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Issue # 346
Date:
Sunday October 10th, 1999 11:41 am
The Wrestling Booking Sheet
Major change coming in the
WCW product
Sunday, October 10, 1999
By Mike Mooneyham
The times they are a
changing. And nowhere are they changing any faster
than the world of
professional wrestling.
WCW personnel, still
feeling the aftershocks from the Eric Bischoff
ouster, got another
jolt last week when the company announced that WWF
scriptwriter Vince
Russo was taking his crash style of television down
South and bringing
writing partner Ed Ferrara with him.
The rumblings are
being felt all the way from
Stamford to Atlanta.
While no one's quite
sure what this will mean for the beleagured
company, one thing is
certain - there will be a major change in the WCW
product as we know it.
Conversely, with Russo and
Ferrara out of the
picture, the future
WWF may also look very different.
The wrestling business
increasingly has become a breeding ground for
distrust and paranoia,
and this latest move has only accelerated the
process. Very few,
however, are willing to make definitive predictions
at this point.
The change comes at a
period in which WCW is adapting to its role as a
company in transition,
with Bill Busch being elevated to vice president
in an attempt to get
the company's finances back in order. With many of
WCW's performers
already jockeying for position and "in the ear" of the
new boss, the traffic
is expected to quickly take another route with
the arrival of Russo,
who has been credited with being one of the main
reasons behind the
WWF's resurgence and also has been one of the
driving forces behind
the de-emphasis of the in-ring product in the
current-day WWF.
Russo's booking
philosophy is clear. His focus is entertainment over
wrestling. He has
stated in the past that he doesn't watch Mexican or
Japanese wrestling,
and that a Mexican or Japanese wrestler could never
get over in the
United States, updating that
belief with the warning
that the Luchadores in
WCW better be able to speak English and cut an
effective promo or
they will be history.
Russo, who isn't fond
of "the over-40 bunch," also has predicted that
the next big star in
WCW will be Buff Bagwell, and the natural
assumption is that he
will work toward making that prediction come
true. Also likely to
get major pushes under the Russo-Ferrara booking
regime are current
mid-carders Billy Kidman and Vampiro.
Former WCW booker
Terry Taylor, who recently was named the head of New
Talent Acquisitions in
the WWF, told The Post and Courier that the
change would benefit
WCW.
"If
Atlanta's going to compete,
they're going to have to update," said
Taylor. "its obvious that
what they're doing is not working. If he
(Russo) is going to
push younger guys, that should make the older guys
have a reason to try
and get in shape or push harder to keep their
jobs. Complacency has
killed that place - people saying I'm not going
to do it (the job).
Who ever told Vince Lombardi or Bill Walsh that
they weren't getting
into the game? That's what's wrong with the
business."
The duo's first real
assignment will be tweaking the WCW's Halloween
Havoc pay-per-view on
Oct. 24. From there, they'll take over writing
the WCW telecasts.
Russo and
Ferrara most definitely will
test the
Turner censors as they
push the envelope with more hard-core angles and
matches. Goldust and
Val Venis were among Russo's favorite creations in
the WWF, and he likely
will push for characters with similar traits in
WCW.
Not everyone in WCW,
however, is welcoming the change with open arms,
nor is everyone
saddened to see Russo leave the WWF.
Jim Cornette, whose
old-style, Southern-based approach often clashed
with his New York-bred
colleague's harder-edged, "less wrestling"
creative direction,
was one of Russo's most vocal detractors during his
WWF tenure and
predicted last week that Russo "will fall flat on his
face" in WCW.
"He has no respect for
the wrestling business or anybody in it," said
Cornette, "and that's
going to be more obvious there where they won't
have anyone to control
him. I think The Ultimate Warrior deserved the
money he made more
than Russo. I have always in the past thought The
Ultimate Warrior was
the epitome of a guy making money with no talent.
Sable deserved her
money more than Russo. At least she didn't try to
make the entire
business a joke, just her part of it, because of her
lack of talent."
"He is a great
self-promoter who has made all the Internet people
believe he is a genius
responsible for the WWF turnaround," added
Cornette. "He went
crazy with all the pressure and decided to stab in
the back the guy who
brought him into the business (WWF owner Vince
McMahon) and take a
big-money deal, which I'm sure they offered because
they're grasping at
straws. He'll be out of the business in two years
because without the
WWF organization behind him, he'll fall flat on his
face. They'll pay him
until the end of his contract, and then he'll be
done. He burned the
bridge behind him and he won't be back."
