Thunder
Date:
February 11, 1999
Location:
Providence Civic Center, Providence, Rhode Island
Attendance:
10,319
Commentators:
Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan
Reviewed by Tommy Hall
The slow
build towards SuperBrawl continues with another taped Thunder.
Things are starting to get messy as well with a lot of the stories
losing some of the sense they've been making. Odds are tonight will
focus on the tag team tournament which should see some teams being
eliminated soon. Let's get to it.
We open with
the Blonde in the pool hall video from Nitro.
The
announcers welcome us to the show and do their usual.
Tag Team
Title Tournament: Mike Enos/Bobby Duncum Jr. vs. Faces of Fear
The losers
are eliminated. Meng and Enos get things going and they actually do
some technical stuff at first. Mike takes him into the corner but
offers a clean break so they can stare at each other. Meng does the
same and this has the makings of a long match. They trade shots to
the ribs until Meng nails him with a clothesline. Enos takes him
down with an armdrag and it's off to Duncum who gets wristlocked.
Barbarian comes in as this match isn't exactly thrilling the fans.
Bobby hits a bad dropkick to send Barbarian to the floor.
We take a
break and come back with Meng getting choked in the corner to keep
Enos in control. A piledriver has almost no effect on Meng and it's
off to Barbarian who gets powerslammed for two. Meng comes back in
with a piledriver of his own for two on Bobby. A double diving
headbutt gets the same before Barbarian drops an elbow on Duncum's
back. We hit the chinlock before Meng comes in to choke.
The match
just keeps going as Meng bites Bobby's nose. Barbarian's side slam
gets two and Meng, I'm assuming out of boredom, dances before kicking
Duncum in the head. A powerslam gets another near fall on
Bobby....and Barbarian turns on Meng with some kicks to the head to
give Duncum the pin.
Rating:
D-. This tournament is
officially the work of the devil. There is no other possible
explanation for making me watch these teams fight three times in a
month, including this which went nearly fifteen minutes. I have no
idea who thinks Mike Enos and Bobby Duncum Jr. should be given this
much TV time but they should be dragged out into the street and shot.
A happy Jimmy
Hart leaves with Barbarian.
We see Kanyon
going to Raven's house from Monday. Why do I have a feeling we're
going to see every single clip from this story?
Video on
Goldberg vs. Bigelow.
Clip from
Nitro of Scott Steiner throwing Kimberly out of the car.
Video on the
hair vs. mask match.
Raven and
Kanyon get money out of the bank.
Super Calo
vs. Lash Leroux
Calo quickly
takes him down but Lash comes back with a clothesline. A backdrop
puts Leroux on the floor and a dropkick puts him down. Calo hits a
flip dive that the camera misses and gets two back inside. Lash
nails a springboard cross body and drops Calo with a clothesline.
They slug it out until Calo puts on a modified abdominal stretch.
That goes nowhere either so Leroux suplexes him for two. An atomic
drop gets the same for Super and he sends Lash into the buckle a few
times. Calo gets two off a missile dropkick but gets caught in a
fireman's carry into a Michinoku Driver for the pin.
Rating: D.
Oh my goodness this show is horrible. This was a dull match as
neither guy is really very good in the ring and no one cares about
either of them. Lash's finisher looked good and the match wasn't
even six minutes long so it wasn't so much torture as much as it was
really uninteresting.
The
Blonde is in the limo. Again, it's the exact same clip from Nitro.
Again, why am I complaining about having to look at her?
Video
on the tournament, also from Nitro.
Glacier
comes up to Sonny Onoo and the Cat. He has an offer for Sonny: he'll
sell Miller his entrance.
Tag
Team Title Tournament: Dave Taylor/Fit Finlay vs. Chavo
Guerrero Jr./Kidman
This
has to be more interesting than the first one. I mean, it HAS TO BE.
Kidman and Chavo come in
with one loss and face elimination if they lose again. Chavo
and Finlay get things going until they finally lock up after a minute
of circling. Finlay hammers
away with uppercuts before putting on a cravate. Chavo comes back
with a clothesline and tags in Kidman for a double back elbow.
