Wrestling Observer Newsletter - Canadian Stampede

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Some classic Observer Notes, this time reviewing Canadian Stampede, often called one of the Fed's best PPV efforts.

 

Canadian Stampede Poll Results:

 

Tumbs Up: 151 (100%)

Thumbs Down: 0

Thumbs in the Middle: 0

 

Best Match:

10-Man Tag Match: 121

Great Sasuke vs. Taka Michinoku: 22

 

Worst Match:

Godwinns vs. Blackjacks: 57

Undertaker vs. Vader: 23

 

Show Analysis / Notes:

 

* Due to weak hype, a change in the world title match and coming at the end of a holiday weekend, the show was looking to be the one of the least anticipated WWF PPVs in history but ended up being one of the best shows ever: The crowd atmosphere equaled or exceeded nearly any show in history and every match was good, with two being excellent.

 

* The show was not originally planned to be a 4 bout card (5 with the Free For All) but a series of injuries to a roster that already has a depth problem caused the show to be booked the way it was.

 

* The show's attendance was 12,151 (10,974 paid) with a gate of $229,598 and another $65,000 in merchandise, with both dollar amounts setting a Calgary record. It was the 3rd largest paid crowd in Calgary history - the largest crowd was 12,304 for a show headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy and the 2nd largest was 11,153 for a 1991 show featuring Undertaker vs. Ultimate Warrior and Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter.

 

* Local media coverage for this show (and the next night's Raw) were unprecedented with front page stories in newspapers covering the shows. There were numerous autograph sessions and one sessions featuring Owen and Bulldog drew 8,000 people.

 

* Both shows were extremely unique in presentation - the people being portrayed as the company's top heels were on a worldwide PPV being treated as heroes by both the fans and announcers, something that is quite unusual and perhaps quite strange for the non-Canadian viewing audience. Pesky little Owen Hart saving the day? Brian Pillman not giving Stu Hart a cheapshot clothesline? He's a loose cannon! "In the WWF's quest to overdo things and explain to the rest of the world why the locals were behaving this way and cheering the wrong guys, they probably succeeded in a sense of having an awful lot of fans wondering why they were the ones rooting against the real babyfaces. Those Canadian fans, who in the clips hardly came off as brain surgeons, still seemed in their less than infinite wisdom to be on the right side. The WWF trying to make sense of the aftermath and move things back to as they were is going to be intriguing. It's almost like you had this dream you saw one of the best wrestling PPV shows ever, but then you wake up the next morning, and it was almost like it never happened".

 

A. The Godwinns vs. The New Blackjacks: The Free-For-All match, it went 5:32 and ended with Phineas pinning Windham with an inside cradle after Henry kicked in Windham's leg when he was trying to suplex Phineas. "Pretty bad" - DUD. (Of note, this is when Meltzer always used people's real names in PPV reviews - Bradshaw is referred to as "John Hawk").

 

1. Mankind vs. Triple H: Ended in a double count out at 13:14 (which continued as a brawl into the next match). "A very good match marred only by interference from Chyna". Meltzer also notes that Chyna is looking more muscular than ever and she perhaps attended the Pitbulls "going out of business" sale (in reference to another story in this issue - more on that later). The psychology or Hunter working on Mankind's knee was appreciated, but Meltzer also thought they should have maybe done something different since that was the story of the main event between Austin and Owen as well. Jim Ross had the unintentionally funny line that Mankind is "287 lbs to be exact, and that's an estimate". ***

 

2. Great Sasuke vs. Taka Michinoku: Sasuke pinned Taka in 10:00 with a Fire Thunder Bomb followed by a Tiger Suplex (the combo was used in reverse the next night on Raw). Excellent match, but not the level of the six-man tag at ECW's Barely Legal from April. Taka was more over than Sasuke and was the most impressive wrestler on the show. Fans started off bored but one great spot after another, all with perfect timing, really got them to get into it. Vince and Lawler were "out to lunch" in terms of trying to call the match and JR was nowhere close to Joey Styles in understanding the match. An impressive spot was Sasuke using the "Rider kick" - a one-footed dropkick from the top rope to the floor that can't be executed safely because the opponent cannot protect your fall. ****

 

3. Undertaker vs. Vader for the WWF Title: Undertaker retained with the Tombstone in a "good but not great" match in 12:39. Around the 8:00 mark, the building was "rocking" to a level you didn't often see for Undertaker's comeback. ***1/4

 

4. Bret Hart, Owen Hart, The British Bulldog, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, and Brian Pillman vs. Steve Austin, The Legion of Doom, Goldust, and Ken Shamrock: Owen pinned Austin in an excellent 24:31 match. When the babyface / heel / whatever team came out, there was no sense this would be anything special. LOD got some cheers and Austin had "unusually strong". But when Pillman was introduced first for the Hart Foundation, the crowd blew the roof off and the tone for an extremely hot match was set. For the first 14:50, it was among the best North American matches of the year. A super heel performance by Austin when he was handcuffed and escorted out after the match and an incredible spectacle overall. Meltzer could only compare the whole post match excitement with the entire family coming into the ring and the crowd going nuts for it to Kerry Von Erich beating Ric Flair for the NWA title at the Texas Stadium in 1984. ****1/4.

More notes to come later. There are also Raw and Nitro notes from this issue over in the 24/7 section (as this is about where they are in the Monday Night War run).

[Celtic Jobber 0]

Thanks for this, I love reading the old Observer excerpts. This is one of my all-time favorite PPVs, all of the matches were great except the Godwinns/Blackjacks one.

[CanadianChris 0]

This was my favourite non-WM show of all time. I was literally trying to decide the week before whether to try and get a ticket and hop a plane for Calgary, because I knew the show was going to be great, and it was better than I could possibly have imagined. I had a tape of it, and it got lost in a purge right before I got married.

 

This was probably the hottest crowd ever, too. I mean, when have you ever seen a crowd so hot that they were actually making the ring shake?

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

This was my favourite non-WM show of all time. I was literally trying to decide the week before whether to try and get a ticket and hop a plane for Calgary, because I knew the show was going to be great, and it was better than I could possibly have imagined. I had a tape of it, and it got lost in a purge right before I got married.

 

This was probably the hottest crowd ever, too. I mean, when have you ever seen a crowd so hot that they were actually making the ring shake?

 

 

Remember Edmonton singing the anthem at Game 6 in the 2006 finals? I honestly think the Stampede was louder; As silly as the concept is, the Harts' entrances might have been the proudest I've ever been to be Canadian.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yep, great show. I remember getting to watch that one because Charter didn't scramble the feed and we got it at our house for free, for whatever reason....this was when you could still tune to the PPV channel and hear the audio on analog cable.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Yep, great show. I remember getting to watch that one because Charter didn't scramble the feed and we got it at our house for free, for whatever reason....this was when you could still tune to the PPV channel and hear the audio on analog cable.

 

Oh yeah... the "staticus" as we would call it in our youth. I know I'm pathetic.

[Diamonddust 0]

Yep, great show. I remember getting to watch that one because Charter didn't scramble the feed and we got it at our house for free, for whatever reason....this was when you could still tune to the PPV channel and hear the audio on analog cable.

 

Oh yeah... the "staticus" as we would call it in our youth. I know I'm pathetic.

 

Never called it staticus, but man... I "listened" to a ton of ppv's that way.

[RepoMan 0]

Yep, great show. I remember getting to watch that one because Charter didn't scramble the feed and we got it at our house for free, for whatever reason....this was when you could still tune to the PPV channel and hear the audio on analog cable.

 

Oh yeah... the "staticus" as we would call it in our youth. I know I'm pathetic.

 

Never called it staticus, but man... I "listened" to a ton of ppv's that way.

I did that a lot too.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

I was there live... I was one of the few people supporting Austin, wearing my Austin 3:16 shirt.

[Cran Da Maniac 0]

1. Mankind vs. Triple H: Ended in a double count out at 13:14 (which continued as a brawl into the next match). "A very good match marred only by interference from Chyna". Meltzer also notes that Chyna is looking more muscular than ever and she perhaps attended the Pitbulls "going out of business" sale (in reference to another story in this issue - more on that later). The psychology or Hunter working on Mankind's knee was appreciated, but Meltzer also thought they should have maybe done something different since that was the story of the main event between Austin and Owen as well. Jim Ross had the unintentionally funny line that Mankind is "287 lbs to be exact, and that's an estimate". ***

 

 

What was this in reference to?

[ivpvideos 0]

Yep, great show. I remember getting to watch that one because Charter didn't scramble the feed and we got it at our house for free, for whatever reason....this was when you could still tune to the PPV channel and hear the audio on analog cable.

 

Oh yeah... the "staticus" as we would call it in our youth. I know I'm pathetic.

 

Never called it staticus, but man... I "listened" to a ton of ppv's that way.

I did that a lot too.

 

Scramble-vision is what we called it. Back before I had the internet, this was the absolute best and I would go to sleep listening to the matches.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

1. Mankind vs. Triple H: Ended in a double count out at 13:14 (which continued as a brawl into the next match). "A very good match marred only by interference from Chyna". Meltzer also notes that Chyna is looking more muscular than ever and she perhaps attended the Pitbulls "going out of business" sale (in reference to another story in this issue - more on that later). The psychology or Hunter working on Mankind's knee was appreciated, but Meltzer also thought they should have maybe done something different since that was the story of the main event between Austin and Owen as well. Jim Ross had the unintentionally funny line that Mankind is "287 lbs to be exact, and that's an estimate". ***

 

 

What was this in reference to?

I believe one of the Pit Bulls got in legal trouble for distributing steroids, or something of that nature.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Yeah, give me some time as I've been busy with work but the page one story is about a steroid bust.

[haVoc 0]

One of my biggest disappointments with the Bret Hart DVD was it didn't have the introduction of the wrestlers for the 10 men tag match. I've watched it on YouTube and it doesn't do it justice.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Do you mean the Pillman DVD? I don't think Bret's DVD has this match. I also thought Pillman's DVD had the intros but maybe it doesn't.

[haVoc 0]

I think you're right. It is the Pillman DVD, but the match starts with all 10 guys already in the ring. They show a few highlights of the intro during the documentary.

[Jericholic82 0]

24/7 recently showed the 10 man tag (in march in the legends section cuz it was bret hart month in the hof) They show the full entrances and everything and the whole post-match celebration untill the ppv went black (the pillman dvd cut off about 20 secs or so before the real time). It's crazy to see, even looking back on it. I don't think with all the evil foreigner vs american hero angles they have done throughout time ever got this kind of a reaction.