From: hekunze@jeeves.waterloo.edu (Herb Kunze)
Subject: Re: WM8: Savage - Flair a shoot?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 18:00:00 GMT

In article <1992Apr11.053443.13547@acsu.buffalo.edu>, v070qg5d@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Eric M Chmiel) writes:
> Does anyone know of any shoots in the past?  I can't imagine this happening
> very often, at least noanymore.  If wrestler A is instructed to actually
> beat the hell out of wrestler B, doesn't common sense tell you that wrestler
> B will hit back? 
> That is why I don't think the shoot is commonplace in the 
> modern wrestling world.  Maybe thirty years ago, when less show was involved, 
> but today?  I don't know...

  Some people might mention Ali-Inoki, or maybe Scott Steiner breaking Sid's
  rib as examples of shoots.  I have two other shoots on tape (they may
  end up on the video I'm compiling...) that are fairly recent.
    One involves Bruiser Brody and Lex Luger.  This was raw comcorder footage
  from a cage match between them in Florida in 1986.  The match went fine
  for several minutes and then for some reason, Brody didn't sell any of
  Lex's punches in the corner.  Lex talked to him and then hit him again,
  still no sell from Brody.  Lex had words with the referee; the referee
  had words with Brody; Brody kinda ignored him.  Both wrestlers moved
  out into the middle of the ring.  When they locked up, Brody turned the
  match into a shoot.  Ther referee broke it up and I guess the ref and
  Lex figured that Brody had made his point, so the match continued.
  They locked up a couple more times, but every time Brody was real
  stiff on Lex.  Lex got pretty scared after a couple more shooting
  moves by Brody and ended up grabbing the referee and hurling him to the  
  ground, giving a reason for the match to end.  He was so scared that
  he didn't even hold his ground until the door of the cage was opened;
  he just climbed over the cage and ran back to the locker room.  There
  was some post match footage of Oliver Humperdink "talking down"
  Brody.
    The other shoot was between John Tenta and Koji Kitao (who worked
  WrestleMania) which took place on 4/1/91.  I posted the following
  match description after Gary Will and I had watched the match:

----
WWF/SWS Wrestle Dream from Kobe, Japan.  04/01/91 
------- ------- ----- ---- ----- ------  --------

Match 6: Earthquake John Tenta vs. Koji Kitao 

This was the second match between Kitao and Tenta.  In the first match
Kitao had to put Tenta over.  That was presumably the plan in this
match too.  Tenta acutally wrestled a bit.  He got a grip on Kitao
from behind and did an amateur takedown on Kitao and rode him a bit,
hooking his leg with his arm.  Kitao got out of the ring and didn't
look happy.  Perhaps the takedown was to stiff.  Gary and I didn't
think so.  Kitao cleared off the press table and threw it at the
ring ropes.  When he got back in the ring, Kitao and Tenta locked
up.  Kitao slowly went for the armbar, and I guess he applied to much
pressure, since Tenta freaked and slapped Kitao in the face.  It was
clear that the match had become a shoot.  The fans knew it too, and
were making lots of noise.  "Tenta! Tenta!"  Shows you how popular
Kitao is.  Kitao got uncomfortably close to Tenta's eyes when they
locked up again.  Tenta got a little pissed and yelled in English
at Kitao - sorry, can't make it out.  The stared down for a little
while.  They locked up again and Kitao gave Tenta a stiff kick to the
shin.  Tenta looked pissed.  They tussled a bit - this was fighting -
and the referee, knowing what was going on, tried to break it up.
Back to staring each other down.  Kitao went for a stiff punch at Tenta's
face, got near the eyes, and Tenta kicked him hard.  Tenta was really
pissed by now.  I quote: "You wanna play f**king dirty?  We'll play
f**king dirty then."   Tenta put his guard down and glared at Kitao,
who stared right back, two fingers straight out from his fist, like he's
planning an eye gouge.  "Tenta! Tenta!"  Tenta holds up two fingers
and says something like: "Yeah, you wanna f**king poke my eyes out?
You motherf**ker!  Come On!"  Back to the stare down and slapping at
each other's hands.  Kitao kicked Tenta and spat at him.  The crowd
went nuts.  Tenta said: "Who do you think you are?  What're you doing?
This is pro wrestling!"  Kitao shoot kicks the referee and gets DQ'ed.
They cut the TV airing of the match here, but of course, Kitao would
go on to grab the microphone and say that he didn't want to be part
of Tenta's "fake" wrestling.  He would be fired (or quit, depending
on who you believe) from SWS the next day.
----

                                                     Herb...