Battle Royal on the last show.  Gunn & Jammes beat Head Bangers in 7:24 when Billy came off the top rope on Mosh.  Faarooq beat Johnson in a street fight in 2:59.  Said to set new standards for horrible.  Crush & Chainz beat Brown & Kama in 8:03 when Crush pinned Brown in a terrible match.  Michaels pinned Brawler in 7:21 to keep the title with lots of interference from HHH and Chyna.  Brawler came out to Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" and Michaels bounced around for him, giving him a lot of near falls, before Chyna gave him a huracanrana behind the refs back and Michaels used the superkick for the pin.  Goldust did an interview saying he likes to wear womens panties and that all the little boys should check out their mommy's underwear drawer.  LOD kept tag titles beating Vega & Perez in 6:45.  Since they were in New York with a heavy Puerto Rican crowd, the crowd was actually split.  Kane pinned Vader in 7:23 of a well worked match, using a choke slam for the finish.  Max Mini & Nova & Taurus beat Torito & Tarantula & Piratita Morgan in a minis match in 6:52.  Dude pinned Neidhart after a DDT in 4:09.  Steele dances with Dude and ate a turnbuckle before the match, and threw around tables and chairs.  Shamrock beat Maivia with an ankle lock in 8:07, and afterwards Shamrock beat up the entire NOD.  Finally Undertaker & Austin beat Michaels & HHH when Undertaker pinned Michaels (to alleviate the internal pressure because of all the controversy about Michaels never doing jobs) in 14:41 after the tombstone.  After the match Austin used the stunner on Chyna.  Fans bombarded the ring with debris, said to be a combination of heat because of how well DX does as heels, and debris from fans mad about the Hart situation.  Austin worked about one-third of the match, his most work to date, and seemed to injure himself, as the next night in Baltimore he only appeared in Love's corner and didn't wrestle.

Baltimore main event saw Taker beat HHH in a casket match, and after the match Taker put HHH, Chyna and Michaels, both of whom had interfered freely, all in the casket.

The WWF Attitude commercials, which are great, were filmed on 10/24 at the Nassau Coliseum.  There was a lot of surprise at the time that Hart was the focal point since they knew there was a chance he was leaving.  They are going to film segments with Shamrock (who they did a quickie fill on the 11/17 Raw of a segment) to replace Hart's spots and insert them into the ad.

WWF pulled all folders of Hart and all photos of Hart from its historical archives Online.  Hart's fan club was getting about 350 e-mails per hour all week long on the subject of the finish.

Jim Ross, on the 900 line said that Hart was terribly screwed at the Survivor Series and described it as an ugly part of the business but that was the way the wrestling business operated on that night, sad as it is to say.

Shamrock filmed an episode of the CBS TV show "Nash Bridges" during the week.  Dan Severn may also be in the episode although they won't appear together.  Severn was at the Titan offices on 11/18 attempting to finalize a deal to come in on a part-time basis.

12/14 in Memphis has Lawler & Jarrett vs. Michaels & HHH, Undertaker vs. Maivia casket match, Vader vs. Kane, Shamrock vs. Henry Godwinn, Dude Love vs. Sultan, DOA vs. Faarooq & Kama & Brown, Christopher vs. Scott Taylor and Bangers vs. Gunn & Jammes.

Scott Putski should be back from his knee injury in December.

Weekend ratings saw Live Wire at 1.4 and Superstars at 2.1.


THE READERS PAGES

BRET HART

I sit here pondering about the departure of Bret Hart from the WWF and can't help but feel this will be the biggest loss for Vince McMahon since the start of the wrestling war.  Obviously, this was an example of Vince McMahon trying to force feed angles to compete with the Nitro ratings.  Bret had to be disgusted with the entire USA vs. Canada angle and also the recent race angles with the NOD and we all know the love he has for Shawn Michaels.

