Mankind captured the WWF title from Rock due to outside interference from Steve Austin in the main event of the Raw show that airs on 1/4, taped 12/29 in Worcester, MA. It is expected this will be a short-term title change with Rock regaining it at the Royal Rumble. When we received word ahead of time of the prospective change, it was said this was because they were looking for a major counter for the Goldberg vs. Nash match from the Georgia Dome that will air head-to-head, although the idea all along was for Rock vs. Mankind at the Rumble and after two PPV meetings, it would have been somewhat stale without this change to jump-start it. Austin hit Rock with a chair and put Mankind on top. The show ended with Mankind, without his mask on, doing the “Yo Adrian” speech from the original Rocky movie.
Tag: classic
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Dec 21, 1998 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Wrestling With Shadows set to air, Rock Bottom PPV review, plus tons more
More than one year after the actual event took place, it appears that the U.S. air date of the “Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows” hopefully, Vince McMahon willing since half his booking ideas seem to come from attempts to gain some sort of personal retribution, will finally put closure to what without question will go down as the most famous ending of a match in North American history.
Bret Hart is among the leading candidates to be the pro wrestler of this decade. He’s one of the best in-ring performers of this generation. Vince McMahon, is the most successful wrestling promoter ever, and from a historical standpoint is probably the most important one of all-time, although some would argue the latter point. Yet for all of Hart’s great matches and all of McMahon’s business accomplishments, the defining moment in both men’s professional lives and possibly even what both will over the long haul most be remembered for, at least personally, is chronicled in this movie.
The documentary, which aired last month in Canada, and airs from 9-11 p.m. on the A&E Network on 12/20, has gotten unanimously positive reviews from every media source in North America that has reviewed it, which is amazing given the subject of the movie is pro wrestling. Certainly that is a first for any movie on pro wrestling, or even with a theme revolving around pro wrestling. The version of the movie on television will be the “Child Friendly” videotape version, with some language edits from the original version.
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July 20, 1998 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: WCW Bash at the Beach recap, Brawl For All continues, tons of news
When you play the celebrity game, there is a risk. There’s the risk the media and the public won’t get interested and the deal becomes a money loser. And there’s the risk that even if they do, trying to get outsiders, even if they are great athletes, to do a cram course in pro wrestling won’t result in a good match. But there is the upside. While Hulk Hogan would have been one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling history without Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T, without question the rub off of them helped catapult Hogan to a higher level of mainstream consciousness. Antonio Inoki would have been one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling history without Muhammad Ali, but if he wasn’t a household name in Japan before their fight, he certainly has been for all of the past 22 years since their fight. And their fight, was the ultimate in the risk not paying off and what the repercussions of that are, short-term disaster and stuff that long-term legends are created from.
But as society has changed, so have the athletes. The biggest risk today isn’t so much of a bad buy rate, or lack of media attention to sell it to the general public, or even of a bad match. The risk is, will the celebrity show up, and if he does, will he feel he’s so high and mighty that what he’s doing is a joke.
Enter Dennis Rodman. Jake Roberts used to repeat the fable every time he turned heel. It went something like this. You see a wounded snake that’s about to die. You save its life, you nurse it back to health and you treat it as a friend. It becomes your best friend. And one day out of nowhere, the snake bites you. You ask the snake, after all I did for you, why did you bite me? The snake responded, the first time you picked me up, you knew I was a snake.
Rodman is Rodman. In another age, he’d be considered something entirely different. Sure, some of his actions are largely an exercise is self-promotion. And some, like blowing off practice in the middle of the playoffs are something different. But he can get away with it. Because he can play. Actually, that is probably not a lot different from what would have happened in a previous generation except the media would have covered it up as in covering for him in those days rather than making a huge issue of it and thus making him more of a celebrity for it these days. But in this generation, doing things like that also make one a hero. He’s cool. He does what he wants. So WCW invests a ton of money in him. And last year, at the height of his celebrityhood, instead of using a football player or a boxer, athletes who have the rep of being tough, they tried a basketball player. He helped the buy rates a little on two shows, although not nearly as much as revisionist history from people who know nothing about pro wrestling seem to think. He didn’t help TV ratings one bit last year, nor one bit this year, and this year they needed it. But he was a success, because by being associated with WCW, it strengthened the WCW name probably to a level very close to equal the name brand of the WWF when it comes to pro wrestling. The fact his first match was something of a miracle was well and good for wrestling fans but it wouldn’t have mattered that much either way. Overall in the giant scheme of things, it was a success and the fact the match quality was surprising had very little to do with it.
