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Andy Moseley

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THIS WEEK IN WRESTLING - 4.19.00 to 4.25.00

It's Wednesday, and that could only mean it's time for another exciting dose of the column I nicknamed History! It's also Easter week, with Passover, Good Friday, and of course Easter Sunday mixed in. Yeehaw.

BRAVES UPDATE: Rocker and the gang weigh in with a 7-6 record. The NL champs are tied for second in the NL East with the Expos (of all teams), one game back of the Marlins (of all teams). For some reason, I don't see the Marlins and Expos near the top when September rolls around. Or when June rolls around. Looking at the week ahead, we've got two more games against the Phillies in Atlanta, followed by a three-day weekend series at home against the Pirates, they take another Monday night off to be Jerichoholics, and start a three-game series in Atlanta against the Dodgers on Tuesday.

What can I say, I "marked out" majorly during Raw when our paragon of virtue won the WWF Championship. I had a feeling he would be screwed out of it, but hey... he didn't even get a chance to come near the world title in WCW. I think my fellow Jerichoholics will agree that he'll be champ by his one-year WWF anniversary in August.

Time to do a Jericho in WCW vs Jericho in WWF comparison...

WCW Monday Night Jericho - The "Lionheart" ended up getting having one t-shirt (Monday Jericho), two action figures, one TV title reign, and four Cruiserweight title reigns. Not that shabby, but...

WWF Raw is Jericho - "Y2J" has (so far) had three t-shirts (Y2J, Jerichoholics, and Ayatollah face shirt), one upcoming action figure that I know of, one feature commercial (Jakks Trash Talkin' Stage... and the "don't try this at home", if you count that), one WWF Magazine cover, one Raw Magazine cover, two PPV posters, two I-C belts, one European belt, and what I'm going to call one WWF Championship. You do the math... yep, Jericho should have definitely stayed with WCW. He was way better off there. Yes, that was sarcasm. Let's put it this way... how many times was Jericho in the main event of a WCW show?



4.19:

1999 - In a four way match on Nitro, Psicosis won the Cruiserweight belt from Ron Misterio, Jr., also beating Blitzkrieg and Air Juvy in the match.

1998 - Spring Stampede was live from Denver... yeehaw. We had a double main event, with Kevin Nash & Hollywood Hogan winning that bat match (you know, anything on a pole is fun... HHH said so) against The Giant & Roddy Piper in one half, and Randy Savage winning the World title from Sting in the other. What ever happened to that Savage fellow? Raven won the U.S. belt from DDP as well. Also on the card: La Parka d. Psicosis ... Goldberg d. Perry Saturn (Goldberg in the second match... wow) ... TV champ Booker T d. Chris Benoit ... Cruiserweight champ Chris Jericho d. The Artist Currently Known as Prince Iaukea ... Ultimo Dragon d. Chavo Guerrero, Jr. (wonder if that Amway gimmick will come back) ... Curt Hennig d. Davey Boy Smith ... Rick Steiner & Lex Luger d. Scott Steiner & Buff Bagwell.

1986 - The first ever Jim Crockett, Sr., Memorial Cup tag tournament was held in the Louisiana Superdome. There's no way I'm running through the full results because it looks like there was 900 matches, but we'll skip ahead to the finals, as The Road Warriors won against Magnum T.A. and Ronnie Garvin. As if a million tag matches weren't enough, there were two additional matches... North American champ Hacksaw Jim Duggan beat Dick Slater and NWA World champ Ric Flair beat Dusty Rhodes by DQ. You know, I think Dusty doing commentary on Thunder would be cool. WCW needs to get him back to commentate, 'cause I sure don't wanna see him wrestle.

1980 - The first NWA U.S. champ (at least as acknowledged by PWI) was won by Ric Flair from Jimmy Snuka in Greensboro, NC.



4.20:

1999 - '80s and '90s wrestling great "Ravishing" Rick Rude (Richard Rood) died at the age of 40 after suffering a heart attack in his Alpharetta, Georgia, home.

1998 - Because he wants all the power, Hollywood Hogan won the WCW World title from Randy Savage on Nitro just a night after Savage won it at Spring Stampede. Also, WCW started to officially give Greenberg the monster push as he won the U.S. title from Raven a night after Raven won it at Spring Stampede. I'm noticing a pattern.

1997 - The 14th In Your House was live from Rochester, New York. This was during the WWF's "hey, let's nickname every In Your House"... so this would by IYH: Revenge of the 'Taker. Strangely enough, there were two PPV matches after The Undertaker successfully defended his WWF Title against Mankind. One of those was Steve Austin beating Bret Hart by DQ, and the other... get ready... was Savio Vega beating I-C champ Rocky Maivia by countout. Also on the card... LOD d. World tag champs Owen Hart & British Bulldog by DQ ... Jesse James d. Rockabilly. Man, I miss the days of "Double J" Jesse James coming to the ring singing "With My Baby Tonight" and Rockabilly's music.

1994 - Two of Memphis' greatest exchanged the USWA heavyweight belt, as Jeff Jarrett won it from Jerry Lawler. He did NOT call him slapnuts after the match or even diss my homeboy J.R. (did I just write "diss my homebody J.R."?).

1988 - Jacksonville, FL, was the home of an NWA World tag title change as Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson won the gold from Lex Luger & Barry Windham.

1986 - In something that sounds like it belonged on MTV, WrestleRock '86 was held in Minneapolis. The big match was apparently Jimmy Snuka & Gagne beating Nord the Barbarian & Bruiser Brody in a cage match, which gave Verne Gagne ten minutes with Sheik Adnan Al-Kaisse in the ring (yes, Verne got the pin). In other matches: Brad Rheingans d. Boriz Zukhov ... Little Mr. T (hey!) and Cowboy Lang d. Lord Littlebrook and Little Tokyo ... Col. DeBeers d. Wahoo McDaniel ... Doug Sumers & Buddy Pose d. the Midnight Rockers ... Tiger Mask d. Buck Zumhofe ... Barry Windham & Mike Rotundo d. The Fabulous Ones ... Shohei Baba d. Bulldog Bob Brown ... Mark Madden stripped naked (just seeing if you were paying attention) ... Rick Martel and Harley Race went to a double-countout ... Sherri Martel won a 10-woman battle royal ... America champ Sgt. Slaughter d. Kamala ... AWA World tag champs Scott Hall & Curt Hennig d. The Long Riders ... Scott LeDoux d. Larry Zbyszko in a European rules boxing match (anyone know those rules?) ... AWA World champ Stan Hansen d. Nick Bockwinkel ... The Road Warriors d. The Freebirds in a cage.



4.21:

1998 - WCW and the Turner gang began legal action against Ric Flair for breech of contract, as he want to a few of his son's amateur matches instead of a few WCW shows. After all, work comes before family. Anyway, WCW filed a $2-million suit, which Flair countersued, and so on.

1984 - Rick Steamboat breathed fire and won the NWA U.S. belt from Dick Slater in Greensboro.

1980 - Pat Patterson became the first guy to lose the WWF I-C belt, losing it to Ken Patera in New York City. He celebrated his loss with a hampster... wait, I'm slipping into Hyatte mode here.



4.22:

1998 - Buff Bagwell sustained spinal shock syndrome on a live Thunder. Bagwell was paralyzed in the ring for four minutes.

1996 - WCW tried to make a star on Nitro in Albany, GA. Since the NBA Playoffs were shortening Nitro by half of whatever time schedule they were on at the time (I guess that would be down to half-an-hour?), they taped two shows in one day. One the first one, aired live, Ric Flair "accidentally" threw coffee on The Giant. On the following show, the rookie won the World belt from Flair.

1988 - Today (and tomorrow) was home to the third Crockett Cup, with today's half in the Greeenville Colisium in Greenville, SC and tomorrow's in Greensboro, NC's Greensboro Coliseum (nice color coordination there). Lots of matches, so I'll just tell you that Sting & Lex Luger won the finals against Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson. In two wonderful added matches, the Midnight Rider d. Jo Jo Dillon in a bullrope match and Nikita Koloff d. NWA World champ Ric Flair by DQ.

Birthdays - Miguel Perez, Jr., and any back hair he may have was born back in 1963.



4.23:

1990 - Due to I-C champ Ulllllllllltimate Warrior winning the World title at WrestleMania, he was stripped on the I-C belt, which went to the winner of a tournament final held on this very day in Austin, TX. That winner was Mr. Perfect, and the loser was Tito Santana.

1981 - The first and original Tiger Mask debuted for New Japan, defeating the Dynamite Kid.

1960 - Hey, hows about an old WWF World tag title change? In Chicago, Red & Lou Bastien won the belts from Eddie & Dr. Jerry Graham.

Birthdays - Tony Atlas was born back in 1956. I kinda feel for the guy after that MTV special.



4.24:

1989 - The man they (who is they?) call Vader won the IWGP heavyweight belt in a tournament final by defeating Shinya Hashimoto.

1936 - That is a LONG time ago. Anyway, Ali Baba won the NWA World title from Dick Shikat. I could make some kind of Aladdin joke here, but I won't. Probably because it would reek of lameness.



4.25:

1999 - Just one year ago, the WWF gave us Backlash from Providence, Rhode Island. How nice of them. The main event was pretty cool, with WWF Champ Steve Austin beating The Rock. I think this is where the "People's Camera" debuted, but that could've been the month before at WrestleMania. We also had that nasty boiler room brawl win by Mankind against The Big Show. One title change happened, with Al Snow getting the Hardcore gold from Hardcore Holly. Also on the card: The Acolytes & Mideon (HEY!) d. The Brood ... I-C champ The Godfather d. Goldust ... The New Age Outlaws d. Owen Hart & Jeff Jarrett ... Triple H d. X-Pac ... The Undertaker d. Ken Shamrock.

1995 - ECW's first heavyweight champ was crowned as Jimmy Snuka defeated Wildman Bellomo. Earlier, both men won seperate battle royals to find their way into the match.

1989 - Where would this column be without Jerry Lawler every week? This week, he won his second of one million USWA heavyweight belts by beating Master of Pain (oooooh) in Memphis.

1947 - Lou Thesz won himself an NWA World title from Whipper Billy Watson in St. Louis.



NEXT WEEK (4.26 to 5.02): one In Your House, one Unforgiven, the first SmackDown!, and more.

Enjoy Passover, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, and Anzac Day (for my readers from Australia and New Zealand)! See you next Wednesday or so. If I don't appear on Wednesday, it's because I am in deep hiding as I study for the next day's biology final exam.

Andy
Neve Campbell's #1 man
[slash] wrestling


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