WCW hit us with their latest PPV offering, New Blood Rising, last night, and overall, I thought it was actually a pretty good PPV, with had its ups and downs, but overall, I felt the ups outwheighed the downs, making it a pretty good PPV. The whole Lance Storm vs. Mike Awesome match was very entertaining and had a pretty good story and gimmick attached to it, but I thought WCW made Storm look "weak" against Awesome by having him lose cleanly so many times, only to be bailed out. Having Bret Hart make his return had added a nice touch to both the match and to the PPV, giving it a bit of an edge and giving us a reason to not call the PPV a total dud. The whole Goldberg situation was pretty interesting, but confusing, especially for non-Internet fans, since last they saw, Goldberg was buddies with Vince Russo after his heel turn. Now all of a sudden Russo hates Goldberg? Make sense? To us 'net folks, yes, to everyone else, "what the hell?" The undercard, however, was pretty below average I thought, except for a few matches. The opening match between Three Count and the Jung Dragons was great and everyone in that match showed some EXCELLENT effort and put on a pretty entertaining match. Besides that, the rest of the card was pretty dull and "average" and the crowd really didn't seem too into it. To get my complete results of New Blood Rising as well as match by match grades, click HERE. I'll have more news on the PPV later on in this report.
UPN may be in jeopardy of being shut down, according to a recent article in "Zap2It." The network was reportedly recently completely bought out by News Corporation, a huge television programming distributer. News Corp, according to the article, recently bought out BHC Communications and ten of its television networks, including UPN, for approximately $5.5 billion. Viacom was also in the bidding to buy UPN, but came up short. As of now, rumors are that UPN may be "shut down" very soon, even before late September, when the WWF moves to the Viacom owned networks. As of now, if UPN is cancelled, Smackdown! will be as well. But of course, it's almost guaranteed that the WWF will have another home for Smackdown when/if it leaves UPN. To read an article on this situation, click HERE.
In a related note, the final episode of WWF Raw on the USA Network will be on September 18 and I'd assume that Raw would move to TNN the next week, September 25. On September 25, USA will air the former FOX special, Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed, parts 1 & 2.
In yet another related story, Raw will air at 11:00PM EST on USA Network on August 28 and September 4th, due to US Open Tennis. August 28, of course, is the night after the WWF SummerSlam PPV, and having that Raw pre-empted sort of hurts the WWF, although they'll still most likely reach ratings higher than 5.0 or maybe even 6.0, if the past repeats itself.
The WWF Cookbook, which will be titled "Can You Take the Heat?" is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com. The book will be 240 pages of WWF superstars' favorite recipes and is scheduled for an October 2000 release. To view the cover of the book, click HERE. To pre-order the book, click HERE.
On the subject of books, Chyna's autobiography is scheduled for a January 23, 2001 release and will be simply titled, "Chyna." To check out the cover of the book, click HERE and to pre-order it, click HERE.
In a belated news tidbit from Raw, everything that Tazz was booked to say to Jim Ross, including the "I would slap you but God beat me to it" line, was made sure to be cleared by Jim Ross before it was actually written, according to Dave Scherer.
On the subject of Tazz, it was officially announced yesterday on Sunday Night Heat that he will take on Jerry "The King" Lawler at Summerslam. Should be a pretty fun match.
In a followup to a note from our last report here at TPWW, the supposed "leak" of WWF The Music Volume 5 themes onto Napster is a fake. As soon as I downloaded one of the themes (Tazz), it was obvious that the themes were created by someone and spread onto Napster. So, to put all the rumors to rest, Volume 5 has NOT leaked out yet. To be honest, I'm not even sure if the WWF has even finished creating the CD at all.
As of now, all signs point to the Bill Goldberg situation from the New Blood Rising PPV, where he walked out on his match, being a complete work/angle. First of all, Goldberg was NOT actually injured in a motorcycle accident, as was stated throughout a good part of the PPV by the WCW announcers. Goldberg was also in the building from the start of the PPV. So for now, unless otherwise stated, this situation is simply an angle.
In other news from the New Blood Rising PPV, it appears that WCW will play out a pregnancy angle for Miss Hancock. Hancock "injured" her stomach during her "ROTC" match with Major Gunns, in whcih she was hit in the abdominal area a few times. Afterwards, commentators announced that she was suffering from "abdominal pains." Of course, the first idea that comes to mind is that WCW is playing out a pregnancy angle. Further adding evidence to this theory is that David Flair came down to check on Hancock, meaning he should obviously be involved in this angle in some shape.
In another potentially huge story, WCW is apparently planning on cancelling all of its Tuesday Thunder tapings and simply taping the show right after Nitro on Monday night starting sometime this fall, according to various sources. I'm not sure if this is a good idea if WCW still plans on making Thunder an A-team show. Two matches a night could be fatiguing and could hurt the quality of matches come time for the Thunder tapings. We'll see how this one develops. More info as it becomes available.
Rumors were running rampant that Sunday night at New Blood Rising, WCW head honcho, Brad Siegel would be handing out releases to various wrestlers. However, that was not the case last night. Siegel did in fact meet with wrestlers backstage, but only to discuss seperate issues, and not releases, at least not for the time beind. Some potentially "big" names being thrown around that may potentially be offered their releases are Kanyon and Buff Bagwell. More on this one as we hear it as well.
Tammy Lynn Sytch was recently injured in a car accident, where her jeep apparently rolled over and Sytch suffered cuts on the face from the broken windshield. The injury luckily wasn't overly serious and hopefully Tammy will be fine again soon.
As of now, the rumored deal between ECW and the USA Network is about a 90% done deal, according to Dave Scherer. This is definitely excellent news for any ECW fan, as it appears that ECW will be coming to USA this fall, barring a miracle where USA Network wins its appeal to keep WWF programming. As stated before, the rumored timeslot will be 6-8PM Saturday nights. Two hours, exxxxxcellent.
That wraps it up for today's report. Until next time, later!
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com