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November 30, 1998 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: 3 top stars potentially done with wrestling, WCW World War III recap
The in-ring future of three of the top wrestling stars of this era looks to be in major question, with existing injuries seriously threatening the careers of Shawn Michaels and Masahiro Chono, and the business split, whether part of an angle or otherwise, between Hulk Hogan, WCW and Eric Bischoff.
As the “inside story” goes, which may or may not have a degree of validity, Hogan and Bischoff had a business falling out when Bischoff decided to go with Hogan’s enemy, Kevin Nash, as new booker, thus greatly diluting Hogan’s political power. It was also made clear to Hogan that due to WWF’s huge ratings victories over the past few weeks with the margin growing to record proportions on 11/16, that they were no longer going to build the entire company and nearly every major angle around him and that, as many have clamored for more than one year, Bischoff realizes the company needs to build new and younger stars for the future. The straw that may have broken the camel’s back is the current plan for Nash to beat Bill Goldberg for the WCW title at Starrcade, since Hogan agreed to put Goldberg over cleanly the right way for the title on 7/6 at the Georgia Dome as part of a deal where Goldberg’s first loss would be to him, most likely at Starrcade. While there were tentative plans on the table for Nash to win the Battle Royal and then the title at Starrcade before any of this happened, there was also serious talk that the end result of this would be for Nash to re-join the black & white at that point and possibly even hand the belt to Hogan, and this was the first time it was made clear that wasn’t happening. Rather than stay with his power diluted, Hogan chose to leave the company and is expected to announce his retirement from pro wrestling on Thanksgiving night on the Jay Leno show. The fact that his name was mentioned so prominently on both the PPV show and on both the 11/23 and 11/24 editions Nitro, which all heavily plugged the Leno appearance, makes clear this is largely an angle. Hogan wasn’t in either Auburn Hills or Grand Rapids, MI for the two shows. Generally, but not universally speaking, the morale of the wrestlers was much better without him as he was largely seen by most of the younger wrestlers as the political enemy holding them back.
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December 7, 1998 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Brian Hildebrand tribute show, WCW contracts ending
Pro wrestling is a world filled with a lot of negativity, from the deception, these days often more prevalent behind the scenes than in front, the backstabbing and the jealousy. But on 11/29 in Knoxville, World Championship Wrestling put it all behind to honor someone to whom most fans would see as a very insignificant part of the profession. By the response of his peers, it was made evident he was anything but.
WCW’s unannounced ceremonies for referee Brian Hildebrand, 36, a lifelong wrestling fan who became one of the most universally well-liked people in the profession, facing the toughest fight of his life in his second battle with stomach cancer, reeked of genuine emotion. To paraphrase what Ric Flair said in what may be someday an immortal line, it wasn’t a great wrestling show, it was real. Just like Hildebrand was and is a credit to his profession, what WCW did was very much a credit to the profession as well. The highlight was no doubt when Flair came out, as a surprise guest at the house show, and presented Hildebrand with a replica of the WCW world heavyweight championship belt and said that Hildebrand, not Ric Flair or Hulk Hogan, was really “The Man.”
The show was headlined by a match made partially because it was the match Hildebrand himself wanted to see, Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero & Chris Jericho. Even though it was a house show, which these days to many wrestlers means avoid more than a few bumps if at all possible, the four men worked as hard if not harder than if it was a PPV match more for the audience of one than the other 4,344 fans in the building. The finish saw a referee bump, which led to Hildebrand jumping out of his ringside chair and calling for the bell as Benoit had Jericho in the crossface. At that point Hildebrand took off his shirt and was wearing a Four Horseman t-shirt underneath it.
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November 23, 1998 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: WWF Survivor Series review, Rock becomes Corporate Champion
Despite putting on its best Nitro in several weeks, World Championship Wrestling has seemingly lost sight of what the pro wrestling business is all about in a panic over the Monday night ratings. Even with that as the primary goal, WCW has fallen further behind than at any time in the history of the Monday Night Wars as the company is paying for its lack of developing new talent when it was on top and creating new story lines this year when it was losing its grip, and relying on a pat hand of tired old faces and suffering from the residue of a year of largely bad television.