We
take a break and come back with Chavo dropkicking Finlay down and
making a tag to Kidman. A high cross body gets two on Finlay but he
drops Kidman throat first across the top rope to take over again.
The rolling fireman's carry
gets two as the announcers talk about Piper winning the US Title on
Monday. Back up and Kidman
misses a charge over the top and is holding his ankle. Finlay's chop
hits the post but it really doesn't change anything.
They
head inside again with Finlay putting on an STF. Finlay lets go and
poses so Kidman can crawl to the corner but Chavo is chasing Taylor
on the floor. Taylor comes
in and cranks on the arm instead of going after the leg injury.
Finlay misses a charge into
the post and Chavo comes in without a tag. The referee throws him
out, allowing Taylor to crotch Kidman on the top. Finlay brings in a
chair but Chavo dropkicks him in the back, sending the chair into
Kidman's head. A tombstone from Finlay is enough for the pin and
the elimination.
Rating:
D+. Why does WCW think
eliminating all the teams that might be interesting is a good idea?
Most of these teams have been thrown together and we're getting more
of a team like Mike Enos and Bobby Duncum Jr. instead of what could
be a good cruiserweight team? This
tournament has been a disaster so far and only seems to be getting
worse.
Glacier
tries to sell Miller and Onoo his armor but they're not interested.
Kaz Hayashi pops up and buys it (in subtitles) for $25,000.
The
Blonde goes into her hotel room.
This
Week in WCW Motorsports.
Raven
and Kanyon buy clothes.
Disco
Inferno vs. Chris Adams
Disco
gets in a chop then hides in the corner. Some
armdrags put Disco down in the corner but he bails to the floor to
avoid the superkick. Disco
gets posted but manages to whip Adams into the barricade. Back in
and the dancing elbow drop gets two and it's off to the chinlock.
Apparently the directors are
as bored as I am because we cut to the back where Hayashi is putting
on the rest of his armor. Miller buys the helmet and blue eye for
himself and gets a complimentary bottle of saline. For some reason I
remember this from when it fired aired.
Back
to the match with Adams getting two off a sunset flip. Disco
gets caught in a backslide for two as Tony sounds bored out of his
mind. Adams fights back
with a belly to back suplex and they head to the floor. That goes
nowhere so Adams comes back in with a powerbomb but has to stop the
superkick because the referee is in the way. The Chartbuster ends
this.
Rating: D.
The match wasn't even that bad. The problem here is there's no
reason to want to watch Disco Inferno beating up a jobber for eight
minutes. Even the director
seemed to get bored and go to something else. It's so clear that
there's nothing important happening on these shows but WCW had to air
them anyway. Nitro getting cut back to two hours might help things,
if I can survive getting there.
The
Blonde goes into her hotel room with whoever is holding the camera.
Kidman
says it was just miscommunication with Chavo. A
frustrated Chavo comes up and rants before laying Kidman out with a
clothesline.
Another
video on Goldberg vs. Bigelow.
We
see Raven and Kanyon get back home where Raven's mom says WCW called
and wants him back at work.
Here's
most of Piper vs. Hart from Nitro to fill in time.
We
see Hogan telling all of the Black and White members other than
Norton to be the leader, again from Nitro.
Tag
Team Title Tournament: Kaz Hayashi/Van Hammer vs. Chris Benoit/Dean
Malenko
Hayashi
has the armor on. It doesn't seem to mean anything but he does have
it on. I don't think Hammer
and Kaz have competed yet, unless Kaz is replacing Wrath who was to
be Hammer's partner before the NWO attacked them a few weeks back.
Hammer takes Benoit into the
corner to start before they head to the mat for a surprisingly nice
technical sequence. A dragon screw leg whip takes Hammer down and
it's off to Benoit vs. Hayashi.
Dean
takes him down into something resembling an STF but Kaz makes the
ropes. An armdrag brings
Kaz off the top as the announcers talk about screwdrivers. We take a
break and come back with Benoit getting the tag to face Hammer.
Chavo vs. Kidman is announced for SuperBrawl. Kaz
armdrags out of a powerbomb but Benoit avoids a dropkick. Hammer
comes back in and works on the leg as the match slows down a lot.