He must really be unhappy if he's willing to go to WCW and deal with Hulk Hogan and all the politics.  I only hope they don't stick him in the NWO.  I see this as a desperate time for McMahon.  He's lost Bret.  Nobody knows if Steve Austin will ever come back 100%  And Shawn Michaels is way too unstable to be put in the spotlight.  The truth is, Bret Hart is the WWF and there is no way Vince McMahon should have allowed this to happen.

Russ Duda
Trumbull, Connecticut

DM:  The concept of the U.S. vs. Canada angle was to a great degree Bret Hart's idea although his heel turn was a McMahon idea.

In October 1985, a friend showed me a tape of the first Wrestlemania.  In June 1986, I attended my first live WWF event where I saw a 20:00 draw between Bret Hart and Jim Brunzell that tore the house down.  Since that time, I've been one of the biggest supporters of both the WWF and Bret Hart.  Over the past 12 years, I've missed a grand total of two WWF PPV shows.  God only knows how much money that adds up to, not to mention the innumerable house shows I've attended and souvenirs I've purchased.  That has all changed.

The match between Hart and Shawn Michaels simply tore me apart.  When Earl Hebner called for the bell as Bret Hart was reversing the held, and then, rather than present the belt to Michaels and raise his hand, ran for the dressing room faster than Ben Johnson, my heart broke.  The look on Bret's face spoke volumes about the scruples of Vince McMahon.

For 12 years, Bret had been one of the most loyal wrestlers in company history.  Up until the match with Michaels, I never heard of an incident where he refused to do a job.  He put over men with far less talent and always made the opponent, no matter how big a stiff they were, look better than they were.  Then after a bidding war he agreed to come back to the WWF and was promised a title victory over Michaels.  I wanted to see that one, but I guess I'll be waiting a long time.  For one year, they tried to do the match, foiled once by Michaels and once to Hart's injured knee.  Finally they have the match, only Hart is asked to put over the guy who started all this in the first place.  McMahon knew the clause in Hart's contract and still didn't care, so Vince will get what he deserves.
McMahon really dropped the ball on this one.  He could have used Bret to get another wrestler over on his way out.  He could have beaten Michaels on a DQ and then put Shamrock over for the title.  Michaels could have beaten Shamrock for the title and the same result would have been achieved without destroying the title and Bret still could have put someone else over on his way out.  He's a professional and would certainly have agreed to it, but McMahon felt the need to show everyone who is boss.  Fine.

The WWF has received my last dollar.  I'll never order another PPV show.  I'll never attend another house show.  I'm going to start ordering WCW shows, something I've been wanting to do since Rey Misterio Jr. started wrestling there.  I wish Bret Hart all the success in WCW.  And I wish Vince McMahon a bankruptcy hearing.  The spit went double for me.

Kevin Shride
Burlington, Iowa

Without a doubt, the 11/17 issue of the Observer was the finest bit of wrestling reading I've ever seen in my life.  You really outdid yourself with this issue.  As you stated in the first paragraph about the Hart-Michaels match going down in wrestling history, so will this issue of the Observer in my book.
Being from the old school, I don't believe this information should have been made public to your readers, but as a wrestling fan, I must say it made fascinating reading from start to finish, so I'm sure this issue is going to cause quite a stir in the wrestling business.

