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ssue # 374
Date:
Friday October 29th, 1999 9:57 pm
The Wrestling Booking Sheet
Straight Shooting
By: Fritz Capp (afcpwbts)
October 29, 1999
PWBTS 2000
http://pwbts.com
All I want to say
right now is "Sit down and shut up!"
That's right, it's
about time I get something off my chest that has
been bothering me for
a few weeks now. For those of you who do not want
to hear the absolute
bottom line truth that I am about to speak, here
is your chance to bail
because I do not want to waste my time and
effort on closed
minded Internet people who think that their opinion is
the only thing that
matters.
You see, recently I
have gotten totally fed up with the way wrestling
is always bashed, BY
WRESTLING FANS! Now I will come right out and say
that I too have fallen
into that trap on quite a few occasions but it
has to stop somewhere
and with myself it stops right here. Call it what
you will, I am tired
of seeing wrestling dissected to it's smallest
denominator by the
same people who swear they support it.
What ever happened to
being a fan?
This all started in my
head with the acquisition of Vince Russo and Ed
Ferrara by WCW. We all
had an opinion on how this would directly affect
WCW's product. While
this is cool in of itself what has happened is a
total travesty.
Before I go any
further I am reminded of something that happened to me
at the beginning of
this decade.
Two days before Summer
Slam in 1990, Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a
helicopter accident.
This news devastated me as I will always say that
Stevie Ray was one of
the best guitarists ever and I had followed his
career for as long as
I can remember. Anyway, a year or so after the
accident Eric Clapton
was coming in concert in
Philadelphia and my
girlfriend at the time
wanted to go. Of course I took her. Now being a
guitarist for over 20
years at the time I was very familiar with
Clapton. So we went to
the concert. While waiting for the band to go on
my girlfriend could
tell I was noticeably aggravated and asked why. I
didn't really give her
a response but the truth of the matter was I was
remembering the last
concert I had been to, which was Stevie Ray.
The show started and
without the first song even being over I turned to
my girlfriend and told
her, "He's no Stevie Ray Vaughan!", then turned
back to continue
watching the concert. A few moments went by when she
tapped me on the
shoulder, looked at me and said, "That's because he's
NOT Stevie Ray". All
of a sudden a light went off in my head and I
realized what I was
doing. I was not giving Clapton any sort of a
chance in my head
because he wasn't who I wanted him to be. Sure, they
both played the blues
and were both renown for doing just that, but I
had closed my mind to
the concert before I had even given this man who
had dedicated his life
to playing music and entertaining a chance. All
of a sudden my total
outlook changed and I was now viewing the concert
in a whole new
perspective. Needless to say, it was one of the best
concerts I have ever
seen, and I have seen hundreds.
That same scenario is
happening throughout the wrestling world as far
as the fans go. NO
ONE is really giving WCW a
chance to show what it is
going to become except
the WCW fans themselves and to be honest they
are being a little
hypocritical in their vocalizations. NITRO IS RAW!
Is Nitro really Raw?
Not by a long shot. While it is true that WCW now
has part of the WWF's
booking crew WCW does not have the same talent to
put those ideas
across, which means things are going to come off
slightly different.
Add to this the absolute fact that except for the
ultra extreme gimmicks
that someone may dream up all we are doing is
witnessing the same
things that have been recycled throughout the
industry for over 50
years. There is only so many ways to work a match
and I can almost
guarantee that if you had the complete archive of all
wrestling matches you
will see that your favorite match from 2 years
ago was similarly
wrestled 20 years before. Maybe not in this country,
but it was wrestled.
This means that
everyone's cries of ‘WCW is copying the WWF" or the
"WWF is stealing from
ECW" is absolute and unmitigated garbage! Let's
go back in history for
a bit so I can show you what I am talking about.
Everyone talks about
the great ladder matches that have been held in
the WWF, with the most
recent one being Edge/Christian vs. The Hardy
Boys but most people
remember the August 27, 1995 ladder match between
the then
Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon
(Scott Hall). Now I
would hope that everyone realizes that this was not
the first time a
ladder was ever used in a match. In fact, in 1962 it
was Ray Stevens who
did his "bombs away" off of a ladder onto his
opponent Pepper Gomez
in a grudge match that sold out the
San Francisco
Cow Palace to the tune of
17,000 fans and a paid gate of $65,000. The
result of that move
was an injury to Gomez's throat. Do I hear a chant
of "He's Hardcore"?