An
enziguri drops Van Hammer and it's back to Dean with the leg lariat
for two. Kaz gets in a knee
to the back to slow Malenko down and Hammer throws him to the floor.
A baseball slide drops Dean as the announcers have pretty much given
up on paying attention to the match. Back in and Dean rolls over to
tag Benoit who sends Hammer outside as well.
Another
baseball slide has Hammer in trouble and a short powerbomb from
Malenko gets two on Kaz. The Horsemen elbow Hayashi down and
Benoit's backbreaker gets two. Malenko superplexes Kaz down for no
cover and everything breaks down. A nice powerbomb/clothesline
combination crushes Kaz and the Crossface gets the submission.
Rating:
D+. Again, the match wasn't bad
but it needed to be shorter. That's the problem with running matches
that are longer: they only work if the match is good in the first
place. Benoit and Malenko are good, but when you put them against a
team like Kaz Hayashi and Van Hammer, it feels like an extended
waiting period before one of them gets a submission. You need some
suspension of disbelief and these aren't the opponents to provide
that.
Overall
Rating: D-. This
is a hard one to give such a low grade to as the wrestling really
wasn't horrible for the most part. However, it was just so
uninteresting and dull that I stopped caring about half an hour in.
The tournament is thankfully wrapping up so we could get some
interesting matches, but this stuff was a chore to survive.
The
other interesting thing about this show was all the stuff they aired
from Nitro, including most of a whole match. There were only five
new matches on this show and they had to air that much filler. It's
clear that Thunder really doesn't need to exist every week, but
that's the danger of going five hours every week when the company is
already repeating stories. Really
uninteresting show this week but there effort
from the guys. They just needed better material to work with.
Remember to check out my website at kbwrestlingreviews.com and head over to my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6
This show looks brutal. It sure didn't take long for WCW to forget about this show after it debuted. This is a year after it started, and this looks like an episode of WCW Saturday Night in the dying days of THAT show.
ReplyDeleteI was at these tapings and it was brutal they actually did the taped version first so we saw the faces of fear split then an hour and a half later they were wrestling together again just a mess
ReplyDeleteWCW would have been better off to do a brand extension after Starrcade 97. Having Thunder allegedly be another "A" show but not having the energy/desire to focus on it, on top of the three hour Nitros, was a total disaster.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't think Bischoff ever wanted to do it to begin with and you can see why. It did surprisingly solid numbers too for a long time, with some hideous shows.
ReplyDeleteI always thought the Dibiase was going to be the star of he and Cody. I thought he moved well in the ring but just needed to find that spark to catch on.
ReplyDeleteTurns out that he never found it, and Cody gives 110% to whatever he's doing.
He's said a bunch of times that he didn't want to and I can believe him with Nitro expanding at the same time.
ReplyDeleteJust thinking out loud... Do you guys think there's anyone without a WWE background, that isn't in NXT that WWE would see as ready for Raw? I mean, outside of the veterans/Legends?
ReplyDeleteYeah, the stock's always been a bit of a dog, albeit a reliable one. The massive inflation of value was a bubble that anyone who was smart cashed the fuck out on because it was bound to burst violently. The crash wasn't so much a crash as people regaining their sanity and the price regulating itself.
ReplyDeleteI don't watch, but I'd say there has to be at least one or two UFC guys that would be able to slide right in.
ReplyDeleteI have utterly no doubt that VKM & Don King would have jumped all over Hogan vs Tyson if the money was right. But, christ. Things sure went downhill for Tyson fast after he lost to Douglas. Dude never was the same, and I'm sure he was/is full of all sorts of inner demons.
ReplyDeleteOnce D'mato died, Tyson lost his discipline and drive.
ReplyDeleteI saw him and his brother Mike as a tag team on one of Harley's shows and was impressed. Maybe if they brought them up as a team Ted jr might have amounted to more than he did
ReplyDeleteRemember when Orton was browbeating Legacy and actually slapped Ted in the middle of the ring? Dibiase was literally shaking with rage and the crowd was super-hot, chanting TEDDY TEDDY...had they pulled the trigger on a face turn there, Dibiase might've had a chance as a legit star.
