Lots of news out there, and as always, so little time. Welcome back to TPWW.net. These are your news and rumors, the People's News and Rumors...
I thought Raw wasa good show last night, as usual, with a great main event, which has been the case for the last couple of weeks. Kurt Angle, Rocky, and Triple H all worked hard, and it definitely came across great on television. Even though the ending was definitely not clean, it did leave several options open with all five characters involved, Rocky, Rikishi, Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and the WWF Champion, Kurt Angle.
If you're wondering what happened after Raw went off the air, look no further. Thanks to Frank J Micelli for sending this report: "Don't know if you guys had a someone at RAW last night to give you the scoop on what went on after it went off the air but just in case you didn't I just want to let you know that it was the best part of the whole event. After the Stunner to Angle, Stone Cold tosses a beer to HHH and The Rock. They all drink beer at the corners of the ring and the building was just rockin'. Once Stone Cold tossed that beer to HHH the building erupted. After that Stone Cold went to the back and The Rock got on the mic and said "Come back out here Stone Cold the Rock doesn't want the show to be over yet" So Stone Cold comes out and the Rock asked him if he likes pie. HHH takes the mic and says "You know Stone Cold there are many types of pie to choose from, you have your apple pie, um... wait I don't know how to say this but you don't like the same type of pie as Kurt Angle do you?" Stone Cold Shakes his head no. Then Rock takes the mic and says "You also have Lemon pie". And finally Stone Cold gets on the Mic and says with a huge smile "Poontang Pie, OH HELL YEAH". Anyway they were out in the ring till about 11:30 and it was great. The whole crowd stayed and everyone was going wild." That definitely sounded like a great moment to be apart of, and speaking of the WWF's three top babyfaces, The Rock, Stone Cold, and Triple H, that leads me to my next point...
With the WWF having three incredibly popular, incredibly over babyfaces, one has to think that one of the three faces (Stone Cold, Rock, and HHH) is going to eventually have to turn heel, so which one would it be? Well, I doubt the WWF would turn Hunter heel as he just turned face about a month ago, so that eliminates the Game. What about Rock? To be honest, it would be amazingly stupid to turn the most popular wrestler in the federation heel, which leaves Stone Cold. In essence, aside from his program with Vince McMahon, Austin has always played the heel who got monstrous face pops as Steve is definitely the Anti-Hero, so it wouldn't be that hard to turn Austin heel in theory, but the question is, would the fans buy it? And will it even happen?
I loved Kurt Angle's victory celebration from last night's Raw, as Kurt is without a doubt a special kind of athlete. Not only did he win Olympic Gold in 1996, but he had the quickest rise to stardom of a WWF superstar in recent memory as he has won the WWF European and Intercontinental titles, King of the Ring, and the WWF World Title in less than a year. The WWF has given Angle the ball, and he has definitely ran with it, as our Olympic Hero has become not only one of the top heels, but one of the true stars of the industry.
Speaking of champions, we have new WWF tag team champions... sort of. The Hardy capitalized on an opportunity under the masks of Los Conquistadors as they defeated Edge in a handicap match up for the WWF tag titles. If you're wondering why Christian didn't participate in that match up, and why he was "injured" at the hands of the Dudleys, it was because of a pinched nerve suffered in his tag team title match with Edge against the Hardys at the No Mercy PPV.
We saw a "Radical" reunion of sorts last night on Raw, as Dean Malenko helped his former stable mate (in the Horsemen, Revolution, and most recently, The Radicalz), Chris Benoit defeat the Road Dogg via the Crossface. I have to ask though, what happened to Benoit last night? He was the best I've ever seen him on the mic last night, and that's definitely a good thing.
If you missed it, the RTC's numbers have increased as the former WWF Women's Champion, Ivory joined the ranks of Steven Richards' stable after a "Bra and Panties" match for the Women's title between Lita and Trish Stratus. Nice fit for the RTC with Ivory, as with her mic work, she'll fit right in with the Right To Censor. With this happening, I'm guessing she'll be back at the top of the Women's Division challenging Lita for the title.
One last Raw note from last night, it appears that Y2J, Chris Jericho is headed into a program with the Big Red Machine, Kane after Jericho accidentally spilled hot coffee on Kane in one of the funniest Raw segments of the night. Should be a nice little program, and I'm sure Y2J will have plenty of material on Kane for some hilarious promos in the future.
Two little quick Jericho tidbits: Chris Jericho's alter-ego, Moongoose McQueen's band, Fozzy released their first album today, and if you're a Jerichoholic, no matter what your musical tastes are, you should pick it up. The other Y2J tidbit is that the Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah will be the special guest host of Sunday Night Heat this week, and guess who's performing? None other than Fozzy.
Numerous Internet reports, ranging from Dave Scherer to Dave Meltzer, have stated that the WWF/WCW deal may be off for some reason, as it seemed that after word broke that the deal was basically done, the WWF pulled their offer off the table. Definitely an interesting story there. Who knows what's next in the on going saga of "What's going happen in World Championship Wrestling?"
Nitro, as usual, had its ups and downs last night ranging from the positive (such as Vampiro's match up with Crowbar - Vamp looked amazing in his return) to the horrible (The MIA's attempt to imitate Team Canada, which aside from Chavo's half way decent Elix Skipper, was horrid).
Kevin Nash had some interesting comments last night concerning, in his opinion, the greatest Tag Team in the history of wrestling, The Outsiders, himself and the recently fired Scott Hall. Nash made his feelings heard that he was upset with WCW brass for releasing Hall. According to Dave Scherer, the Scott Hall T-Shirt wearing Nash was "shooting" so to speak as the comments were definitely not scripted. WCW is in a sad state, when wrestlers such as Nash talk about backstage politics on the air such as Hall's firing. What's next? Wrestlers complaining about Bret and Juvi being released?
Quick Thunder preview for all of you out there...
- Kwee Wee v. Reno for the Hardcore Title
- Buff Bagwell v. MI Smooth
- The Cat and Ms Jones v. Mike Sanders and Leia Meow
- Vampiro v. Big Vito
- MIA (Loco and Cajun) v. Lance Storm and Elix Skipper
- Sean O'Haire v. Rey Mysterio v. Disqo
- Goldberg, Sting, and Booker T v. Kronic and Jarrett
If you're wondering, here are some of the confirmed matches for ECW's next PPV, November to Remember, which may not be as memorable this year as previous years, since not only does ECW not have a national television deal lined up, but its biggest star, Rob Van Dam won't be in attendance as of now... As for the matches, already signed are: Jerry Lynn defending his ECW World Title against both Justin Credible (W/ Francine) and the Old School Hero, Steve Corino (W/ Jack Victory and Dawn Marie). Plus, the Baldies, Devito and Angle take on the team of Balls Mahoney and Chilly Willy in a match so extreme that it's taking place at ECW's biggest PPV of the year... it's a flaming tables match. The last team to use the flaming table gimmick regularly was the Dudleys, so it's been over a year since we've seen a match of this caliber in ECW, so it should be fun to watch.
Quick ratings report before I go, courtesy of Dave Scherer... Raw was up from last's week disappointing rating, with a 5.5 rating with hours of 5.0 and 6.0. While Nitro on the other hand saw a rating of 2.2 with hours of 2.7 and 1.8.
That's it for today, come back tomorrow as Triple A will be delivering all the news, rumors, and gossip that revolves around the wrestling world. So until next time, go Yanks!