How about the WWF's
recent broadcast where Triple H's had to wrestle
numerous opponents in
one night? Do you think that was a first? Well it
wasn't. In fact it was
on
February 27, 1973 where the
Giant Baba
wrestled 10 matches in
one night. His opponents that night were Bruno
Sammartino (one win,
one draw), Terry Funk, Abdullah The Butcher, The
Destroyer, Wilbur
Snyder (one win, one draw) Don Leo Jonathon, Pat
O'Conner and Bobo
Brazil. Quite a list of wrestling luminaries,
wouldn't you say? Do
you think Hunter would have faired as well as Baba
did? Baba went on to
win 8 out of 10 matches with 2 draws and no losses
that night. Quite
impressive if you think about it.
So you think that
wrestling is a little to violent and should be toned
back? Do you honestly
think that pure and utter violence is something
new to pro wrestling
or something that was started by ECW back in 1993?
Forget it pal,
wrestling has always had violence. In fact it was
December 15, 1977 when
Dory Funk Jr and Terry Funk teamed up together
to beat Abdullah The
Butcher and The Sheik in what is considered
through Japan as one
of the most violent matches ever. In fact this
match was so violent
that this match turned the Funks into fan
favorites with the
Japanese wrestling fans.
You think playing the
crowd is something new? Once again it has been
done before. In 1947
Buddy Rogers and Billy Darnell had a match in
New
York
that was so wild a ringside fan died of a heart attack. Hey
I'm
not making this up,
this stuff actually happened.
How about gimmick
matches? Think they are a product of the last 20
years? No way! The
first "Brass Knuckles" match was held in 1953 in
Houston, Texas and was
promoted by Paul Boesch. The two combatants were
"Irish" Danny McShain
and "Wild" Bull Currey. Oh yeah, Currey won the
match.
What about having all
members of a tag tam match in the ring at the
same time? Known as a
"Texas Tornado" match the first match of this
kind was held in
Houston, Texas on October 2,
1937 and is credited to
being the brainchild
of Morris Sigel.
Wrestlers and music
are no strangers together. While the latest
music/wrestler
connection is accredited to a few different people on
January 21, 1944 there was a
benefit that paired the Houston Symphony
Orchestra and the
likes of Lou Thesz and "Wild" Bill Longson in the
main event. In fact,
one of the matches, Ellis Bashara vs. Dave Levin
had their match set to
a symphonic arrangement which saw Bashara, after
winning the match,
knock aside the conductor and lead the orchestra
himself.
While I could go on
and on the point I am trying to make is that there
is no one today that
isn't doing something that hasn't already been
done before. The cries
of "Nitro is Raw" is very premature and unfair
to a promotion that is
trying to turn itself around.
RAW IS PORN!!! Oh do I
remember when this tidbit catch phrase came
out. Of course it was
being done by a rival promotional columnist but
it did catch on across
the Internet. But in all actuality was Raw porn?
That would depend on
what side of the fence you were standing on, I
suppose. While what I
call "ratings wrestling" is not something every
child in America
should watch all the time to label the WWF porn for
doing the EXACT same
thing that was being done on almost all of network
TV and in Hollywood is
absolutely ludicrous. Let's look at shows that
range from "Silk
Stalkings to Baywatch to any soap opera on every
afternoon and the
American public is totally and completely inundated
with sex in one form
or another. Why was it wrong for the WWF to grab
some of this for
themselves?
Now a lot of people
lately have come down on a tag match this past
Monday night that had
The Outsiders (Hall and Nash) go against some
well endowed women.
The cries are going out that this was not needed.
Why not? What was
really wrong with it? This match was done as a joke.
In my estimation the
guys are starting to have a little fun down there
in WCW. This match was
proof of it. They said the whole time that this
was for ratings and
ratings only. What does that tell you people? They
were mocking the whole
ratings thing themselves. Does it matter that
one of the women is in
the porn industry? And if it does, why? Can't
anyone just take what
is being shown as what it is without having to
dissect each and every
moment as if it was a life and death situation?
Now before the answers
start flooding my e-mail box sit back and think
for a second and make
sure that you are not one of the people who sat
in the ECW Arena and
popped when Tommy Dreamer would piledrive Beulah.
