Alrighty there. Well yes, it's me Moonax back with more News and Rumours. And for the benefit of Triple A, it's spelt Rumours, just like the words colour, honour and harbour. Well thank you for the feedback that I got for my last report, apart from the three people who tried to send me viruses - that is so not cool.
The weekend was marred by the premature death of Russ Haas from a suspected heart attack. Haas was 27 and a member of the Haas Brothers tag team down in HWA and had wrestled dark matches at WWF events and was considered likely to be called up soon. He had suffered heart problems earlier in the year and was awaiting clearance to wrestle again, and indeed Jim Ross wrote about Haas in Friday's Ross Report: "Russ Haas is going to be seeing a cardiologist in Cincinnati next Tuesday for another evaluation on his heart situation, which seems to have cleared up. We just want to make doubly and triply sure." Sadly it was not to be and our thoughts are with his family and friends. There is a really good article about Russ Haas by Paul Bearer on WWF.com, which you can read HERE.
Friday's Ross Report contains the usual drivel that he puts out, injury reports on Triple H, Shawn Stasiak, Rhino (I refuse to spell it with a 'y'), Kanyon, William Regal and Rikishi - more on Rikishi later. He also praises talent at HWA and discusses who is likely to be called up to the WWF next.
Ross also praises Lance Storm and talks about him having a big future, well Jim that future would be even brighter and even better if you didn't force him to job all the time and thus destroy any credibility that might have once had.
Ross also complains about the internet and that internet rumours about layoffs deeply upset and left a number of workers concerned. Well Jim, might I point out that your Stalinist attitude towards alternative discourses does not wash with me. Perhaps you should be asking yourself why so many workers were quite so willing to believe such a story - to my mind it only goes to show the poor man management that is rife within the WWF at the moment and the continual mishandling of talent by senior management such as yourself means that staff are now paranoid about losing their jobs.
Back to the subject of Rikishi - who was once again told by Ross to get in better condition. Whilst working down at HWA (to improve said conditioning) Rikishi attacked Russ McCollough (McCollough being one of the recently released wrestlers) on Wednesday night. McCollough accidentally "potatoed" Rikishi with a punch. Rikishi got upset and eventually hit McCollough with several stiff chairshots at ringside. The referee stopped the match as McCollough ran backstage. When Rikishi returned to the locker room, wrestlers struggled to keep him away from McCollough. Whilst McCollough has a reputation for sloppy ring work this does not justify being attacked. Rikishi has also been complaining about having to work at HWA as well. What will be interesting is how they deal with this given that Perry Saturn stiffed indie wrestler Mike Bell a few months ago and as a result was publicly stiffed by the APA. Although ironically this led to his biggest push in the WWF in his goofy, mop loving persona. Personally, if I never see Rikishi on my TV it will be too soon. Seeing a fat person stick his arse in someone's face does not strike me as being neither entertaining nor as requiring very much talent. But then this is the WWF that continues to push Billy Gunn so I guess we can expect a Rikishi world title run soon.
Shawn Michaels was on Excess & Byte This this week; he said nothing more than the usual blandishments about his favourite matches, and whether he'd like to come back and what he thought about reforming DX or The Clique. In short he said that he was happy being a househusband and looking after his two-year-old son.
Last night's RAW continued the usual rubbish that the WWF has been putting out of late. To be honest this is worse than WCW at its very worst. 29 minutes of wrestling in a two hour show. Lance Storm is made to look stupid again, Tazz gets squashed again, Booker T gets made to look stupid. One thing I've noticed is that with the exception of RVD, for the most part, former WCW wrestlers all have stupid gimmicks that reduce them to nothing but laughing stock. Can anyone tell me of a big win that a WCW wrestler has had since the merger? Does anyone seriously think that Booker T will actually be able to beat Austin? Hello, Earth to Steph McMahon - have you ever heard of a credible heel? Oh yes, of course you have - his name is Triple and we can't have anyone stealing his potential heat now, can we?
Speaking of Triple H, it was confirmed on Raw last night that he will be back on the January 7th Raw. According to Jim Ross, Triple H will also most likely begin working house shows starting on January 4th.
Another note from Raw is the use of the church for the Booker T/Austin segment. I suppose one has to be thankful that the WWF didn't totally piss in the face of religion. Perhaps Vince's Messiah complex really is starting to get the better of him.
Other news, XWF has announced a series of dates. The new dates are 1/4 in Port Huron, MI, 1/5 in Toledo and 1/6 in Battle Creek, MI. Rick Steiner will debut on the second tour. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. In fact I know that it's not a good thing, but then this is a promotion being run by Hulk Hogan.
On the subject of Hulk Hogan - he has been challenged by Randy Savage to have a charity match between the two for a children's hospital. Savage has been busy promoting it whilst Hogan has so far refused to be involved claiming that he was never asked and that he is too busy looking after his father to take part. To be honest it comes across as an old-fashioned work to drum up business by portraying there to be heat between Savage and Hogan. Savage claiming that Hogan kept him down etc.
The WWA has also announced that it is going to hold a PPV on February 24th next year in Las Vegas. This decision has caused some debate as to whether or not it is a good thing and whether or not it can make money. The WWA was drawing crowds of 5000 plus in its recent tours of the UK and Australia but that was in countries that are starved of live wrestling whether or not they will be able to replicate such crowds in the US and Canada I don't know. However, the flip side is that the PPV market is now largely open with just the one WWF PPV per month which can do nothing but help the potential buy rate. It seems that any new start up company is caught between Scylla and Charybdis, to get a TV contract a company needs to be able to prove that it can draw in the crowds but in order to draw in the crowds companies need to have media exposure on TV. And given the economic climate at the moment it is going to be a very brave TV executive that takes a chance on a wrestling promotion when they look at the WWF's falling viewer figures. New companies such as XWF or WWA therefore have to bring in 'proven' rating draws such as Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash in order to assure TV companies that they will be able to draw. It is just a shame that to be a ratings draw you have to be a fat, lazy, over-rated, no talent, backstabbing, self-serving, old fool.
Anyway, that's it. I'm off to lie down in a darkened room until my blood pressure drops to a slightly more sensible level. I still don't have a cheesy sign off thingy; I would ask Rob 'ban' Harvey but he seems to be off nicking things. Anyway, be sure to use the TPWW discussion boards if you wish to discuss anything that I've raised in this report, as to be honest, I don't 'do' email.
Moonax
Moonax@tpww.net
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