From: rjones@nyx.cs.du.edu (Rex A. Jones)
Subject: Re: Wrestling TidBits - 08/13
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 18:29:34 GMT

hekunze@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Herb Kunze) writes:

> - It was Hulk Hogan's birthday two days ago.  Interestingly enough,
>   while reading the paper yesterday, I learned that the largest
>   ever bust for trafficking steroids (with a record seizure of
>   the drugs) in North America took place the day before.  As
>   Arsenio Hall would say, just something to make you say hmmmmm. 

> - You've really got to hand it to the WCW production crew in the past
>   little while.  They've really worked hard to get very recent 
>   happenings encapsulated for TV in only a few days.  It was great
>   to see so much coverage of the Jake Roberts vs. Sting angle and
>   the Ron Simmons vs. Big Van Vader match the week it happened.
>   As I reported a while back, Roberts was brought in for a program
>   with Sting.  Apparently, he had to make a deal with the WWF regarding
>   licensing of his name and character.  The title match airs in
>   it's entirety this weekend on Main Event.

> - The WWF has it's SummerSlam PPV scheduled for August 31st (to be
>   taped at Wembley Stadium in London, England, on August 29th).
>   The line-up is as follows: 
>     - Randy Savage vs. Ultimate Warrior for the WWF Title
>     - Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith for the IC Title
>     - Undertaker vs. Kamala
>     - Shawn Michaels vs. Rick Martel
>     - Money Inc. vs. Legion of Doom 
>     - Beverly Brothers vs. Natural Disasters
>     - Tatanka vs. Berzerker
>     - Crush vs. Repo-Man 
>     - Nailz vs. Virgil
>     - Jim Duggan & The Sheepwhackers vs. The Mountie & The Nasty Boys
>     - Papa Shango vs. Tito Santana  
>   The post-SummerSlam marriages will be: 

In Indianapolis on Sept. 19 (I think)...
>     - Randy Savage vs. Razor Ramon
>     - Ultimate Warrior vs. Kamala
Ultimate warrrior v Nature boy Rick Flair!!!
>     - Davey Boy Smith vs. Repo-Man
Bulldog v Mounti
e

>     - Bret Hart vs. Papa Shango
>
Hart v Kamala....
     - Ric Flair vs. Undertaker
>     - Bossman vs. Nailz
>     - Legion of Doom vs. Beverly Brothers
LOD & Precious Paul v Bevs and Poffo

>     - Tatanka vs. Rick Martel
>     - Nasty Boys vs. Money Inc.

> - The current run of Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair matches end with
>   Curt Hennig giving Flair a foreign object, Flair laying out Savage,
>   Flair hiding the object under his arm, Flair being awarded the title, 
>   Flair raising his arm in victory only to drop the object and the
>   referee reversing the decision.  I was a little surprised last night
>   while watching a video of Butch Reed vs. Magnum T.A. from 1984
>   Mid South, when they did the same finish with Ernie Ladd passing
>   Butch the object.  Then again, I guess no finishes are completely
>   original these days (except for the infamous evil twin referee
>   finish and the fake Sting finish).
>     Talking about that 1984 action from Mid South, Jim Cornette was
>   priceless.  This was September 1984 (8 years ago!) and Jim Duggan
>   was going to go up against Hercules Hernandez in a match where
>   if Duggan lost he'd have his head shaved and if Hercules lost 
>   Cornette would have his head shaved.  The build up interviews
>   were great, with Cornette saying that Hercules couldn't lose
>   because that would make Cornette's momma cry, and he never makes
>   his momma cry.  Of course, Hercules lost.  The R'N'R Express
>   helped catch Cornette and shave his head.  Cornette then did 
>   and interview under a hood, crying the whole time, saying
>   that he had a list of everyone involved in embarrassing him
>   and that he would make them pay the price.  It was great to
>   watch.  There were also some interviews with Cornette about
>   the Midnight Express going up against Bill Watts & Stagger Lee.
>   Cornette kept reminding Watts that "this isn't Bonanza, and
>   you aren't on the Ponderosa."  When Watts had his interview
>   time, I kept waiting for him to say that the two teams were
>   gonna hook 'em up.

