Issue # 226
Date: Sunday April 25th,
1999
The Wrestling Booking Sheet
THE ROSS REPORT (For the week
of April 23)
By Jim Ross
Reported at:
http://www.wwf.com/
Hi everybody, it’s
Good Ol’ JR here again on WWF.COM. This is the Ross Report,
and I want to thank
you very much for taking time to check us out. We’ve got a
lot of news to catch
you up on, and before we start, I want to thank all of you
for your support, as I
have returned to work at ringside on RAW on Monday
nights. I look forward
to the opportunity to broadcast my first North American
Pay-Per-View since the
Survivor Series last November. So, it’s going to be an
exciting week for
yours truly. I’m looking forward to the opportunity, and I
truly believe that
this Sunday’s Backlash has a real legitimate, bona fide
chance to be one of
the sleeper Pay-Per-Views of the year from the WWF.
Turning to the news,
Stone Cold Steve Austin has been in
San Francisco for most
of the week filming
another episode of "Nash Bridges." Don Johnson has certainly
taken a liking to
Stone Cold, as we also hear, several CBS television
officials.
So, Stone Cold will be
appearing on the broadcast of "Nash Bridges" sometime
during the May
television ratings sweep.
Mark Henry is back in
the WWF Training Camp this week after being released by
Dr. Jim Andrews after
having both knees surgically repaired several weeks ago.
Mark looks to have
held his weight in pretty good stead, but I’ll still ride
that same horse: I
believe at 350 pounds, Mark Henry could be one of the very
special athletes on
the roster. He’s special at 400, there’s no doubt about
that—he’s still the
World’s
Strongest Man. But
athletically speaking, and for
his own longevity in
the ring, I think the less weight would do him a world of
good and hopefully
he’ll take those suggestions to heart.
The Blue Meanie, who
last week was going to be released by the WWF, will now
remain with the
Federation for the foreseeable future, and will continue to
be
aligned with Goldust.
They are quite the entertaining pair to say the least!
You’ll see some
interesting television from those two in the coming weeks.
Several WWF superstars
are attempting to return to the ring after combating
injury. Savio Vega has
been out of action for many, many months due to a very
severe neck injury.
And based on one neurologist’s opinion, Savio Vega’s career
is in deep jeopardy.
There is a chance that Savio Vega may not be able to return
to the ring. However,
he will be getting a second opinion from another
neurologist in the
next few weeks to further evaluate his situation. And
Savio’s
a tough man, he’s a
good athlete, a very fundamentally sound competitor and we
wish him nothing but
the best.
Mark Canterbury has
also had surgery to repair damage in his neck. Mark will be
re-evaluated in the
next few weeks by his neurologist. His condition does not
seem to be quite as
dicey as Savio Vega’s neck condition. However, Mark
Canterbury will be the
first to tell you he’s not out of the woods yet, and
still has a ways to go
before he can return to the ring, which right now is very
tentatively scheduled
for sometime during the latter part of the summer. But
that’s only a guess at
this point.
Several WWF superstars
are doing well down in Power Pro promotion based out of
Memphis, Tennessee. Kurt
Angle is one of the outstanding young competitors that
the WWF has placed in
the Power Pro area. Angle, who is a 1996 Olympic gold
medal winner from
Pittsburgh, has a very bright
future here in the WWF—but there
is certainly nothing
guaranteed. Angle has all the physical skills to take him
as far as he wants to
go, and now the aptitude is what is being cultivated…the
feel for performing in
front of a live sports-entertainment crowd is very
unique. The crowd
psychology has to be cultivated, and you can’t do it in a
warehouse situation.
That can only be replicated by working in front of a crowd,
and therefore the fact
that Angle, Steve Bradley, Vic Grimes, Mick Tierney and
Erin O’Grady have been
in Memphis speaks so well for their desire to go to the
next level. All of
those men that I mentioned certainly have the opportunity,
if
they can continue to
improve (and they key term is "continue to improve") and do
the things it takes to
get to the next level, as far as their conduct and their
professionalism, all
those men in Memphis have the chance to graduate to Monday
night television for
the WWF at some point in time.
