Issue # 243
Date: Monday May 10th, 1999
10:53 pm
The Wrestling Booking Sheet
GOLDBERG INJURED?
Goldberg was taken
from the building following the Slamboree PPV on an electric
cart with his leg
immobilized, and apparently has suffered a legitimate (?)
injury during his
match against Sting when Bret Hart came to the ring and hit
him with a chair. At
this point there is no word on how much time he will miss;
I can't confirm the
validity of this story yet, so take it for what its worth.
While both WCW and the
WWF enjoy working their online fans, at this point its
too early to know
anything for sure...
Reported by Dave
Scherer at:
http://www.1wrestling.com/
TULLY BLANCHARD ON THE
RADIO
Tully Blanchard is
this week's guest on Ringside Live, sponsored by
WrestlingClassics.com.
Highlights of the
interview include
*Tully explaining how
he ended up on the outside looking in on today's wrestling
scene.
*The Four Horsemen was
a phenomenon created by the fans rather that WCW.
*He's unsure whether
he would go if WCW asked him to come back.
*Blanchard says Shane
Douglas is very talented. The reason that their infamous
ECW match didn't work
is because management wanted Tully to work as a babyface
in that match.
To hear the interview
as well as the rest of Ringside Live, go to
www.WrestlingClassics.com and click the Ringside Live icon
on the home page.
Reported by Mark Nulty
at
http://www.1wrestling.com/
SLAMBOREE ATTENDANCE
Attendence for
Slamboree at
St. Louis' TWA Dome was
disappointing to say the
least. The dome can
hold upwards of 80,000 fans, and was going to be configured
for about half that.
But as of late last week, WCW had only sold about 12,000
tickets. They wound up
giving a bunch more away for free. No word on how many
people were finally in
the Dome last night (and how many paid), but the number
of visible empty seats
on camera does not tell a good story.
FWIW, 12,000 is a good
number of tix to sell... its only made to look bad when
you book an arena that
you hope to fill with 40,000. Maybe this'll put WCW off
the big domes they've
had a tendancy to run. They've got another Dome show --
Houston's AstroDome -- coming
up later this month for the May 31 Nitro, I
believe. We'll see how
they draw there.
Reported by
http://www.wrestlemaniacs.com/
===========================================
UPN considering
Smackdown series
By Mike Mooneyham
Sunday, May 9, 1999
Talk about laying the
smack down.
That's exactly what
Raw did to Nitro last week in the ratings, and it also will
be the name of a
possible new WWF offering on network television this fall.
The recent "WWF
Smackdown" special on UPN earned a 4.0 national rating that
was
one of the network's
highest ever. UPN executives, ecstatic over the potential
of a new wrestling
show they feel can take a chunk out of standard network
television, reportedly
are set to pick up the option to make Smackdown a regular
series starting next
season. No deal has been reached yet, but UPN is
considering the show
for a
9-10 p.m. Tuesday time slot.
The network will unveil
its lineup for the
fall season on May 20.
Raw, meanwhile, rode a
pay-per-view-caliber lineup to a 6.38-3.41 rout of Nitro
last week in one of
the most crushing setbacks for WCW since the Monday night
ratings race began. It
was even uglier in the head-to-head hours: 6.4-3.1. Raw
posted hours of 5.86
and 6.89, while Nitro did 3.98. 3.44 and 2.80 for its three
hours.
There were very few
bright points for Nitro on the night Ric Flair returned to
the Charlotte
Coliseum. Flair, WCW's top ratings draw, could muster no
more than
a 3.0 for his
16-minute world title match with the rapidly sinking Diamond
Dallas Page. And,
while Curt Hennig and Booker T were doing a show-low 2.38
for
their match in the
10:30-10:45 period, Ken
Shamrock vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley
and The Undertaker vs.
The Big Show were registering a 7.32, the highest mark
ever for a competitive
quarter hour in the Raw-Nitro Monday night war.
Individual Raw highs
saw 6.6 for the Shane-Vince McMahon match, a 6.7 for
Mankind vs. The
Acolytes and a 6.7 for the Debra-Sable evening gown segment
(Nicole Bass filled in
for Sable).
As if WCW needed any
more setbacks, its April 29 Thunder show did a 2.6, an
all-time low for that
show. And, things aren't likely to get better any time
soon, as Nitro is
being preempted the next two weeks due to the NBA playoffs.