Also remember that
before Tommy would apply the piledriver he would
hold Beulah (or
sometimes Francine) upside down with her crotch in his
face and as he turned
around so everyone in the crowd could see the
shot of her panties
while she was upside down he would wag his tongue
in a very suggestive
manner. Where were your cries of pornography then?
Where was your moral
indignation at that time?
The WWF had Sable come
into the ring one night with nothing more than a
pair of hands painted
over her nipples. I defy any red blooded male to
say that he did not
enjoy that segment. But now later on after the
erections went down
everyone in retrospect now says that the WWF was
wrong in airing that
segment. What are you guys nuts? Stop trying to
blow smoke up
someone's butt because I know that every guy in the world
who saw that popped
for it. (Probably in more ways than one)
Wrestling has and
always will push the envelope to generate a reaction
from the crowd. That
is part of its total makeup. It is our society
that has allowed
wrestling to venture into the risque, not the
wrestling promoter.
Don't believe me, turn on HBO or Showtime.
RATINGS, RATINGS,
RATINGS
Personally the ratings
war are total bullsh*t and was created by Eric
Bischoff as a
measuring stick so he could see just how much he could
pat himself on the
back week to week. While Bischoff did not create the
ratings per say, he is
the one that I have to credit with making them
so damned important in
the minds of every wrestling fan. Did anyone
care about how their
favorite wrestling show did in the ratings before
the Monday Night
slugfest started? NO!!!
I cannot remember ever
worrying about how Mid-South did in the ratings
or World Class
Championship Wrestling or Georgia Championship Wrestling
or any of the other
promotions I have been able to watch over my
lifetime. Not until
the WWF and WCW went head to head. At first, there
was some excitement to
it because here was someone who was actually
going head to head
with the true number one at the time, the WWF. Or
were they the true
number one? Not according to Nielsen. And for 80 sum
odd weeks we saw that
WCW was the absolute superior product. Or were
they? According to the
numbers they were but not in actuality. In
actuality the WWF was
putting on a far superior product for at least 4
months before the
wrestling fans caught on and switched the channels.
The same could happen
again with WCW now as they are turning themselves
around but now the
wrestling fan is used to switching that dial at 9 pm
and some habits are
hard to break.
I am a bit miffed as
to why the ratings still hold their appeal like
they do. Do the
ratings tell you what you should or should not be
watching? Do you have
to check the ratings on Tuesday to know whether
or not you enjoyed the
previous nights programming? I should hope not.
Our obsession with the
ratings are totally unfounded, at least to the
point that we are all
chasing the numbers week to week.
THE WWF
HAS CROSSED THE LINE OF
DECENCY?
To say that the WWF
has crossed the line on many occasions is being the
master of the obvious.
But to condemn the WWF without crucifying the
other promotions is
totally bogus because all three of the promotions
are guilty of pushing
the envelope in this area.
The WWF recently has
run an angle with Paul Wight where he is on camera
saying how he just
found out that his father is dying of cancer. The
public outcry is
ridiculous in my estimation. Everyone is acting like
this never happened in
wrestling before. Can we all say, "Fritz Von
Erich"?
How many times did
Fritz Von Erich use failing health to sell out the
Sportatorium? Did this
turn off the fans? No, in fact it helped sell
seats. So why is the
WWF being chastised for this angle? If Paul Wight
is ok with doing this
(his father did pass away from cancer years ago)
why is everyone so
upset? It is an angle people, nothing more, nothing
less. In fact, it has
helped put Wight over as a face in the promotion,
so not only are they
using the angle, they received their desired
response. Isn't that
what it's all about? When did the wrestling fan
become so damned
politically correct anyway?
When Ric Flair and WCW
used a "fake heart attack" on Nitro there was
minimum backlash from
most wrestling quarters. In fact, I caught more
heat from doing my
parody of it on "Layin The Smack Down" then Ric and
WCW did for actually
doing the angle. At first I attacked the angle but
for the wrong reasons.
I didn't attack it because it was wrong, I
attacked it because it
was WCW doing it. Like I said, I admit to being
caught up in the crap
right along with the rest of you.
Not letting health be
the only thing that crossed the line ECW had Joel
Gertner go off on JFK
Jr. right after his tragic plane crash, which
drew some heat to it.
While this could possibly be the most tasteless
promo cut this decade,
guess what people? Everyone got over it and went
on didn't they?
Because wrestling always crosses the line no matter
what promotion your
talking about. Tasteless draws heat, which draws
viewers wanting to see
what you will do next. It is nothing more then
the nature of the
beast and it is time that we as wrestling fans
remember that simple
fact.
WHERE OH WHERE HAVE
THE
TRUE WRESTLING FANS GONE?
While living in New
Orleans during the most part of the 80's I watched
a myriad of wrestling
shows. Bill Watt's Mid-South, Fritz Von Erich's
World Class
Championship Wrestling, Georgia Championship Wrestling
(NWA) and the World
Wrestling Federation. The one cool thing is that
back then that
although there was competition between the different
promotions behind the
scenes it never came across on the television
like it does today.
That is unless there was some cross promoting going
on which was prevalent
between the NWA, Mid-South and World Class. That
is probably what kept
it really interesting as far as I was concerned
because on any given
house show or TV broadcast you could see the Von
Erich's, Ric Flair,
The Freebirds or any other number of people
wrestling in another
promotion. Of course the WWF was always the island
unto itself.
One thing I remember
distinctly though is that no matter which of the
promotions house show
I would go to the fans were all the same. They
were true wrestling
fans. No one was there complaining about how this
one sucked and the
other one was better. We all talked about the card
that night and
everything we were following on television. Another
thing I noticed was
that the people I would run into at a Mid South
card were the same
people I would run into at a WWF show. And the talk
was always the same.
About everything that was happening in all the
promotions.
Today's wrestling fan
is extremely loyal to one particular promotion
and that is it. The
same people who liked Chris Jericho in WCW now
despise him because he
is in the WWF. (Not all, but some) The same
people who used to pop
for Diesel in the WWF think Kevin Nash is a bore
in WCW. The ECW fans
recently told The Dudley's they sold out by going
to the WWF.
Are any of these
people or any of the others who have jumped to another
federation any
different now that they have gone somewhere else? Has
their talent suddenly
been depleted? Are they any less articulate on
the microphone? Has
their outlook on the world somehow been altered
because they went
somewhere else? Not in the least and they should not
be vilified or
chastised because they saw and took another opportunity
that happened to come
their way. How can you be a fan of someone one
minute and just
because they are now wrestling somewhere else not be a
fan at all?
When
Benoit/Malenko/Guerrero left ECW I had a choice to either
blow
them off and forget
about them because they left the hallowed halls of
ECW or if I wanted to
continue to watch them I would have to watch WCW.
Needless to say I
watched WCW so I could see they guys work. Hell I
have followed
Jericho's exploits from ECW to WCW to the WWF. I watched
Austin in NWA/WCW to
ECW to the WWF. And so on and so on and so on.
WHO IS UP TO THE
CHALLENGE?
Wrestling is wrestling
people, it will never be anything else but. It
will never find the
cure for cancer, nor will it ever win the Nobel
Peace Prize. It is not
chocked full of vitamin C nor combined with a
glass of milk will it
ever give you the minimum daily requirements.
Wrestling is not
bio-degradable and while some may think it should have
there is no Surgeon
General's warning on it. It will not make your
whites whiter, your
teeth brighter or your grass greener. Wrestling
will not get you
cheaper phone rates, a break on your taxes or an extra
scoop of ice cream at
Dairy Queen. It will not remove that stain from
your carpet nor will
it eliminate pet odors. It does not have wings nor
is it the most
absorbent. While it does come in a multitude of flavors
none is approved by
the FDA.
My challenge to each
and every wrestling fan is simple. Forget your
so-called loyalties
for one week. During that week watch each and every
wrestling program with
an open mind. Do not bother yourself with such
trivialities like
which promotion you are watching. Take each and every
one for what they are
presenting themselves to be. Open yourself to the
possibilities because
right now you may be witnessing something that
may not happen again
for a long time. With the resurgence of WCW, ECW
starting to find it's
footing in it's new TNN program and the WWF
chugging along as it
always does the wrestling fan has a chance to see
the GOOD that all
three promotions are trying to give to you. All you
have to do is look.
All three promotions have positives going for it
right now and all
three have talented and dedicated people who want to
entertain you. Can you
take a moment to give them a chance to do this
without having any
pre-conceived notions? That is after all, all they
ask.
And with that I'm
outta here. Remember wrestling is nothing more than
it appears to be.
===========================================
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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