Looking at other WWF
competitors, we can tell you that the Giant Silva is
certainly turning
heads down south in
Mexico. He is working is
working out at a
training camp
environment by day, wrestling in cities around the country
by
night and staying very
busy. His improvement has been very noticeable. He’s not
going to be confused
with Stone Cold or The Rock anytime soon, however, Stone
Cold and The Rock are
not 7’4" and 440 pounds either. So, we do think the Giant
Silva, athletically
speaking, has shown some improvement. He’s a guy that really
had no formal
background in the business--he wasn’t a wrestling fan. We
really
started from scratch
with Silva and he may be a year away, but it looks like he
is travelling in the
right direction. And let’s just hope that he can reach that
Promised Land of
Monday night RAW once again.
I talked to Marc Mero
recently. With his elbow surgery just being completed a
few weeks ago, he just
didn’t seem to me that he is ready to return to in-ring
competition. Marc has
a lot of outside business interests that he would like to
devote some more time
to, so the return to the ring of Marc Mero in any shape or
form is "to be
determined" at best at this time.
Kurrgan will be headed
to Mexico starting in mid-May for further seasoning and
experience, but most
importantly to give him the opportunity to work on a
regular basis and
allow the process of his improvement to run its natural
course—if it’s going
to happen.
There’s an interesting
WWF Training Camp going on this week in
Stamford,
Connecticut. There’s about
eight or ten prospects—and others—on hand for this
week’s training camp.
There’s certainly an interesting mix of athletes. I’ll
give you a further
report on them on the next Ross Report, because I’d like to
let these guys finish
this camp and get a more thorough evaluation. But I have
seen some very good
athletes in the group. And a kid you’ve seen on our
television from time
to time--doesn’t have a great won/loss record—is Jason
Ahrndt, who has looked
really good in the camp this week. And if we can help him
develop personality
and find his level of charisma, athletically speaking he has
a lot of tools. He has
been a bright spot, among others, this week in the WWF
Training Camp.
We hear Steve Blackman
may be preparing to shoot some vignettes, which means his
characterization and
persona is being addressed. Blackman is another untapped
talent in the views of
a lot of folks, I being one of those. He’s an athletic
guy, very
intense—sometimes too intense. I think Blackman has a chance
to be a
player here in the
WWF.
I think an unsung tag
team here in the WWF that isn’t being used right now is
Taka Michinoku and
Funaki. Sho and Taka would make a great tag team, in my
view.
And certainly matches
with Taka and Funaki against the Hardy Boyz, Too Much,
Owen Hart and Jeff
Jarrett, the Brood, even the New Age Outlaws could all be
tremendous
offensive-minded matches. Do Federation suits think the
Japanese duo
are too small?
Another team that
seems to be making some noise in the tag team area is the
Acolytes. Certainly
Ron Simmons—known as Faarooq—and Bradshaw have great
backgrounds
athletically. Both played college football, both earned
paychecks
playing some pro
football. So they’ve been in stiff athletic competition
their
entire lives.
Athletically speaking, you know you don’t have too many
concerns
with Faarooq and
Bradshaw. It would seem to me that they would be more
effective
if they were able to
utilize a few more tag team tested wrestling maneuvers.
This could be a very
devastating team if they were able to focus on a body part
and isolate the
individual with the injured body part in the Acolytes’ half
of
the ring. I know it’s
old, but it’s sound and makes so much common sense and I
think that these guys
want to go to the next level, it would have to be with
some more wrestling.
Their same intensity and aggression, but with more physical
wrestling involved, I
think then they have a very good chance of going to the
next level. And
certainly, they could be viable tag team title contenders,
culminating—which
wouldn’t surprise me—with the titles at some point in time.
The recruiting process
and talent development process here in the WWF continues
to roll along, and
that process is constantly being evaluated and change is
always being effected
within the talent development program. The WWF is looking
to evaluate more
talent in 1999 and then be able to place those talents in
areas
where the prospects
can actually perform in front of live audiences, and in
addition, to get
instruction during the daytime. It’s an interesting plan
that
has a great deal of
potential. And that plan is almost in place, and we’ll be
talking more about
that in the upcoming weeks as well as we continue to look
more vibrance,
charisma, youth and that "it" factor in a variety of
sources—both
male and female—to
continue our goal to try to find and cultivate and develop
and introduce new,
young stars to Monday Night RAW, Sunday Night HEAT, all of
our programs and
Pay-Per-Views. It’s a very exciting job in a very exciting
time, because as you
can imagine, everyone and their brother wants to get in the
business these days.
We are certainly going to continue to be diligent and look
for new potential
stars.
I hope that all of you
will join us for Backlash this Sunday on Pay-Per-View. As
I said earlier, and
yes I’m not totally unbiased because I work for Titan
Sports, but I will
tell you in all honesty that I truly believe that this
Sunday’s show has a
chance to be a real sleeper event. With Austin and The Rock
you know you get
quality on the topside of the card. I think they will do all
that they can
physically and mentally to top their effort at WrestleMania.
I
think the Undertaker
and Ken Shamrock will surprise a lot of folks, because some
are skeptical their
styles will not mesh. I don’t think that will be the case.
Shamrock and the
Undertaker will raise some eyebrows. Mick Foley and
Pay-Per-View…that
pretty much says enough about the Boiler Room Brawl match
with
the "Big Show." The
Outlaws vs. Jeff and Owen match…those are four consummate
pros. Those two teams
can have as good a tag match as any two tag teams in this
business today, that
I’m aware of, and I think it will be a great match. And,
then my match for
maybe the "dark horse" or that will steal the show or the
"showstopper"—X-Pac
and Triple H. Can’t forget Chyna, she’ll play a big part in
that match, no doubt
about it. You never know where Kane may or may not be. I
just think that Sean
Waltman and Triple H will raise the bar, and I’m looking
forward to that one a
lot on Sunday night.
It is with a great
deal of sadness that I close this Ross Report. We are
remembering Rick Rude
today. According to reports out of Atlanta, Rick Rude
passed away on Tuesday
night. The only thing that we’ve heard, and this is not
official, is that Rick
passed away of an apparent heart attack. Rude was only 40
years of age. He would
have been 41 on December 7 of this year. Our condolences
go out to the family
of Rick Rude, his wife and his young children. And
certainly our thoughts
are with them at this very heartbreaking time in their
lives. Having gone
through something comparable with my mother back in
December,
I can certainly
identify with some of the feelings that they are going
through,
and our hearts and our
prayers are with the family of Rick Rude. I knew Rick
Rude when he was in
the Mid-South wrestling area working for Cowboy Bill Watts,
so I’ve known Rick
since the early to mid-80s and saw his rise to stardom. He
went from the
Mid-South, then to Memphis, and certainly made a name for
himself
on TBS, but gained
international fame when he came to the WWF. He had a
tremendous run in the
WWF. Rick was besieged with a variety of
injuries—especially to
his neck and back—in the latter part of his career. Rick
Rude was a man’s man.
He certainly was a very "tell it like it is" guy. He had
strong convictions in
his own beliefs. Again, we remember the lean, muscular,
vibrant athlete that
we saw bumping, grinding and bumping some more in rings
around the world. Rick
Rude will be missed.
===========================================
PILLMAN MEMORIAL
INFORMATION
To get all of the
latest details on the Brian Pillman Memorial show, be sure
to
check out Josh
Becker's (josh)
Main Event website, found at:
http://www.mainevent.net
===========================================
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===========================================
WWF House Show Results
for April 24th, 1999
Live in Madison Square
Garden, New York, NY
The Acolytes defeated
DOA
Jerry Lawler pinned
Droz
WWF Tag Team Champions
Kane & X-Pac defeated The Big Boss Man & Test
WWF Hardcore Champion
Hardcore Holly pinned Val Venis
New Age Outlaws
defeated The Brood & Canadian Country in an elimination bout
Tori & Al Snow
defeated Ivory & D-Lo Brown when Tori pinned Ivory
The Undertaker &
Midian defeated Ken Shamrock & Mankind when UT pinned Foley
WWF Intercontinental
Champion The Godfather pinned Goldust
Steve Austin & The Big
Show defeated The Rock & Triple H when Austin pinned Maivia
(Reported by
Willda316)
http://gbwo.freeservers.com
===========================================
Thursday, April 22,
1999
By
MIKE MOONEYHAM
Of The Post and
Courier staff
"Ravishing" Rick Rude,
one of pro wrestling's top personalities, was found dead
late Tuesday in his
Atlanta home. Preliminary reports indicate that Rude, 40,
died of an apparent
heart attack.
Rude, whose real name
was Richard Rood, had been employed by the Atlanta-based
World Championship
Wrestling but had not appeared on television for the past
year.
WCW dismissed
widespread reports a year ago that Rude had been diagnosed
with
testicular cancer.
Rude did have a cyst removed from his groin and suffered
some
side effects from the
surgery.
Rude, a 15-year mat
veteran whose active career was ended by a serious neck
injury in 1994, last
appeared in the ring as a member of The New World Order. He
had most recently
served as an announcer on WCW's Backstage Blast programs on
Direct TV.
Former grappler and
current Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, in a 1992
interview with The
Post and Courier, called Rude one of his favorite wrestlers,
saying, "He reminds me
a lot of me."
Rude made his first
major impact on the wrestling business as part of Vince
McMahon's WWF
expansion in the mid-'80s and held that promotion's
Intercontinental title
after defeating The Ultimate Warrior. He was one of the
company's top
headliners from 1987-90. Rude left the company on less than
favorable terms in
1990 following a dispute with McMahon.
The 6-4, 240-pound
Rude testified in the highly publicized steroid trial in
1994
pitting McMahon
against the U.S. government. McMahon, who made a fortune
through
mass marketing of the
WWF during the 1980s, was accused of conspiring to provide
steroids for wrestling
stars such as Rude and Hulk Hogan. Rude testified that he
was off steroids
during his latter days with the WWF because he was trying to
start a family with
his wife, and steroids tended to lower to the user's
testosterone level. He
said that McMahon once told him at a TV taping that he
"didn't look good" and
said that McMahon implied that he should get back on
steroids. McMahon was
later cleared of all charges.
Rude at the time also
admitted using steroids in WCW over a four-year period. He
said he didn't carry a
prescription, got his steroids from Europe and took the
muscle-enhancing drug
to relieve joint pain and build strength.
The native Minnesotan
joined WCW in 1991 but left in 1994 following a dispute
with the front office.
Rude, whose back was
broken in a 1994 match with Sting in Japan, sued the
company for $630,000
for alleged breach of contract.
Rude, a former NWA
world titleholder and U.S. heavyweight champion at WCW,
pulled out of the
promotion's Slamboree pay-per-view in May 1994 just minutes
before the event
following a backstage argument with booker Ric Flair over
his
role on the show. Rude
left 30 seconds before the card started and no-showed his
Slamboree main event
with Vader. Then-WCW commissioner Nick Bockwinkel, in an
attempt to explain
Rude's absence, told fans that the WCW board had decided to
strip Rude of his WCW
international world championship because of an illegality
in his title victory
over Sting earlier that month in Japan.