An individual who
described himself as a longtime WCW fan summed it up when he
wrote: "If you can't
fill three hours with interesting wrestling, do something
about it. The three
hours of Nitro is getting too much like Gilligan's Island -
starting out on a
three-hour tour, ending up being stranded somewhere with
primitive
surroundings."
• its ironic that just
a few years ago DDP was a mid-card manager for mid-card
performer Vinnie Vegas
(Nash) in WCW. That, of course, was before DDP moved into
Eric Bischoff's
neighborhood and Vince McMahon created a character named
Diesel.
• Acting WCW "vice
president" Charles Robinson, who has emerged as one of WCW's
most entertaining
characters as "The Little Nature Boy," will don a special
robe
for his Slamboree
pay-per-view match with Gorgeous George (Randy Savage's
21-year-old
girlfriend). The robe is being made by Olivia Walker, wife
of former
mat star Mr. Wrestling
No. 2 (Johnny Walker), who lives in
Hawaii and also has
designed a number of
Ric Flair's exquisite robes. A series of mixed tags with
Robinson and Flair
against Savage and George are planned in the upcoming weeks.
• Canadian strongman
Jos LeDuc passed away on May 1 at the age of 54 while
visiting his son and
ex-wife in
Atlanta. He died due to lung
problems that had
plagued him the last
several months of his life. LeDuc, who during his ring days
weighed in the
300-pound range, had dropped considerable weight in recent
years
and was down to 175
pounds.
LeDuc, whose
20-plus-year career ended in 1989, was a main-event
attraction
throughout the country
and headlined a number of shows in the
Carolinas during
the '70s and '80s. His
most memorable angle occurred in Memphis during the late
'70s when, during a
television interview with Lance Russell, he took his
trademark ax and
sliced his forearm as part of a torrid feud with hometown
favorite Jerry "The
King" Lawler.
• Richard Erwin Rood,
better known to wrestling fans as "Ravishing" Rick Rude,
was laid to rest May 1
in
Atlanta. An official cause of
death will not be
established until
toxicology reports are completed. Curt Hennig, a close
friend
of Rude since the
seventh grade, paid tribute to his late colleague at a
recent
WCW house show at the
Target Center in Minneapolis.
Hennig, in Ravishing Rick
Rude fashion, put his
hands on his head, swayed his hips and did a Rude
impersonation for the
hometown crowd, pointing to the sky in tribute to his
friend.
"What wrestling is, is
really an art," Hennig told the
Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.
"And Rick Rude was one of the last breed that really knew
the art, that knew how
to tell a story during a match, how to get people up on
the edge of their
seat, how to get them involved."
"He was nothing like
the character," said wife Michelle Rood, who added that he
was a wonderful
husband and father. "But he was a good bad guy in the ring.
If
you had to be a bad
guy, he was the best one you can be." WCW reportedly is
paying Rude's family
the remainder of his contract - approximately $450,000
covering the next 18
months.
Among WCW performers
attending Rude's funeral were Hennig, Lex Luger, Elizabeth,
Rick Steiner, Barry
Darsow, Scott Norton and Scotty Riggs.
Rude leaves behind his
wife; a daughter, Merissa, 5; and two sons, Richard Ryan
("Little Rick)," 8,
and
Colton, 21 months.
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.
===========================================
ROUNDING THE SQUARED
CIRCLE
BY
SAMJERRY
The following item is
from the Orlando Sentinel,
Monday, May 10, 1999. It
relates to tonight's
RAW, live from The "O" Arena, in
Orlando, Florida, The City
Beautiful. It was
written by Sports Editor Jerry Greene:
Talk about a tough
ticket - try finding a way to get into tonight's WWF RAW Is
War festivities at the
Orlando Arena. In case you haven't been paying attention,
let me tell you that
World Wrestling Federation boss Mr. Vince McMahon has been
betrayed by his son,
Shane, who set up a kidnapping of his sister, Stephanie, to
weaken his father in
order to take control.
Shakespeare would love
this stuff.
McMahon incidentally,
has taken Psychosis and perversion to new levels and made
a fortune doing it.
He's a lock for American Businessman of the Year.
And wouldn't you like
to see The Undertaker under the boards for the (Orlando)
Magic? He'd scare
(Matt) Geiger. *
===========================================
CONTINUITY: NASH'S
ACHILLES HEEL?
