From: hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze)
Subject: Wrestling TidBits - 12/31  (posted 01/01)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 19:33:49 GMT

{ First off, Happy New Year to everybody reading this.  I'm posting this
  a day late since I didn't get time to do it yesterday.  I'll be back 
  to my regular Thursday schedule next week.                             }

 - WWF has it's annual Royal Rumble PPV on 01/24/93 (or is that 01/23/93?)
   from Sacramento.  The line-up will include:
     - Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon for the WWF Title
     - 30-man Royal Rumble, the winner of which will get a WWF Title shot
       at WrestleMania.
   29 of the participants of the Rumble will be:
   Bob Backlund, Berzerker, Carlitos Colon, Crush, Damien Demento,
   Ted DiBiase, Jim Duggan, Earthquake, Head Shrinker Fatu, Ric Flair, 
   Owen Hart, Curt Hennig, Jerry Lawler, Rick Martel, 
   Nasty Boy Brian Nobbs, Repo-Man, Nasty Boy Jerry Saggs,
   Head Shrinker Samu, Tito Santana, Randy Savage, Papa Shango,
   Irwin R. Shyster, Tatanka, Genichiro Tenryu, Typhoon, Undertaker, 
   Virgil, Koko B. Ware, Yokozuna.
     No word on who will be replacing Nailz, who was to be the final
   participant.
   Potential other matches have been reported here as:
     - Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Janetty for the IC Title
     - Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Big Boss Man
     - Max Moon vs. Terry Taylor
     - Steiner Brothers vs. Beverly Brothers
   With Razor Ramon jobbing for the Undertaker at current house shows,
   one would guess that it's extremely unlikely that he figures into
   the title picture.
     Eveybody is betting that either Curt Hennig or Yokozuna will win 
   the Rumble.  Yokozuna will get put over by Randy Savage and Big Boss
   Man at the house shows prior to WrestleMania.  Curt Hennig is 
   currently being put over by Repo Man as the house shows.
     Rumour has it that Max Moon was canned by the WWF last week, so 
   his prelim match above could be history.  

 - Nailz, who was canned by the WWF for demanding more money and allegedly 
   assaulting Vince McMahon, has filed sexual assault charges against
   Vince McMahon.  Meltzer reports that nobody inside really believes 
   Nailz' claim and everybody else is just reporting the facts in the
   previous sentence.

 - Lucky Crush gets to feud with Doink the Clown when the Doinker hits
   the ring in upcoming weeks.

 - WCW & New Japan co-promote the third annual SuperShow from Tokyo Dome
   on 01/04/93.  Full line-up:
     - Riki Choshu vs. Genichiro Tenryu
     - Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Takashi Ishikawa
     - Hell Raisers: Kensuke Sasaki & Road Warrior Hawk vs. Steiners 
        for the IWGP Tag Titles
     - Masa Chono vs. Great Muta for the NWA & IWGP Titles
     - Antonio Inoki & Shinya Hashimoto vs. Scott Norton & Dustin Rhodes
     - Sting vs. Hiro Hase
     - Ron Simmons vs. Tony Halme for the WCW Title
     - Jushin Riger vs. El Ultimo Dragon (Yoshihiro Asai) for the 
        IWGP Jr. Title
     - Norio Honaga & Super Strong Machine & Tatsutoshi Goto & Hiro Saito  
        vs. Kengo Kimura & Shiro Koshinaka & Akitoshi Saito & Kabuki
     - Michiyoshi Ohara & Takayuki Iizuka & Akira Nogami
        vs. Nobukazu Hirai & Koki Kitahara & Masao Orihara
   It seems doubtful that we'll ever see more than a clip of anything
   fromt this show on North American TV.

 - WCW is running a tournament to determine the number one contender
   for Rick Rude's US Title.  All but the final match-up has already
   taken place.  The following occurred:

   Dustin Rhodes  -\
                    |-- Dustin Rhodes  -\
   Vinnie Vegas   -/                     |
                                         |-- Dustin Rhodes  -\
   Tony Atlas     -\                     |                    \
                    |-- Tony Atlas     -/                      |
   Van Hammer     -/                                           |
                                                               |-- Final
   Barry Windham  -\                                           |
                    |-- Barry Windham  -\                      |
   Johnny B. Badd -/                     |                    /
                                         |-- Rick Steamboat -/
   Rick Steamboat -\                     |
                    |-- Rick Steamboat -/ 
   Dan Spivey     -/

   The first round matches will air this weekend (01/02/93) and the
   second round matches will air next weekend.  The final will air
   the weekend after.  