Cornette said he
wasn't surprised that Russo, who didn't have a
contract with the WWF,
jumped ship to sign a lucrative two-year deal
with WCW.
"He knows he doesn't
know what he's doing. He knew WCW was desperate
and finally realized
it was time to cash in. He doesn't care about
being in the wrestling
business. He hates wrestling. He likes
entertainment. He
thinks he's a TV writer now, and its gone to his
head. He's got a head
the size of
Texas."
Cornette said that
Russo pushed his own interests by controlling the
WWF magazines, for
whom he was hired to write (under the pen name Vic
Venom) and also the
WWF's Internet division.
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.
===========================================
MARK HENRY &
STEREOTYPING
Written by reader:
MNR1118
I really enjoyed
Straight Shooting with Fritz Capp. I want to comment
on practically
everything he wrote about in his column, But I'll stick
to to one subject,
which is the Mark Henry angle. You'd think that
after Mark was
involved in that simulated sex with a transvestite angle
a few months back, he
would have told whoever came up with this incest
idea to kiss his @$$.
I don't know whether
or not Mark has any sisters in real life, but if
he does, I can only
imagine the embarrassment they are going through
right now. One last
thing, since racial stereotyping in wrestling has
been a hot topic in
recent WBS issues, a young black man who can't
control his sexual
urges is another one you can add to the list.
-Mike. MNR1118
===========================================
A DISSENTING VIEW ON
AUSTIN
Written by reader:
Jamie (JKASMULDER)
As of late, I would
have to agree with anyone who said that the UT is
something of a shadow
of what he once was. But, your assertion that
Austin is a major WRESTLING
talent just isn't supported by the facts.
To be honest, if you
are going to say that the UT has been carried in
his matches by other
great workers, then you MUST SAY THAT ABOUT AUSTIN
ABOVE ANYONE ELSE IN
PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING.
The man has three
moves, and he only does 2 of them with any real
success. He can't even
sell a punch. Further, I haven't seen the man
take a bump nearly as
well as the UT, let alone HBK, or any number of
other wrestlers in
wrestling today, yet he gets top dollar.
Please don't take my
words to mean that I don't like the "Rattlesnake".
He is a great in-ring
personality. But let's be honest, he really
isn't a very good
wrestler. Even compared to an injured UT who still
delivers flying DDT's,
can sell a punch, still takes good bumps, AND
jobs to other
wrestlers on a fairly regular basis, and if not that,
wins his matches in
such a way so that both the UT and his opponent
look good doing it,
Austin comes up way short of that.
To correct you in one
other area, the ONLY reason
Austin can claim any
noteable matches in
his career in the WWF is their perpetuation of a
good storyline. None
of them are notable because of
Austin's in-ring
ability, for which
there is practically none to speak of.
-Jamie
===========================================
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===========================================
ECW Hardcore
Television Report - September 27 - October 3, 1999
Hosted by Joey Styles
and Joel Gertner
Taped from
Philadephia, Pennsylvania
By Jerry Savage at:
http://www.ultimowrestling.com/rwin/index.shtml
• The program began
with clips of Mike Awesome fighting against earlier
foes Masato Tanaka and
The Dudley Boyz. It also included how he won the
title at Anarchy Rulz.
•After the
introduction, we saw "Mr. PPV" Rob Van Dam talking to Bill
Alfonso (aka Fonzie)
in the back. RVD only wanted to talk about
himself, but Fonzie
said that they should talk a little about Sabu too.
• We were then taken
to the ring where RoadKill and Dastardly Danny
Doring, with Miss
Congeniality, were supposed to take on Nova and Chris
Chetti. Nova came out
by himself due to the injury of Chetti at Anarchy
Rulz. Doring then told
Nova to go into the back, find someone who
actually liked him to
take his beating, otherwise they were going to
whip his ass. So Nova
went into the back and brought out Jazz to be his
partner. Nova and Jazz
went to work on Doring by Nova giving him an
atomic drop and Jazz
giving him a bulldog. When Doring and Roadkill
went to the outside
and Nova hit a top rope plancha onto them. Back in
the ring, Doring hit a
bareback on Jazz. Tag to Road Kill. He hit a
sideslam on Jazz. Tag
to Doring, who hit a suplex, went for a cover,
but pulled Jazz up.
