As most of you may have saw last night on Raw, former ECW World champion Justin Credible made his WWF return, aligning himself with a returning X-Pac. As soon as Credible was signed by the WWF, speculation that he'd be aligned with X-Pac rose immediately. However, for whatever reason, those rumors were shot down and speculation came that Credible would be aligned with Raven in the hardcore division. Obviously, the former scenario is what went down on Raw and it was the smarter move in my opinion. Credible and X-Pac have tons of potential together and I can't wait to see them work in the ring. X-Pac surprisingly didn't receive much of a reaction for his return, but the reaction to Justin Credible from the fans was decent. We may see the duo in the WWF's tag team division very soon.

In the WWF Raw main event, The Rock defeated Rikishi, meaning Triple H will get to name his own stipulation for his match against Stone Cold Steve Austin at No Way Out. One possibility that has been thrown around is for Triple H to demand that Austin put his spot in WrestleMania's main event on the line in their match. That would definitely be an interesting scenario and I wouldn't be surprised to see it, although several other stipulations are possible for the match.

Overall, Raw seemed rather decent. The returns of Justin Credible and X-Pac plus the main event definitely helped boost its entertainment factor. As for Nitro, I love all the cruiserweight stuff. I was marking out when Yang beat Lash LeRoux. I never thought I'd say something like that. Lash LeRoux was very slow and sloppy in his match and made Yang look bad in the process. Either way, I'm glad Yang got the win after it was all said and done. Also, I'm loving Elix Skipper's wrestling style. How many suplexes did he hit Kidman with? Finally, a slight alternative to the ECW "Human Suplex Machine" Taz we all loved. One thing I didn't like about Raw was the opening 20 minute segment, which was pretty much only done to set up the main event later that night that everyone already knew about. That gives people twenty extra minutes to watch Nitro after 9:00, in my opinion... and it looks like that was what happened, according to the ratings...

The opening 15 minutes of Raw did a dismal 3.9 rating, according to Dave Scherer, while those same 15 minutes got a 2.0 for Nitro. From 9:15 on (after the Raw opening segment was over), Nitro went down to a 1.6 rating for that quarter hour. Overall, Raw went down once again this week, scoring a 4.8 overall rating off hours of 4.4 and 5.1. Nitro countered with a 2.1 rating off hours of 2.3 and 1.8. Things definitely are not looking too good right now. In other ratings, Heat scored a 2.1 rating as well, while Livewire and Superstars both scored a 1.2.

Triple H did a few interesting things after Raw went off the air last night. David A. Lee sent along the following report: After the cameras went off, Austin and HHH continued to stare each other down. Then the Rock gets into the ring behind HHH. Austin then backs off, as he does so HHH turns, Rock delivers the Rock Bottom onto HHH. Rikishi then gets back on his feet only to be dropped with the Stunner by Austin. Meanwhile, Rock proceeds to exit the ring, but Austin calls him back as Rock is right at the ropes. Austin motions for Rock to drop the Elbow. Rock is, of course hesitant and looks around to the fans, who naturally are screaming for the Elbow. Then Austin sweetens the deal by signaling that if Rock drops the People's Elbow, Austin will hook Rock up with a SteveWieser. Rock goes with it, gets into the ring, goes for the Elbow (makes the "drinkie drinkie" motion before landing) and executes the People's Elbow right onto HHH. Austin then placed a beer right in front of HHH's head then stomped on it splattering it all over HHH's beaten face. Austin and the Rock went from turnbuckle to turnbuckle drinking and celebrating with the fans. After Rock, Mr. 3:16 and Rikishi (who was laid out during all this) left, HHH starting staring down Lillian Garcia. He gets a mic and then starts screaming at Lillian for messing up during the announcements. HHH starts, "How hard is it to..." then the mic starts shutting off and on. HHH asks for another mic and gets it. HHH goes, "Kevin Dunn if you think you can screw around..." mic starts going on and off again. Meanwhile HHH is cursing off everyone from Lillian to Dunn to some fat jabroni in the stands, as he does so the mic conveniently goes off right as HHH is about to curse. "Listen you fat piece of...I am the Game and there's not a... thing you can do about it" ... yadda yadda yadda... Then his music cuts him off and he just leaves the ring, pissed as usual.

One half of The Baldies from ECW, Tony DeVito, wrestled a dark match on Raw last night, taking a loss to local worker Judas Young. To check out the complete WWF Raw dark match and Jakked/Metal tapings report, click HERE.