Written by reader: Bob
Colby (bobcolby)
The item "WCW
Inconsistencies" in issue #239 struck a chord with me. While
I
applaud Kevin Nashıs
desire to tell better and more coherent stories, he seems
to be ignoring one of
the primary tools necessary to create them - continuity.
A famous playwright
once said that if you place a gun on the wall in Act 1,you
must have someone use
it by Act 3. Meaning, of course, that you must do
*something* with the
plot elements you set up. But in WCW it increasingly seems
as though loose ends
are just being left to dangle. Consider the following
examples:
1) In and out of the
nuthouse: On a Monday, Flair is committed for 72 hours
(conveniently timed
for the next Thunder). On that Thunder, he is reported to be
backstage and
responsible for the main event booking. Next Monday heıs
back in
the mental hospital
and apparently that Thunder occurred in an alternate
universe, since no one
mentions it.
2) Robinson on
Thunder: On the Nitro the week after Flairıs"committment"
Charles
Robinson pulls a major
power trip. Three days later on Thunder heıs just a
regular ref and no one
seems to consider this the least bit odd.
3) The Windham save:
Arn Anderson saves arch-traitor Barry Windham from Ric
Flair, and nothing
more is said about it, ever.
4) The Goldberg save:
Same deal with Nash, Page and Goldberg. At least the
commentators
*mentioned* it later, but thereıs still no explanation. Will
the
same thing happen with
Nashıs Konnan save?
5) Bishoff reverses
decision: Eric Bischoff may be the real-life President, but
in the current
storyline he has no power at all, so just where did he get
the
authority to reverse
the Flair/Piper decision at Slamboree? Supposedly the
corporate officials
(led by Dillon) are Flairıs cronies, so I donıt see where
heıd get the backup
for this.
Making an issue of the
above examples may seem like nit-picking to some, but
taken together they
erode the "suspension of disbelief" that you need to lose
yourself in even the
best stories. Now I understand that someone can change
their mind about
whether to go forward with an angle, or other circumstances
(such as injuries) can
intervene, but these changes must be *explained*. And it
wouldnıt have been
difficult, either. A brief filmed vignette inserted at the
end of Thunder
(showing Flair being captured and carted back to the
hospital), a
backstage
confrontation over the Windham save, a comment added to the
(example
#2) Thunder voice-over
about how
"subdued" Charlie has
been the last few days since being humiliated by Madusa
and Gorgeous George,
an ad-hoc hallway meeting of the Executive Committee at
Slamboree with JoJo
going "I really hate to do this to Ric, but *somebodyıs*
gotta stop this
nonsense - find Bischoff right now!" - a few little touches
like
this would have gone a
long way to changing how these events felt as they
unfolded.
If I had Kevin Nashıs
ear, Iıd make the following suggestion; pick upon the idea
introduced by Konnan
during his "WCW Live" appearance (i.e. hire actual movie/
TV scriptwriters), and
adapt it to your own needs. You probably donıt want
someone
second-guessing your basic concepts, so just hire an
entry-level
Hollywood schlep,
christen him or her "Continuity Czar", and let them find
these
glitches before your
viewers do!
Bob Colby
===========================================
FANTASY BOOKING (This
will NOT happen)
Written by reader:
Flactoid
This is a fantasy
booking for the 5/10 Nitro, based on the events of
Slamboree.
1st hour of Nitro:
Flair somehow finds
his way into the building, even though he's been fired. He
gives Piper props
while ripping on Bischoff. He then puts out a challenge to
Piper: 3 wrestlers of
Piper's choice, plus Piper, will face 3 of Flair's plus
Flair himself.
2nd hour:
Piper interview. Piper
says he's never backed down from a fight before, and he
doesn't plan to do it
now, yada yada yada. He says that he believes in tradition
and that tonight he
will restore the tradition of WCW with 4 of his own
wrestlers.
Main event:
Flair's music plays
and he comes down to the ring. But instead of being
accompanied by the 4
Horsemen he has three other wrestlers with him. They are
the Steiner brothers
and Bret Hart. Then Piper comes out with Goldberg, DDP, and
The Macho Man. This
match quickly turns into a brawl. Somehow Flair pins Piper
and is reinstated.
This match could set up some great future PPV's and Nitros.
===========================================
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The staff of The
Wrestling Booking Sheet
Editor: Steve
Appy
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Copyright- Steve
Appy of The Wrestling Booking Sheet İ1998, 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
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after you lose your innocence and believing in the power of
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