Doring went into a pumphandle and hammered Jazz. As
he got her up, she
slipped out and give Doring a ball shot. Tag to Road
Kill and a tag to
Nova. Nova hit some sort of DDT on Road Kill. Nova
whipped Doring off the
ropes and hitsa Veg-O-Matic Powerbomb with
customary shot to the
groin. Congeniality jumped in and jumped on the
back of Nova. He hit
her with a sideslam. Jazz hit a JazzStinger on
Doring, sending him to
the outside. Nova hit a pescado on Doring on the
outside. Congeniality
nailed Jazz and Road Kill, hit a running
powerslam on Jazz for
the win.
• When we came back,
we saw a montage of Rhino destroying people in the
ring. Rhino with Steve
Corino and Jack Victory vs. The Fallen Angel,
Chris Daniels. The
match began with Rhino pounding down on Daniels.
Daniels then got back
body dropped onto the apron, but landed on his
feet. He slammed
Rhino's head into the mat and then hit a pescado into
the ring onto Rhino.
Rhino bounced off the ropes and got tossed outside
by Daniels. Daniels
then hit a springboard off the top rope onto the
outside onto Rhino.
Back in the ring again, Daniels went for a
tilt-a-whirl flying
head scissors, but got dumped on his head. Rhino
picked him up and
dropped him on his face. Rhino hit a spinebuster. A
fight almost broke out
in the crowd at this point. Rhino then hit a
face-first type
Jackhammer on Daniels. Cover, but Daniels kicked out.
Rhino then sent
Daniels to the outside and hit a pescado. Back in the
ring, Rhino went up
top but got knocked down onto the turnbuckle.
Daniels sets him up
into a top rope sideslam. Daniels then hit a flying
neckbreaker, went for
cover, but Rhino kicked out. Rhino went for the
diving headbutt, but
Daniels moved. Daniels then hit a sitdown driving
facebuster. The
referee, however, got distracted, as Steve Corino
jumped in and nailed
Daniels with a superkick. Rhino then gave Daniels
a powerbomb for the
win. After the match, Spike Dudley came into the
ring and another match
started. Spike just gave Rhino an Acid Drop for
the win.
• After a commercial,
Joey told us that Tammy Lynn Sytch was returning
on Friday to TNN.
• Paul E. Heyman gave
us the history on the ECW Heavyweight Title and
all of the hands it
had been in. Some of the wrestlers who were
Heavyweight Champion
included Shane Douglas, The Sandman, Raven, and
Taz. It also showed
how Mike Awesome got the belt at Anarchy Rulz.
• The Insane
Luchadore, Super Crazy vs. The New F'N Show, Jerry Lynn
was our final match of
the show. The match started out with Crazy
getting
Lynn in a grapevine. They
exchanged ground moves. Lynn hit a
titl-a-whirl flying
head scissors and then a tilt-a-whirl into a
powerslam on Crazy.
Lynn got Crazy into a Gory
Guerrero Special. Crazy
got out, got whipped
off the ropes, into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker
from
Lynn. We got a cover but no
fall. Crazy slingshotted Lynn onto his
ribs. Springboard
drop-kick from
Lynn on Crazy, sending him to
the
outside.
Lynn then hit a pescado onto
Crazy on the outside. Back in the
ring, Crazy hit a back
body drop. Crazy then went on the apron and hit
Lynn with a springboard
dropkick, sending Lynn to the outside. Crazy
was on the apron, and
hit a second rope Asai moonsault onto
Lynn on the
outside. Crazy tossed
Lynn in. Crazy vaulted
himself into a moonsault
on
Lynn. Crazy then got Lynn
into an inverted surfboard. Crazy set Lynn
up for ten punches to
the head. The fans counted them in Spanish. As
Crazy was celebrating
up there,
Lynn hit a sit-down
powerbomb. Cover,
but no fall.
Lynn hit a German Suplex with
a bridge, but couldn't get
the fall. Crazy hit a
second rope sunset flip into a powerbomb but
couldn't get the fall.
Lynn, favoring his ribs, got
an inside cradle,
but Crazy kicks out.
Crazy went for the Trifecta (First rope, second
rope, top rope
Moonsault), but as he tried to hit moonsault numero dos,
Lynn put his knees up
and then hit the Cradle Pile Driver for the
victory.
===========================================
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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