> - WCW has a Clash of Champions scheduled for September 2nd on WTBS.
>   Matches will included Ron Simmons vs. Cactus Jack for the WCW Title
>   and it looks like Bill Watts may get rid of the "no off the top 
>   rope moves" rule.

> - Following hot on the heels of last week's addition of 9 videos
>   to my collection, I've arranged to receive 36 other videos,
>   31 of which will be wrestling from Japan from 1980 to 1987,
>   with the other 5 being Calgary Stampede Wrestling from 1987.
>   This could round out a nice decade's worth of videos from Japan,
>   as the majority of my current collection is from 1988 and later.
>   I'll post some details when the videos arrive (two weeks?). 
>   It looks like I'm gonna have to figure out a better way to 
>   catalogue my collection, too. ;-)

> - A couple of people have asked me about Jushin Riger's career.
>   In the 1990 Observer Yearbook, Dave Meltzer wrote an article
>   covering Keiichi Yamada's rise to being Jushin Riger.  I'll
>   present a summary in the following paragraphs.
>     Yamada was the star of his high school wrestling team,
>   but only stood 5'3".  He achieved a fair bit of success as
>   a high school amateur athlete.  After graduating, he
>   went to the New Japan offices and asked about becoming a
>   wrestler for the group (which had had great success with 
>   it's Jr. Heavyweight division and Dynamite Kid (Yamada's
>   idol), in particular).  He was told he was too small.
>     Yamada didn't give up.  He had saved enough money to go to
>   Mexico, where he figured he wouldn't be too small.  He got
>   into a wrestling school in Mexico, but he didn't speak the
>   language, wasn't working in the rings yet, and was homesick.
>     In June, 1983, New Japan had a taping in Mexico.  Yamada 
>   surprised the head of the group by having the dedication to
>   go to Mexico and, after giving his amateur credentials, was
>   offered a try-out.  Yamada survived the New Japan wrestling
>   school and had his pro debut on March 3, 1984, against
>   fellow debuting student Naoki Sano.
>     Yamada did well in his first year, establishing a following
>   despite only being a prelim wrestler.  He worked like his
>   idol and was nicknamed "The Japanese Dynamite Kid" by fans.
>   His matches were consistently *** right from the start.
>     In early 1986, Yamada was still working great matches on
>   the undercard.  Japanese promotional philosophy is that you
>   can't just repackage a wrestler as a star after having him
>   work prelims for so long; they usually send the wrestler on
>   tours of other areas and when he returns he can be promoted
>   differently.  So, Yamada went to England.  Yamada won the
>   World Heavy Middleweight title from the Black Tiger on
>   September 26, 1986, losing it back in April, 1987.  Yamada
>   then went to Calgary Stampede.
>     Yamada stayed in Calgary from April, 1987, through to
>   August, 1987.  (Now you see why I'm excited about those
>   1987 Calgary tapes I'm getting ;-)).  He worked prelims
>   through to main events, and help raise the work levels of
>   other Calgary wrestlers of that time: Brian Pillman, Owen
>   Hart, and Chris Benoit.  After this stint, he returned to
>   New Japan.
>     The date was August 19, 1987, and the event was the 
>   "Summer Night Fever" Jr. Heavyweight tournament (which
>   is also supposed to be one of the tapes I'm getting! ;-)).
>   Yamada lost his first round match against Nobuhiko Takada.
>   A week later he did his first in-match shooting star press
>   when he and Muto faced Owen Hart & Black Tiger.  The 
>   shooting star press became his finisher: with his opponent
>   laid out facing up in the ring, Yamada would come off the
>   top rope facing into the ring, do a pretty slow quarter
>   rotation of a backward somersault (so it looked like he
>   was going to do a back-splash on his opponent), and then
>   do a very quick half rotation just before hitting his
>   opponent (so he'd land chest-to-chest on his opponent).
>   This move remains unduplicated.
>     He spent 1988 challenging for the Jr. Heavyweight Title.
>   He faced Hiro Hase, Owen Hart, and Shiro Koshinaka (all of
>   whom were title holders).  In the 1988 Observer Yearbook
>   fan votings, he was ranked 5th in the world, behind Ric Flair,
>   Tatsumi Fujinami, Barry Windham, and Ted DiBiase.
>     In the fall of 1988, the Jushin Riger cartoon show debuted
>   on TV-Asahi.  Jushin means "God of animals" and Riger is a
>   combination of Lion and Tiger (hence, the Americanized version 
>   of Liger).  Satoru Sayama had quit the promotion five years
>   earlier, and the bigwigs decided that they needed a character
>   like that again to attract children.  The Jushin Riger cartoon
>   became very popular and the idea of getting a wrestler to play
>   the character seemed natural.  
>     Yamada was the obvious candidate.  The same promotional
>   philosophy held though, and in December of 1988, Yamada left
>   to go to Europe, with an announced absence of two years.
>   Yamada began designing the Riger costume.  Five months 
>   later, on April 29, 1989, Jushin Riger debuted defeating
>   Kuniaki Kobayashi in a slightly lackluster match (***)
>   in the Tokyo Dome in front of 53000 fans.  Yamada wasn't
>   used to carrying around the weight of the costume.  Less
>   than a month later, though, he was.
>     On May 25, 1989, one month after his debut, he won the IWGP
>   Jr. Heavyweight Title from Hiro Hase in a much better match
>   (****).  On July 13, 1989, he had his fist defense against
>   Naoki Sano (****3/4), ending with a double knock-out finish.
>   The rematch was on August 10, 1989, and Riger, working with
>   a shoulder brace, put Sano over clean with a slightly tainted
>   win (****3/4).  The next rematch was September 20, 1989, with
>   Sano pinning a completely healed Riger (****3/4).  They may
>   have had other singles matches, but the final one was on
>   January 31, 1990, with Riger winning the title back in a
>   bloody match, where his mask would be almost completely
>   ripped off and the commentator would start calling him "Yamada
>   Keiichi" (*****).  This won "Match of the Year" by a substantial
>   margin in the 1990 Observer Yearbook.  
>     On August 19, 1990, Jushin Riger would put Pegasus Kid
>   (Chris Benoit) over cleanly in the ring after Kid did a 
>   leg drop from the top rope (****3/4).  By putting over a
>   wrestler in a completely clean way, Riger made him into a
>   superstar.  It happened with Sano and it happened with Kid.
>   Amazingly, Riger lost no appeal and popularity whatsoever
>   for doing clean jobs.  Later in the feud, the wrestler would
>   put Riger over cleanly to return the favour.  On November 1,
>   1990, Riger would regain the title from Pegasus Kid (****1/2)
>   (The four Riger vs. Sano matches and both of these Riger vs.
>   Pegasus Kid matches are on the video I've put together for the
>   group, so many of you will have the chance to see them).
>     Riger would go on to lose the title to Norio Honaga, a member
>   of New Japan's "Blond Outlaws" heel group.  The fans wouldn't
>   buy Honaga as champion, and Riger regained the title on 
>   February 2, 1992 (***1/2).  Riger also won and then lost
>   the WCW Lightheavyweight Title from and to Brian Pillman,
>   defending both his titles in Japan when he held them
>   simultaneously.  Riger recently lost the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight
>   Title to El Samurai.  Their matches have been fantastic by
>   all reports.  New Japan has also brought back Tiger Mask,
>   putting a pretty green Koji Kanemoto under the hood.  Once
>   he matures, we should see even more spectacular matches involving
>   Jushin Riger.  In the mean time, there's always Chris Benoit
>   (now wrestling unmasked) and El Samurai.  
> 
>                                                           Herb... 
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