ReplyDeleteInstead, they continued to make Legacy into Orton's goons to the extent that the fans actually started cheering Orton for being the only competent one.
I think h e was better pre-wwf . He was as good as a face as he was a heel. Then Vince turned him into "Wrestling Scrooge McDuck"
ReplyDeleteActually most of the guys they brought in were better before they went to the WWF. I remember as a kid being excited when one of the guys I liked signed, then almost always being disappointed once they got there.
Savage is the biggest exception I can think of at the moment
I wonder if Savage/Tyson wouldn't have been a more ideal matchup as a 'trial run' so to speak. It still would've drawn big on PPV since Savage was a big name, the actual match would've been probably passable (Macho would've planned things out to a tee and sold like crazy) and they could've had a backstage segment or something to hint at a possible Hogan/Tyson bout for a future Wrestlemania.
ReplyDeleteThen again, Hogan/Warrior and Tyson/Savage on one card might've been TOO big for one event, even a Wrestlemania.
Good point on Hogan/Warrior and Tyson/Savage potentially not working out on one supercard.
ReplyDeleteBack then, it was rare to have double main events and when they did, it was often because neither 'main event' was a strong enough draw on its own to produce huge numbers.
Yep. He really wasn't the same fighter after D'Amato's passing but it didn't become clearly evident until Buster Douglas.
ReplyDeleteIt's intriguing to think about what sort if gear Tyson would have worn to the ring. Would he have remained in the same gear he boxed in down to the gloves? Somehow the match ends with Hogan and Tyson shaking hands and posing together. Would have been a hell of a spectacle. Probably somewhere in the realm of ** for quality, but ***** for ambiance and drama.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think a certain other company would have learned from that.
ReplyDeleteHe probably would have worn what Floyd wore at WM24.
ReplyDeleteDidn't the first Marine and See No Evil make good money?
ReplyDeleteI forgot about that one, he probably would have still been in the company.
ReplyDeleteUpvote for recognizing it was a Muppet reference.
ReplyDeleteYou said you wouldn't tell anyone :(
ReplyDeleteYou think so?
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Summerslam '90 did better than Mania VI. I always wondered why Rick Rude walked away in 1990 when he was a top heel and just starting to really come into his own. Maybe the payoff for Summerslam was one of the reasons?
ReplyDeleteI wish I could lose 5 million of my own money and still be considered "rich".
ReplyDeleteWho knows if Tyson would have agreed with wardrobe. Especially back in 1990.
ReplyDeleteWell. It's Mike, he could have worn whatever he wanted.
ReplyDeleteStill had enough left in him to make Stone Cold a mainstream phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteRIP Josh Gordon's career.
ReplyDeleteNot very many people around here think so. Although, if I had the opportunity to see every PPV + more when I was a kid, that probably would of been easier to sell to my parents.
ReplyDeleteThat's fine Bayless, glad you made it through the storm ok.
ReplyDeleteIt boggles my mind how you can fuck up a million dollar career like he does.
ReplyDeleteLook at Costa Rica do CONCACAF proud in a loss today!
ReplyDeleteTrue story: only one country outside of Europe and South America has finished in the Top 3 in any World Cup...and that was the United States in 1930.
We really are an underdog here.
ReplyDeleteTonight.
ReplyDeleteLyoto"The Dragon"Machida vs "The All American Bland boy" Chris Weidman.
At least he's not in jail...
ReplyDeleteStill in shock...
I saw the final minutes,great story there.
ReplyDeleteCalm down.
ReplyDeleteYou pulled a miracle man.
ReplyDeleteHe's allowed to be in shock, you know the phrase cheating death? He cheated the law.
ReplyDeleteAdam Curry fought the law and won.
ReplyDeleteI'm calm, if I wasn't I wouldn't be able to post this.
ReplyDeleteEverything was stacked against him.
ReplyDeleteIndeed you would. It worked (mostly) under the brand split but now that it's one roster it doesn't quite hold up.
ReplyDeleteI covered it on Nitro.