Rude, plagued by
nagging back and neck problems, rejoined the WWF for a brief
period as an announcer
but eventually returned to WCW. He had not wrestled since
1994 due to ruptured
disks in his neck, but had collected on a Lloyd's of London
insurance policy
similar to those utilized in the past by such performers as
Road Warrior Animal,
Curt Hennig, Nikita Koloff and Ted DiBiase.
Mike Mooneyham can be
reached by phone at (843) 937-5517 or by e-mail at
mooneyham. More wrestling news with Mike Mooneyham is
available every Monday
on The Wrestling Observer Hotline. The number is
1-900-903-9030. Calls
are 99 cents per minute, and children under 18 must get
parental permission
before dialing.
===========================================
ROOD MEMORIAL
Submitted by reader:
Player4125
It has been a tough
weekend for myself and my family. We attended the funeral
(Rick Rude's service)
on Saturday; many of the wrestlers showed up, including
Scotty Riggs, Scott
Norton, Rick Steiner, Miss Elizabeth, Lex Luger, and his
longtime friend Curt
Hennig. It was a very touching service. Each friend got
up and
told a story and
everyone had some good laughs to remember Rick. It was a
very
sad time and I spent
time with his son, little Rick, who also got up and spoke,
and I talked to him
about many things and he told me that he would always miss
his dad and that he
will always have a place in his heart. I think that can be
said for all of us.
Tyler
===========================================
DX LEADERSHIP
Submitted by reader:
Martin Butler (martincredible)
Bringing back Michaels
as the leader of DX would be great for all the HBK fans
out there (myself
included), but it'd really screw things up. First of all,
HBK
will unfortunately
never be a dominant ring presence again. Seeing him as "the
manager" for DX would
tarnish his impact on the wrestling world; with fans
remembering him on the
sidelines instead of as one of the greatest overall
performers in the
history of wrestling (cough cough...Arn Anderson?). And, it
would further confuse
the issue of who exactly runs the WWF...with Vince at odds
with the Corporation
and the Undertaker at both their heals, would Commish
Michaels at the helm
of anarchist sub-group DX further that angle, or mire it?
I'd like to see the
Road Dogg step up. Sure, he's not as established as HBK,
but can anyone deny
the man's charisma? He's been the highlight of DX since
Triple H took command.
And if DX really needs to add a new member, I'd like to
suggest one that I've
yet to see mentioned: The Big Show, Mr. Paul Wight. He's
got the attitude and
the name-value to re-ignite DX. Wight shines in groups. I
think, if Wight was
added to DX and allowed to shine as a personality instead of
a genetic wonder, the
name "Kevin Nash" would be forgotten within weeks. Just
jazz up his shorts a
little bit and the WWF would be in business.
===========================================
The staff of The
Wrestling Booking Sheet
Editor: Steve
Appy
Columnist:
Mark George
Columnist: SamJerry
Columnist: Fritz
Capp
Columnist: Rick Phelps
Columnist: Cindy
Barnes
Columnist: Josh Hewitt
Columnist: Swami
Columnist: Tom Misnik
Columnist: Nate Pelley
Columnist: Robert Troy (Osiris)
Columnist:
Tom
Kirkbride
Columnist: Ryan S. Oaks
Columnist: Darren Kramer
Any submissions sent in by readers or columnists become the
property of The Wrestling Booking Sheet, and are subject to
editing due to grammar, spelling, or content. Any
information taken from The Wrestling Booking Sheet must be
credited properly, with our E-Mail address listed. We have
no problem if you want to use our stuff; just credit it
properly.
Copyright- Steve
Appy of The Wrestling Booking Sheet ©1998, 1999, 2000
"When you're young and you
pick up a guitar, it feels so powerful. It feels
like you pulled the sword from the stone. I used to believe
that it could save the world. But I don't really believe
that anymore." - Bruce Springsteen
"The greatest challenge of
adulthood is holding on to your idealism
after you lose your innocence and believing in the power of
the human
spirit after you come crashing into the limits of the real
adult
world." - Bruce Springsteen
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