 - Varied reports are that Rick Rude is either suffering from a shoulder
   injury or a ruptured disc.  In either case, it's estimated that he'll
   be out for another month.  He's apparently showing up at the house
   shows he's been booked on just to show the fans that the injury is
   legit.  The final match in the #1 contender tourney above will
   air on 01/16/93 and the championship shot is supposed to air on
   01/23/93.  Will they have Rude forfeit the title because of the
   injury?  Will he work injured?  Will he keep the title?  Who the
   hell knows?  When business resumes in the new year, WCW will be 
   booked by a diverse committee, so we can only guess how things 
   are going to get flipped around.

 - Arn Anderson is staying with WCW and it's possible that Bobby Eaton
   will too. 

 - WCW's World Wide Wrestling was only off the air for one week in my
   area.  I guess there was some sort of foul-up and the show was unavailable
   that one week.  It's back in its usual midnight time slot.

 - WCW has a Clash of Champions on 01/13/93 from Milwaukee.  The tentative
   line-up includes:
     - Sting & Dustin Rhodes & Van Hammer & Ron Simmons
        vs. Rick Rude & Barbarian & Barry Windham & Big Van Vader
        in a Thunderdome cage match
     - Rick Steamboat & Shane Douglas vs. Brian Pillman & Steve Austin
        for the NWA & WCW Tag Titles
     - Cactus Jack vs. Erik Watts
     - Tony Atlas vs. Van Hammer in an arm-wrestling match
     - 2 Cold Scorpio vs. Scotty Flamingo
     - Brad Armstrong vs. Chris Benoit
   Maybe the last two matches will set the stage for the resurrection of
   the WCW Lightheavyweight title.  Benoit is only in for the one shot.

 - The Steiners will work their first WWF Toronto house show on 01/31/93.
   On the same card, Bret Hart faces Bam Bam Bigelow for the WWF Title.
    
 - WCW has a SuperBrawl on 02/27/93 from Asheville, NC.

 - WWF has WrestleMania on 04/04/93 at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.
   The promo tape includes some footage of Hulk Hogan and rumour has
   him appearing but not wrestling.  The talk is that he'll either do
   commentary or be a guest referee.  My guess is that he'll give Bret Hart
   the Hulkster's seal of approval. The main event will have the WWF 
   champ defend against the winner of the Royal Rumble.  

 - Videos: In a recent tape deal, I received all of the weekly Smoky
   Mountain shows from 02/22/92 through to 08/22/92.  I managed to 
   watch 10 shows or so while in Toronto before Christmas.  Then I
   flew to Montreal to spend Christmas with my girlfriend and her
   family.  While I was gone, my parents watched all of the SMW tapes.
   Yep, it's wrestling the way they like it and the way it used to be.
   They've asked me to look into getting more tapes of the stuff.
   So, is there anybody (Clay?) out there that has high quality copies of
   the SMW shows (original or 1st gen?) ideally starting at 08/29/92
   (hey, I can hope)?  If so and you're interested in trading, drop
   me some e-mail.  I have hundreds of tapes to trade from all over.
     Also, I received a few goodies in the mail the Friday after my
   last TidBits.  There were five tapes in total: 3 had 1980-1981
   wrestling from England with Sammy Lee (Satoru Sayama, aka Tiger 
   Mask I), Young David (Davey Boy Smith), Dynamite Kid, Kwik Kick Lee
   (Akira Maeda), Mark Rocco and, yes, a match with Steve DiSalvo;
   one tape had Calgary Stampede wrestling from 1979, 1981 and 1982;
   and the other had some current All Japan Women stuff.  The 
   AJW tape also had an SP dub of the camcorder footage of the 
   infamous shoot kick from 11/19/87.  For the uninitiated, the
   match had Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada & Osamu Kido vs. Riki Choshu
   & Masa Saito & Hiro Saito.  The match was quite good and there
   was a lot of heat for both Maeda and Takada.  Choshu was the most
   popular guy in New Japan at the time and the place popped like
   crazy when he was in with either of the big shooters.  After some
   10 minutes of good action, Choshu had Kido in the scorpion death
   lock and Maeda just came in and nailed Choshu in the face with a
   vicious kick from the blind side.  The kick broke some bones in
   Choshu's cheek.  The injury knocked Choshu out of the tag tourney
   which was going on at the same time.  It also got Maeda suspended.
   Maeda had had a reputation as a shooter before the incident and 
   was now certifiably "real."  This belief in Maeda's authenticity
   led to the creation of the second UWF, which was the most 
   successful wrestling promotion in the history of the sport.
   
                                                           Herb...
Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling