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Gazmission
Welcome to the 3rd edition of
Gazmission written for Wrestling Envy by Gary
Griffiths.
Tag Team Division
I am happy to say that the WWF has
finally restored the pride in the tag team title,
gone are the mega-team partners like The Rock and
Mankind and X-Pac and Kane, who were given title
shots without even participating in matches
together to earn there shot. As I write this
column Edge and Christian are tag champions. This
teams main focus is on tag team wrestling and
they rarely face of in singles competition, they
have also managed to develop new skills on the
microphone and they are really starting to get
over as heels. Before Mr Ass was injured The New
Age Outlaws were on fire as tag champions, and
were close to repeating the success they achieved
in 1998. For the first time in years the strength
of the WWF’s tag division stretches further
than the champs. The Acolytes have merged in to
such fan favourites that fans have seen to have
forgotten the days of Bradshaw holding a rope and
cowbell and Faarooq doing his gladiator/nation
persona. The pop that the Acolytes get from the
crowd leaves you with the impression that the
fans have even forgotten the horrible Ministry
angle. There powerful in ring presents is
reminiscent to Demolition, apart from the lack of
face paint of course. If The Acolytes are the
Demolition of today then surely The Hardy Boyz
are the new Rockers. High flying technical skills
have helped them get over big with the fans, if
only these guys could use the microphone.
Unfortunately though as predicted by many Jeff
Hardy at the tender age of 22, is already having
back and foot problems, therefore the WWF have
told him to cut down on his flying act. I very
much doubt that this will cause the end of the
Hardys success but Jeff Hardys health after his
career is over has to be a serious worry. There
is also the sensation of Too Cool, but there is
the worry that this fine young team could be
overshadowed by Rikishi Phatu, a former tag
champion himself. But as of now Gazmission is
very happy with the way the Tag Team division is
looking!
The Disgraced World
Title
Many wrestling fans have started
to criticise the cheapening of the world title,
what once was the holy grail of wrestling is now
nothing more than Gold stuck to leather that is
passed around from month to month. There will of
course never be a title reign as long as Bruno
Sammartinos or maybe not even Hulk Hogan’s
four year reign, but of we are guaranteed
excitement all year round, and never knowing when
the belt will change. It doesn’t of course
make a wrestler though; for instance The Rock
hadn’t been champion for over a year until
he won the belt at Backlash, but had still
managed to become arguably the most popular
wrestler in the Federation. Many people also say
that WWF title matches aren’t what they used
to be either, but I would certainly disagree with
that, during Sammartinos reign you wouldn’t
be anticipating for him to lose, probably because
he never did, but nowadays however you can only
expect the unexpected, take Y2J’s title win
in April, it was the opening match of Raw is War
and nobody would have never,
e,e,e,e,e,e,e,e,e,everrrrrr (sorry about that,
poor gag) expected him to win the belt, but he
did although it was taken of him five minutes
later. What many people don’t realise is,
that the World Title could never be disgraced,
for the plain reason that legends have been made
from that belt, and heroes pushed to the top, no
matter what anyone says the WWF title will always
remain every young wrestlers dream.
Shawn Vs Bret
Shawn Michaels Vs Bret ‘Hitman’
Hart is one of the most public real life feuds in
the history of wrestling. In this segment I am
going to attempt to unravel the facts and work
out who is right. At WrestleMania XII Bret Hart
looked at the lights for HBK by suffering a clean
defeat to the toy boy, Bret Hart then took an
eight month break to film Lonesome Dove, the
western TV series. In the Hitmans absence Shawn
Michaels elevated himself to a new level as
champion, and had a very high popularity. Shawn
regained the title from Sid at Royal Rumble 1997,
after losing at the previous Survivor Series.
After winning the title HBK was told he was going
to have to repay the favour Bret Hart did for him
by losing the title at WrestleMania 13. Shawn
wasn’t happy about doing this, know one
quite knows why, but in a recent Bret Hart
interview Bret claimed that Vince had told Shawn
that Bret had been saying he wasn’t good
enough. Even though Bret claims he never said
this Shawn took it personally and in the infamous
losing the smile incident gave up the title on a
special rendition of Raw is War. Bret took this
very badly and he and many other WWF wrestler
apparently lost respect for HBK after that. The
big blow up happened on June 9th 1997. Backstage
at a WWF show Bret was teasing Shawn and HBK
snapped and started laying into the Hitman. Bret
then pulled Shawn’s hair and gave him a
hammer throw. Shawn then stormed of claiming he
was going to WCW. After this incident the two
made up and often made truces that were broken
the next day. Bret was exceedingly unhappy with
two of Michaels comments, in one interview Shawn
made a joke about Stu Hart being dead. And in a
separate one he said Bret had been seeing some
Sunny day’s. This was a reference to Brets
supposed affair with Sunny, this accusation is
very unlikely to be true, and I certainly don’t
believe Bret would have cheated on his former
wife Julie especially with the fact that he had
children. Then came the famous Montreal showdown,
we don’t need reminding of what happened
there, but HBK firmly stated he had nothing to do
with this though, the two have apparently not
spoken since the inccident but Bret has said if
Shawn appologised then he would be willing to be
friends. I personally think that Bret Hart is the
innocent one, he claims Vince McMahon was the man
who spurred there feud by saying Bret had said
various different things. Vince is famous for
having a firm belief that if two stars have heat
in real life then that will show in there matches.
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