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Issue # 239
Date: Friday May 7th, 1999
9:11 am
The Wrestling Booking Sheet
THE ROCK & FOLEY SHOW CLASS
Rod Kechter, whose son
Matthew Kechter died in the Columbine shootings, called
the WWF and asked them
to mention it on television because his son was an
Austin
fan, which is why they
did that opening. After the Backlash PPV, The Rock &
Mick Foley called up
Adam Kechter (Matthew’s brother), who was watching the PPV
at home with many
of the school's
football team members. While this business has earned itself
a
trashy reputation,
both men deserve our praise for compassion in this matter.
Reported by Dave
Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter
WCW INCONSISTENCIES
Goldberg was on QVC,
and when he was asked about his future, he said that he
really doesn't know
because WCW doesn't tell him anything. When he was asked
why Nash saved him and
why its never referred to, he said they often change
things from Thursday
to Monday. Unfortuantly, both WCW and the WWF are ignoring
the concept of long
range booking, equal blame to spread.
Reported by Dave
Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter
SMACKDOWN DETAILS
The UPN Network is set
to finalize its fall schedule on 5/20. UPN, based on the
ratings, would like a
weekly show on Tuesday nights from
9-10 p.m., but UPN
would like the WWF to
sell th advertising and pay for the costs, so it would be
treated different than
normal prime time programming. If no deal is reached by
5/20, another show
will be put in that time slot, so negotiations between the
two are on something
of a strong deadline. With so much wrestling on TV
already, I'm hoping
the WWF declines this deal; overexposure may be looming...
Reported by Dave
Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter
NITRO
PRE-EMPTION CONFIRMED FOR
5/10
The NBA Playoff
schedule for all first-round game has been announced, and
TNT
has been officially
slated to run a play-off double header on Monday night, May
10. The back-to-back
games will tip at
8pm and 10:30; no doubt with
pre- and
post-game coverage
taking up additional time. Obviously, this will make it
very hard for Nitro to
air at anything resembling its normal slot....
currently,
TNT schedules indicate that
Nitro will simply be taken off the air
for the week (no
replacement date).
Depending on first
round results, another NBA game (or two) may cause trouble
for Nitro during the
week of May 17; if series featuring the Pacers, Spurs, and
Lakers go to a 5th
game,
TNT will be reponsible for
airing them on May 17 (and
if all series wrap up
in four games or less,
TNT may have second round
responsbilities). The
show is expected back in some capacity on Monday, May
24, and back in its
normal 3 hour slot on May 31 at the latest.
Reported by
http://www.wrestlemaniacs.com/
To subscribe to The
Wrestling Observer, send $11 for 4 issues to:
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Newsletter
P.O. Box 1228
Campbell, CA 95009-1228
===========================================
IS THE
ROCK INJURED?
The below story is
courtesy of
http://www.wwf.com; I have no idea of its
validity, so take it
for what its worth. It could be a part of the storyline,
or something worse...
Reported by
http://www.wwf.com
THE PEOPLE’S
ARM IN JEOPARDY!
By Bill Banks
On Thursday afternoon,
WWF.COM learned that The Rock apparently suffered a break
in his arm on Sunday
night during HEAT when he—along with Stone Cold Steve
Austin—was thrown off
the entrance ramp to the concrete floor.
According to World
Wrestling Federation officials, the People’s Champ felt a
tremendous amount of
pain in his arm in the days following the fall, but waited
to see a physician as
he thought it might subside. After seeing a doctor, not
only did he learn it
was broken, but that it could impact his match with Triple
H at Over The Edge on
May 23. At this time, it is not known whether he will be
able to battle the
Corporate Ministry member.
Despite the injury,
WWF.COM has learned that The Rock plans on being on the live
HEAT this Sunday from
Jacksonville, Florida. What
kind of impact his injury
might have on the
Pay-Per-View is hopefully one of the topics the People’s
Champ
will cover during his
scheduled interview!
===========================================
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===========================================
WCW Thunder Report -
May 6, 1999
By Joe De Leon at:
http://www.ultimowrestling.com/rwin/index.shtml
Hosted by Mike Tenay
and Larry Zbyszko
Taped from State
College, Pennsylvania
• Raven and Perry
Saturn defeated Scotty Riggs and Mike Enos with Saturn's
Death
Valley Driver.
- Scotty Riggs checked
his face out in a mirror throughout the match. Raven got
on the microphone and
talked about the three-way Tag Team Title match with the
teams of Chris Benoit
and Dean Malenko and Rey Mysterio, Jr. and Billy Kidman at
the Slamboree PPV.
Perry Saturn was wearing a big bandage on his shoulder, and
was outside of the
ring the entire time, after being knocked out. Scotty Riggs
and Mike Enos
surprisingly dominated the match. Raven later came back in
the
match by using a
chair. He nailed Enos with the Evenflow DDT, but Riggs made
the
save. Riggs went to
the mirror, which let Saturn take down Riggs with a one-arm
Death Valley Driver.
• Rick Steiner
defeated Eric Watts with the Steiner Bulldog.
• Horace and Brian
Adams (w/Stevie Ray, Vincent, and Scott Norton) defeated
Disorderly Conduct
with a Spike Piledriver.
- Disorderly Conduct
put up a tough fight for the two NWO Black and White
members, Horace and
Brian Adams. There were too many Black and White members on
the outside, though,
which let Horace and Adams take the victory with a Spike
Piledriver.
• Rey Mysterio, Jr.
defeated Kanyon via Pinfall, to retain the Cruiserweight
Title.
- Kanyon said he was
gone for two months, due to making a (Jesse Ventura) movie.