ReplyDeleteIf they would only put every Hulk Hogan match and promo they own on the network - I would buy it
ReplyDeleteAnd a 30 minute version of Are You Serious -- followed by The Puppet H show
ReplyDeleteohhh my b.. but still classic funny wtf segment. "No Autographs"
ReplyDeleteThis.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it depends on how you define "make." The angle with Tyson gave Austin more mainstream exposure than he would have received otherwise, but if SCSA didn't have the right appeal, no amount of exposure would have created said phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteNailed it.
ReplyDeleteNever liked that angle and I get that I am in a big minority here.
ReplyDeleteWhy would any wrestler, Andre in this instance, give up the richest prize in wrestling?
As stated elsewhere, the movies have become profitable at this point (after several years of figuring out how to do them in a best way for business). Mainstream appeal will likely never be high enough again for an XFL-type experiment. And as far as Linda's Senate runs are concerned, that's more of a "raiding the trust fund"-type thing that in no way counts as an investment with an expected return.
ReplyDeleteI don't see it happening. I was marky kid in 1990, but I was semi-smart to a point and everything was pointing to Warrior in 1990, but I really thought Hogan was destroying Flair at Wrestlemania 8 too. Maybe there was a plan for Hogan vs. Tyson -- and while a mark like me thought Savage was still credible -- the smarks of the day clearly thought he was toast.
ReplyDeleteEarly version of "Zeus will headline Mania with Hogan, unless he doesn't, in which case plans clearly changed"
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's any way Tyson works in a WWF ring without Hogan attaching himself to it somehow. And rightfully so, he was the biggest draw WWF had
ReplyDeleteUpvote for recognizing it was recognizing a Muppets reference
ReplyDeleteRude was being advertised for house shows that he wasn't making due to injury. Rude felt that if his name was being used to sell the show, he should have been paid for working them. Vince disagreed, Rude walked out.
ReplyDeleteAs an self professed internet dork you probably shouldn't talk business either.
ReplyDeleteI actually understand business. That's the difference.
ReplyDeleteRead, comprehend, reply.
Ah my error.
ReplyDeleteYou appeared to be pretentious prick. Thank you for confirming.
Actually headline profits aren't neccessarily the key number to serious investors. The number that can really spook investors is net operating cashflow. A firm can do a lot to massage its profit line, manipulating cash flow is much harder for any time period longer than a quarter or two. This is from one of the broker's reports on the stock:
ReplyDelete"Net operating cash flow has decreased to $11.60 million or 47.45%
when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, when comparing
the cash generation rate to the industry average, the firm's growth is
significantly lower."
It’s actually not impossible to make a stab at a minimum
ReplyDeletenumber of subscribers the WWE needs for the network, several people of done it on this site or elsewhere. On the revenue side we know how much revenue the WWE will take from subscribers (since as best we can tell all the revenue flows through to the WWE unlike PPV).
Against that the major negatives are start-up costs, operating costs (including other on-going costs like marketing) and lost PPV revenue. The start-up costs are known since the WWE has published them and I think is writing them off as they go rather than capitalising them. WWE’s PPV revenue is in the public domain so it’s pretty easy to take some estimates as to how much revenue the network is going to cannibalise. That just leaves the operating and marketing costs which can at least be estimated by making year-on-year comparisons.
Every estimate I’ve seen suggests that the break even numbers mentioned by the WWE are not unreasonable. The only upside at the moment is that it looked like PPV buys for Wrestlemania held up better than expected.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteI think the Tyson thing is overplayed a bit. It definitely gave the WWF some mainstream press and momentum going into the show to put it over the top -- but it still took them a couple of weeks even with that to beat Nitro and some of the Tyson segments did surprisingly low ratings. The SCSA phenomena was something else all together.
The Marine made good money on DVD sales and rentals and TV rights fees from HBO/Cinemax but was otherwise a box office bomb. And the fact that the director of See No Evil went crawling back to his old job of directing porn pretty much sums up See No Evil's lack of success.
ReplyDeleteAnd how has Uwe Boll or Jim Wynorski not directed any of WWE's movies by now? You would think that would be a match made in heaven.
Going private has worked pretty damn well for Dana White.
ReplyDeleteFor a whole bunch of money.
ReplyDelete"Ha! What a mark"
ReplyDeleteIt didn't help that vince thought rude was too small for main events....I still don't see why slaughter of all people got the push though. To new fans he was just some old out of shape guy yelling with a whistle! But rude wasn't believable according to vince. Ugh
ReplyDeleteJust think. Vince also wanted OJ after the trial too. Bastard
ReplyDeleteThe Kaz Hayashi armor was a pretty funny touch
ReplyDelete5 hours a week was just too much WCW at a time when they were completely out of touch with reality. Throw in Saturday Night and WCW had less "can't miss" TV than filler
ReplyDeleteTo you, people with knowledge are pretentious. That... Says something.
ReplyDeleteI cant wait till you get to the fall of '99 with the russo shows. thats when it gets realll juicy with "wtf is going on here."
ReplyDeleteSamoa Joe
ReplyDeleteNo, the buys were not worked. The Austin Tyson thing was a huge dynamic and helped lead to the huge buyrate.
ReplyDeleteWell it's not just me -- the numbers the WWF released came up way above the initial preliminary numbers reported by the cable industry too. Typically preliminary numbers were off maybe +/- 5% or 10% from the final numbers in those days, but you're talking more like a 30% increase. Plus Tyson's next fight in January (his first fight since the PPV record setting one with Holyfield in 1997) did record low numbers, so I doubt if boxing fans were not tuning in for Tyson fighting, they weren't going to be watching him stand outside the ring at a wrestling show.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty fishy. Every show you're going to convert a certain percentage of free TV viewers into paying viewers and this is a pretty glaring anomaly.
Tyson is one of those mysteries. Even as a believer, I still wonder if the whole rape thing originally was a setup. Black guy -- white suburban town -- young girl wanting to party -- but then Tyson makes her a simple fling -- so she accuses rape to get revenge. But at the same time, because what a whack job Tyson was for a while -- I am still on the fence if he really forcibly raped her or not. I know once about ten years ago -- he said something that would make you think he actually did when he supposedly said -- I didn't, but maybe I should have. Most people think he really did rape the girl. Unless he actually came out in the last five years and admitted it, I'm still on the fence. I know he was a walking train-wreck regardless. Much like Jake, I am thankful God has blessed them with continual life and I hope both of their eyes respectfully focus on the cross -- because religion alone can only get you so far.
ReplyDeleteWhat is black and white, black and white, and black and blue. A penguin falling down stairs. Waka Waka Waka!
ReplyDeleteI watched a few matches with Hogan last night. Even the 1989 match, long after his push -- was decent. With some hindsight, it is a shame that Dibaise got stuck in the tag team midcard for the rest of his career in 1992-93. He worked some hot matches with Bret in 1989 and 1991 though.
ReplyDeleteHulk Hogan matches just never get old for me. The early ones are the best ones from 1984-85, but even when it became a formula in the 1990's -- he still pulled off some good stuff until he got lazy during the heel turn. The Valentine match on the Hulkamania CV was awesome. The infamous body slam match from outside with John Studd (of all people) was also awesome. He wrestled three proto-Austins with Shultz in 84, Allen-Brown in 88/89 [War Bonnet match was decent], and Hansen in 1990 [Hogan's best match outside of Muta].
ReplyDeleteTed Dibaise was also a awesome worker, and he had a good heel character. His matches with Savage were sometimes, sadly, boring -- or at least they were when I watched them as a mark in 1988. I think, in reality, he was a proto-Flair type guy before he went to the WWF. He was a good of a heel as he was a spunky babyface from what I have seen. I wonder if any Mid-South matches of a face Ted vs. Paul Orndorff exist.
Paul Orndorff -- Another guy that was made and destroyed by Hulk Hogan. Not saying Paul wasn't good in his final mid-card days in WCW or his career prior to the WWF -- but sadly Orndorff never hit main event levels after 1987. Maybe if he had turned on Sting or something in 1990. I was happy he got to brawl with Jack Cactus in 1993, however.
Bret Hart -- Mixed emotions, because he was a good worker -- and if WCW had cared -- they had money in their hand to have him feud with people - but WCW was all about drugs and drunk with the main event and the only think Bret did good in WCW was maybe two Benoit matches -- and an half-arse attempt with Sting during the Russo era -- won't even mention that 1998 HH match, where Bret wrestles Hogan style for no other reason than to not upshow Hogan/Warrior II.
Dibiase did make Virgil in that Summer Slam match. Sadly, he was booked JTTS all the way and now he is a running joke of sitting in empty booths.
ReplyDeleteOr Hacksaw's cameo.
ReplyDeleteHacksaw: No Dusty, but we still looking for her.
They only let that last about a week. I think the did Feb 5 on TV -- had a week in the can -- Prime Time might have been done post Feb 5 -- but they played it like it was in the can still. Teddy wears the belt in a tag match on Feb 6, where Andre headbutts himself. Teddy gets to cut a promo on the Feb 13/14 edition of Superstars as champion, but is then stripped by Tunney in the next video capture. He was "unofficially" champion for less than a week -- and without local TV -- you never really saw those promos of the "what if" they had just went with Dibaise as champion.
ReplyDeleteDifferent era -- and in 1988 -- you didn't hand over titles. Of course, they kind of changed this in 1999 with the Hardcore title -- but come on -- it was the Hardcore title. Never done with an official belt.
ReplyDeleteScott was El Dandy?
ReplyDeleteSo Vince didn't want Hogan to do a job, so he'd contrive a situation where he does TWO jobs? (Cause Tyson wouldn't be doing the job.) Uh huh
ReplyDeleteAye, you'll be crying out for a fifteen minute match once the Russo era begins.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget ring rats....they like ring rats.
ReplyDeleteBischoff and tunerring executives were spreading lots of gossip in late 96 about usa dropping raw with the low ratings and gun debacle (or even moving it to Saturday night, the kiss of death). Vince certainly wast rolling in the doe after he went Raw is War and had live satellites every other week (and a few times live 2 weeks straight).
ReplyDeleteReddit guy said AJ was pregnant. WWE thought they would triple their tv deal. None of that came from Meltzer, who has said what the network needs to break even.
ReplyDeleteThe Slaughter thing was essentially 'right time, right place'. The old school model of 'evil foreigner' (or in this case evil foreign sympathiser) was still relied on and Sarge had *some* name value. Vince seemingly thought he'd cash in on a real life event and it pretty much backfired at the time and historically.
ReplyDeleteWith due respect this is just you saying 'I'm sure...' 'I bet...'I don't think...'
ReplyDeleteIt's clear, from anything that's ever been circulated, that Tyson was being lined up for a role. The plan was changed when he lost to Douglas. Point us to a single source, anywhere, ever, that suggests 'Tyson was the one who backed out'?
Who are The Muppets?
ReplyDeleteI wasn't disagreeing with your 'deductive reasoning', or guesswork as it more commonly resembles.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Tyson would have been a one-shot deal at best. The point I was picking up was on Tyson walking away from the deal. I remember it going down at the time (do you?) and disagree with what you said. You say 'Tyson losing had nothing to do with the WWF switching to Douglas' and that's the specific point I disagree with. It was the reverse, Tyson's defeat was believed to have derailed plans in both the WWF and Tyson camps and Douglas became the short notice alternative.
Fair enough you got me, though. Of course I should have said "Point us to a single *authoritative, verifiable* source, anywhere, ever, that suggests 'Tyson was the one who backed out'?"
Stephen Lyon over at the Observer obviously counts as that for you.
I think we're all still here for a reason, and isn't because of a lack of other entertainment options.
ReplyDeleteSo you are saying money is more important than the title.
ReplyDeleteYou know I realize wrestling is worked, but should the goal be to at least make it seem real?
Let's just speak in kayfabe terms. Working one night as champ you'll make - let's say - 30,000. Dibiase had to be offering 1,000,000 or so. That's a no-brainer.
ReplyDeleteAndre could always go back and get another title shot. How many times can you make one million in a night?