I saw the match.  Being in the business for almost 30 years, I knew right away what happened.  I don't know Bret Hart.  I do know Vince McMahon.  Remember this.  He is the owner of his business.  What he says should go.  The real champion is his pencil and he's the man that guides the pencil.  It goes back to my old days.  You never put all your eggs in any one basket.  Giving a wrestler too much control of their angles breeds too many ego problems and then the promoter loses control.  If what you wrote is how it happened, Vince McMahon never should have apologized.  He should have told The Undertaker to mind his own business.  He should have gotten the boys together at the meeting and told them from now on it's my way or the highway.  Sure, Hart made the company a lot of money.  So what.  That's the wrestling business.  All this crap about not wanting to do this or that in the ring is just plain idiotic.  Vince McMahon made every one of these wrestlers, from Hogan to Hart.  Without him, they'd still be working small towns for small town promoters.  When a promoter or booker spends hours, days or weeks in working out a program, it can be discussed, maybe even challenged, but in the end should be carried out at the promoters' request.  It's the promoters money behind the show.  If it works out, everyone makes money.  If it doesn't, it's the promoter who takes the loss in more ways than just the pocket book.  Bret Hart, in my book, is not a professional.  He should have gotten his stuff together and left.  One day he's going to try and pull a stung like that and meet somebody who is going to hurt him.  If the apology from McMahon didn't mean anything to him, he should have just walked away.  But today, these guys all have egos that would choke a horse.  As far as who knew what was going to happen, so what?  Vince pays their salary too.  If Vince told Hebner that was the finish, Hebner did his job and should go on.  Bottom line, too much dictating by wrestlers is going on today.  To bad they forget that without people like Vince McMahon, they could be making $5.25 an hour somewhere.

Add to the list of world title double crosses a match between Bearcat Wright and Freddie Blassie at the Olympic Auditorium in the early 60s when Wright beat Blassie for the WWA world title belt.  The next night in Valley Gardens Arena, Wright arrived to wrestle only to find out Judo Gene LeBelle was waiting to take the belt under a mask as "The Hangman" and was going to do it the hard way in a shoot.  Wright knew what was coming, left the building, and the territory that night.

Once again, it was the best piece of wrestling journalism I've ever seen and I may frame the issue.

Jeff Walton
Los Angeles, California

DM:  In theory, I can understand the attitude that a full owner of a business should have the absolute power to dictate whatever he wants and take the "It's my way or the highway approach."  Even today that attitude is fully understandable provided the owner realizes to set that attitude he can't care about losing talent to a rival promotion, because if he cares, he can't truly have that attitude.  In the days of territories that were regional monopolies, that wasn't an issue promoters had to deal with because even if talent left, they wouldn't be working opposition to them in the same cities.  More importantly when it comes to today's wrestling, once a promoter agrees to give a wrestler any degree of creative control, it becomes a legal issue and at that point the promoter can no longer dictate scenarios, he has to negotiate them and decisions are no longer firm legal decisions until both sides agree to them.  Once a promoter gives that power to a wrestler, and while I don't think it's a good idea to do so in theory because of the chaos as this story and numerous others weekly in this profession show that it causes, in a true competitive environment, the owner sometimes has to make concessions to talent to keep them.  McMahon made that concession when signing Hart and by doing so, the old school ways no longer apply when it comes to this specific story.  At that point the entire equation changes and the wrestler does have the erasure power over the pencil.

VINCE MCMAHON

I have no sympathy for the WWF.  This is payback for the destruction of the territories.  While the territory systems was going to die due to cable television anyway, the total ruination of the U.S. wrestling scene can be traced to two things.  1) The predatory invasion and ruthless tactics employed by Titan Sports in the early 80s; and 2) The turning of pro wrestling into a kiddie show and steroid circus.

Anthony Perticaro
Garden City South, New York

PILLMAN

I have to admit I spent a whole day laughing at the thought of Brian Pillman having sex with a woman hanging upside down from a chin-up bar.  What a terrible loss.  The only thing that sucks more than not having him here with us is the bastards using his death for their own paranoia and power dealings.

Matt Creamer
Green Bay, Wisconsin

The newsletter dealing with Brian Pillman's death was outstanding.  The insight to his personal life were both revealing and moving.  Vince McMahon must be in a good mood these days after losing Bret Hart.  I tuned into USA on 11/10 just to see how they would address the situation.  I tuned back to Nitro after 15 minutes.  I couldn't stand just how obnoxious Shawn Michaels had become.

Irfan Kirmica
Hoboken, New Jersey