He said he was living
it real and more than ever. He asked the crowd who was
better than him, and
everyone responded with "everybody." Kanyon thought the
crowd said nobody, so
he said they loved him. Kanyon dominated Rey Mysterio, Jr.
with several of his
innovative maneuvers. Mysterio later came out on top after
wearing down Kanyon on
the outside of the ring. Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko
entered the ring, but
Mysterio took them down, and then rolled up Kanyon for the
win. Despite
Mysterio's win, Malenko and Benoit beat him down in the end,
with
no Kidman in the
arena. Mysterio was helped back to the locker room.
• Chris Benoit and
Dean Malenko defeated The Texas Hangmen with Malenko's
Texas
Cloverleaf.
- Chris Benoit and
Dean Malenko defeated a new masked tag team, named The
Texas
Hangmen, who had a
rope in the corner with them. Malenko strapped one Hangmen
member in the Texas
Cloverleaf for the win.
• The show also
consisted of many highlights, videos, matches, etc., mainly
from
Nitro.
===========================================
THE HORSEMAN
Written by reader:
Unazoi
Why doesn't WCW just
scrap the Horsemen idea? It is all but dead anyway.
Everytime they decide
to resurrect the Horsemen it becomes merely a flash in the
pan with the
enthusiasm falling by the wayside. Look at Malenko and
Benoit.
They don't even appear
with Flair or
Anderson half the time. The
Horsemen are
dead. They could stick
the Pope in there and no one would care.
===========================================
BAM BAM?
Written by reader:
JBanks1372
Bam Bam Bigelow a
Horseman? NAATriple HTriple HH!!!! Don't get me wrong, he's
got the
skills. But if you
know anything about the Horsemen its that there's more to
being one than just
being tough. To be a Horseman you've got to have style.
The Horsemen are
thinking-men's wrestlers. They are the elite and they show
it.
Besides being way too
much of a loner, can you honestly picture Bam Bam Bigelow
in an Armani suit? Not
likely. I'm mildly sad to see McMichael gone, he was a
highly underrated
wrestler, actually one of the best team players the Horsemen
ever had.
Hall as a Horsemen?
Possibly, but if I had a vote I'd pick Booker T. Now he
would make an
excellant Horseman.
And as for Terrible
Terry, when will he officially retire? Probably two days
AFTER they bury him in
the ground.
===========================================
PEACE & HARMONY
Written by reader:
Jared Baumgart (jsb510@xxxxs...)
I used to not watch
wrestling a few short months ago. It was stupid. The
matches were fake. Why
would I want to watch big guys pretend to fight in
bathing suits? (kinda
makes you wonder who invented it anyway). Anyway, I
wasn't going to waste
time watching a stupid fight that was choreographed.
Then, something
changed my thinking. They made it more like a sope opera,
rather than a sport.
They made me a wrestling fan.
Once I looked past the
fake fights, and saw the storylines, I was interested.
When Stone Cold drove
the zamboni down the ring, I was hooked. Now I'm a huge
wrestling fan, because
I looked at wrestling from a different view.
My point is this.
Every day I read e-mails about WWF fans complaining about
WCW
for the boring
program. WCW fans don't like that WWF is too much T & A
without
enough wrestling. Why
do the fans need to compete? If you don't like WWF, then
don't watch it! If WCW
is boring, don't watch it! its that simple. Leave
each other alone.
People are different, and people watch wrestling for
different reasons. The
feds are different, and suit different personalities.
If they put on the
same kind of show, then wouldn't EVERYONE like which was
better? I like the
sope opera aspect, so my fed is WWF. Some guys like the
wrestling more, so
they watch WCW. Fine with me. Who cares, anyway?
Personally, there's no
better fed. its an opinion, so watch whatever you like.
===========================================
A RESPONSE
Written by reader:
Handy Lukman (handy)
I'm responding to an
article "When is wrestling no longer wrestling" by
AshGodd. He stated that some people watch the WWF for
the wrong
reasons. I think that
a lot of "new" watchers like me (who started to watch
from late
1997, right after Bret
Hart left) are watching WWF for the right reasons,
especially for those
who started in 1998 or so, that is for ENTERTAINMENT. I
used to hate wrestling
because it was boring. For me, it was no better than
boxing. Two people
went at it with their punches and kicks and that's all they
did. My "real
wrestling fan" friends always told me to watch Nitro and I
never
liked it.
But it all changed
late 1997, when HBK and DX crew did the skit on Bret Hart
(the midget guy). That
really took my interest and I've been watching WWF Raw
since then, missing
only one or two nights. I'm not a big wrestling fan and I
wouldn't be watching
wrestling if there are no story lines or the soap opera
feel. And I think this
is also why WWF is getting such a high ratings.
AshGodd also stated and I quote: "The WWF offers little
wrestling, and
focuses more on the
storylines that surround their Pay-Per-View matches, while
WCW steers towards the
wrestling part of the industry (which last time I
checked, is what made
this "sport" popular in the first place)."
I think he meant
wrestling is what made this "sport" popular. For wrestling
fans, that may be
true. But for "wrestling fans" like me, the entertainment
value make this sport
popular. Of course, wrestling will gain followers every
day. But wrestling
with entertainment will gain a LOT MORE fans (as proven by
WWF, and also WCW in
some cases).
So what I'm trying to
say is, the reason WWF put 1.5 hours of storyline and half
hour wrestling is to
entertain the "wrestling fans" like me and pull more people
like me to watch the
show. I do watch the matches and I enjoy them, but it will
never be the same
without the story lines. I will stay and watch WWF as long
as
the stories are
entertaining. Once that part of the show is gone, I will
stop
watching.
BTW, I don't watch RAW
for the T&A show. Even though they are entertaining, I
take them as side dish
(a.k.a. not important).
===========================================
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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