The XFL may have some heat with NBC, according to a few articles in today's New York newspapers, The New York Times and the New York Daily News. There is apparently some heat on the XFL for Saturday's double overtime game going 45 minutes long and delaying NBC's much hyped Saturday Night Live (Hey, I was waiting for it too). NBC had been promoting the episode greatly due to the week's host and musical guest, Jennifer Lopez, and had been hoping to receive a rating around 10.0 or so, making it the highest rated SNL of the season. However, SNL was pushed back 45 minutes due to the XFL game and ended up scoring only a 6.3 overnight rating, making it the lowest rated SNL of the season. Obviously, this angered more than a few people both from SNL and NBC. One quote that stood out was from Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment, in the New York Times. "We are absolutely committed to it for the full season," said Zuker. Although that was probably said to end rumors of the XFL being in trouble, I think it did the opposite. Just to make a comment like that indicates that the XFL IS in trouble and there's a slight chance that it may only live to see its first season. Remember that NBC owns 50% of the league along with the WWF.

For now, NBC plans on taking measures to shorten the game length so that something like this doesn't happen again. The game clock will continue to run during changes of possession, according to Dave Meltzer, and will continue running as soon as the ball is positioned after incomplete passes.

Sunday's XFL game on TNN drew a decent 2.4 rating for the horrible Hitmen vs. Bolts game. Why did we (New York) get the worst team in the league? Anyway, the 2.4 rating comes off EXTENSIVE promotion for the XFL on TNN. TNN actually put up an "X days until the XFL" logo on the bottom right of their screen for almost every single one of their shows, all week. I guess that's smart, but we'll have to see how next week's rating fares without all the promotion.

Raven and Steve Blackman will both be guests on Thursday's "Byte This!" webcast on WWF.com. The show airs live on WWF.com Thursday night at 6 PM EST. To check it out, click HERE.

Moving on to WCW news, new WCW president Eric Bischoff appeared on the Wrestling Observer Live audio show last night and had several interesting notes to mention. First off, Bischoff mentioned that the proposed WCW "shut down" will actually take place... just not this month. According to Bischoff, the company will be shut down for a few weeks sometime in early April, probably around April 2. This will be used as a revamping period for the company, which apparently has big plans for their May 6th PPV. The April shut down does seem like a smart idea, since WCW will not hold a PPV that month anyway.

Also, Bischoff shot down rumors that WCW has signed The Road Dogg. Bischoff stated that he could be signed sometime in the future, but would first need to clean up his act. Bischoff also mentioned that Hulk Hogan will probably be back in WCW once everything is said and done, but won't be used as much as some people may think. Hogan apparently would not wrestle too frequently at TV shows and PPV. That remains to be seen. Bischoff also has plans on bringing in new young talent, as well as talent from Japan. He also mentioned that the older WCW talent would probably be used to help put over the young guys and there is a chance that WCW may create a Cruiserweight Tag Team Title division. Bischoff also says that WCW has huge plans on how to bring Bill Goldberg back.

Below is the current card for this Sunday's WCW PPV, SuperBrawl Revenge:
- Scott Steiner vs. Kevin Nash - WCW World Title
- Jeff Jarrett vs. Diamond Dallas Page
- Rick Steiner vs. Dustin Rhodes - WCW US Title
- Lance Storm vs. The Cat - Commissionership of WCW
- Chavo Guerrero Jr vs. Rey Mysterio Jr - Cruiserweight Title
- Kaz vs. Yang vs. Shannon Moore vs. Kidman vs. Knoble vs. Karagias
- O'Haire & Palumbo vs. Jindrak & Stasiak - Tag Titles
- Lex Luger & Buff Bagwell vs. Kronik
- Hugh Morrus vs. The Wall

On the subject of SuperBrawl, as always, if you're not ordering the PPV, be sure to stop by TPWW on Sunday night at 8 PM EST for LIVE match by match, segment by segment, interview by interview results done by none other than... myself. We hope you'll join us.

TPWW columnist Fred Venturini wrote another great XFL related column this week, recapping this weekend's games as well as previewing next week's. Fred also took reader feedback on the XFL and talked about media response to the new league. I thought it was a great read once again this week. You can judge for yourself by checking out Fred's weekly column, XFL Blitz.

It's just about time to wrap this one up. As always, thanks for reading and be sure to stop by throughout today and tomorrow for various updates across the site. Until next time...

Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com