As this is being written just five days before the World War III PPV in Auburn Hills, MI, there are only two matches announced for the show with no episodes of Nitro left to promote them–a 60 man three-ring Battle Royal which has become known in the industry as an annual atrocity, and a rematch of Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash stemming from a weak match with an even weaker finish on the Havoc show and a most recent Monday angle that made little sense in building the match up. This is coming on the heels of three consecutive disappointing buy rates, at the same time that WCW stopped promoting anything but the main matches on the PPV show. WCW’s policy of announcing three or four matches and hoping fans “trust them” enough to buy the undercard, after the quality of shows generally this year, has been a flop, and not changing that policy in the wake on this, is either a sign of complete stupidity or a total lack of organization to the point the company can’t map out a card a few weeks in advance. Even worse, on the flagship shows, Nitro and Thunder, there have been no interviews with talent building up winning the Battle Royal and getting the shot at Goldberg at Starrcade, leaving all the promotion of the PPV to the announcers who simply can’t do it alone since their credibility has already been destroyed by a company philosophy where the announcers role is to look both uncool and gullible to the point fans don’t take anything they say seriously. The wrestlers on interviews seem more intent on getting in their shtick than building up a show, and PPV when correctly done should be the biggest revenue stream in the industry, except it probably won’t be much longer at this rate for WCW. Only one other match is even known to be definite for the show, Diamond Dallas Page vs. Bret Hart for the U.S. title, and it probably won’t be officially announced until three days before the card on Thunder. One would presume from watching TV that new cruiserweight champion Juventud Guerrera, who captured the title on Nitro on 11/16 in probably the best WCW match of the year from Billy Kidman, defending against Rey Misterio Jr., who earned a title shot in a match that aired on Thunder on 11/9. However, at press time, indications are that angle is being forgotten and they’ll go with another Guerrera vs. Kidman match on the PPV, which even if it makes all the previous booking irrelevant, should guarantee at least one great match on the card. The only match previously announced, a disaster in the making with four people who have no business in the ring right now, Scott Steiner & Buff Bagwell getting a shot at WCW tag champs Rick Steiner & Judy Bagwell fell victim to reality, as Judy Bagwell was hospitalized this week due to appendicitis and nothing was announced in its place. As a cover story, they announced that Buff had given Scott the okay to basically jump his mother and beat her up so badly she was sent to the hospital, which is one of the poorer taste angles in a year loaded with them, by a company complaining long and loud about the poor taste of its opposition. The fact is they were advertising the match despite Buff being months from ready to wrestle and Rick Steiner having just underwent another shoulder operation after the previous one was unsuccessful, and he’s a long way from being able to return to the ring. Even without those problems, that angle due to Judy Bagwell, was dying a brutal death to begin with, and don’t even get me started about how little everyone cares these days about the WCW tag team titles with people passing around the belts with logic that makes the most insane bookers of the past look positively brilliant. The bookers had scripted an angle for the Saturday Night tapings on 11/17 in Salina, KS between Booker T and Scott Norton to set up a PPV match, but since neither wanted to do the angle, it wound up being nixed and it doesn’t look like they’ll be wrestling either.
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November 16, 1998 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: More on Ventura winning Governor election, media reaction, tons more
There has never been a period in American wrestling history where pro wrestling has been the subject of so much mainstream media attention.
Between the shocking victory of Jesse Ventura in the race for Governor of Minnesota, which resulted in front page coverage in newspapers around the country, and the attention pro wrestling itself is receiving due to the mainstream media discovering its popularity boom, it is virtually impossible to escape almost a total bombardment of pro wrestling articles the likes of which have never been seen before.
The election of Ventura, a third party candidate from the Ross Perot-formed Reform Party, who had been running third, and up until the final week, a distant third, in the polls, came out on a national basis as the biggest individual election story, almost as much because of a third party political outsider beating the establishment as because of the novelty of Ventura as a former pro wrestler. Most newspapers gave significant coverage to Ventura on 11/5, many printing the New York Times front page story or localized versions of the same. The demand for Ventura skyrocketed, all the way to his appearing over the weekend on “Meet the Press,” where his comments on Bill and Hilary Clinton, in response to Hilary calling his campaign a “sideshow” and his responding that “I think that she maybe ought to not leave the White House as often as she used to
Bad things seem to happen when she leaves,” springboarded yet another round of front page coverage nationally for Ventura on 11/9. During the show he challenged host Tim Russert to take off his shirt and show off his chest, a challenge Russert didn’t take, but clearly clever methods to get as much media stretch out of his time in the sun as well. CNN did a one hour feature on his life over the weekend, and newspapers across the country and actually around the world were preparing major features on this improbable election result that nobody saw coming. His election inspired the “Today” show to interview Vince McMahon on 11/5 about Ventura, a subject he didn’t seem all that pleased to discuss, probably because Ventura won a much publicized $1 million plus verdict over McMahon in a lawsuit several years ago, although sensing the media tide, both McMahon and Jim Ross changed their tune from days earlier by the time Monday night came around as everyone in wrestling tried to jump on the bandwagon, none more pathetically, however, than Hulk Hogan.