Ay yo. Once again, welcome to today's N&R; right here at TPWW. If you thought I finally had a good intro paragraph set up for today... you were wrong. Here are today's news and rumors.
The WWF hit us with their weekly edition of WWF Raw is War this past Monday night and although the show was a big improvement from the week before and did have its ups, it still had a few things that bothered me (as always). That, of course, is that just when you thought the WWF finally saw the light and was ready to finally push a few new stars to the main event level after over about two years or so (or more), they went ahead and went the old predictable WWF route. Instead of finally elevating the Hardys and finally bringing some fresh faces into the picture, the WWF pushed them for one week, then dropped them right back down to where they were before, possibly even lower. This whole angle only proved to the average WWF fan that Jeff Hardy "wasn't on Triple H's level." It put over the already hugely over wrestler at the expense of the lower card talent that needed a push more. But honestly, I think this is my all around frustration coming out. At least the WWF added some fresh faces for one week and you gotta give them credit for that, but I bet it'll be a long while before we see a new top main eventer in the WWF.
There has apparently been some talk of turning Triple H face, although if that were to happen, it still may be a while down the road. Triple H could easily get over as a big time face, in my opinion, and proved that during his brief stint as a "good guy" a few months ago. Turning HHH face could give the WWF some fresh new storylines, since they are lacking a top main event face to combat the big time heels they have now. The Undertaker, Kane, and? Who else do they have now?
WARNING - The following contains spoilers for Thursday's Smackdown, so if you'd rather not know what happened, please skip on to the next paragraph. As of now, the main event for Backlash on Sunday, April 29 looks to be The Undertaker & Kane taking on Stone Cold Steve Austin & Triple H. The Undertaker & Kane defeated Edge & Christian to take home the WWF Tag Titles at last night's Smackdown tapings, meaning that the WWF's four top main eventers all hold titles right now. The WWF may be doing this to build up to a title vs. title match at Backlash, where every title would be at stake in the tag match, according to Dave Meltzer. I'm not sure exactly how it would work, but if it was to take place, I'm sure the WWF will shed some light on it soon.
XFL news isn't too good once again today. Sunday's playoff game on UPN did a horrendous 0.7 rating. Saturday's NBC game ended up with another bad 1.8 final rating. By the way, the XFL's championship game is this Saturday night on NBC. For those interested, the LA Xtreme will take on the SF Demons.
As of now, the estimated number of buys for WrestleMania X-Seven is around one million total buys, which would translate to around a 2.4% buy rate, which is absolutely huge. In fact, if the number holds up, it will be the highest buy rate of any pro wrestling PPV inside the United States since SummerSlam 1991, according to Dave Meltzer. It also beats last year's WrestleMania, which did around 824,000 buys.
Turner Broadcasting has opened a company called "Universal Wrestling Corporation Inc," according to Dave Meltzer, which is basically a company to just take in whatever money is still owed, pay contracts of wrestlers who still have contracts with Time Warner, and do whatever else business that needs to be taken care of to "clean up" after WCW. The reason for the new company is because the WWF now owns the name World Championship Wrestling. Again, the new Universal Wrestling Corporation won't be used for anything more than business by Time Warner, so don't expect Time Warner to start a new promotion anytime soon.
Time Warner has apparently been offering wrestlers around 30% of their contract's value for a buyout, so that they'll be able to work in other promotions. However, reports are that the number has increased as high as 50% for a few high paid stars, according to Dave Scherer, which may get them to take the buyout and go to work for the WWF. The reason that the WWF isn't able to sign any wrestlers still under contract to Time Warner is that the wrestlers have a no compete clause in their contract and have been told that if they work anywhere else, their contract will be breached and terminated immediately.
On the subject of the WWF signing wrestlers, according to Dave Meltzer, David Flair has apparently been told by the WWF that he will receive a developmental deal and will be sent to either OVW or MCW to work on his skills. No official contract has been signed, but there has been a verbal agreement.
Staying on the subject of the Flair family, Ric Flair has reportedly signed a contract with a book company to write an autobiography sometime soon. The autobiography will apparently be partially ghost written by former WCW announcer Mark Madden.
The WWF has put Jim Ross in charge of selecting and dealing with talent in WCW, as he does already in the WWF. Also, as has been mentioned by Ross, Kevin Dunn, head of production in the WWF, has been put in charge of hiring the production crew for WCW, plus the television writers and announcers. Jim Ross has also been put in charge of hiring road agents as well as referees.
Vince Russo recently held an online chat at his web site, VinceRusso.org. It contained several interesting notes, to say the least. Russo revealed the person behind GTV, who was originally supposed to be Goldust, as reported at the time, but since Goldust left the WWF before the angle was revealed, they had to look for other options. Russo stated that Tom Green was actually one of his choices, saying, "once Goldust left, I actually pitched Tom Green, who was just breaking onto the scene at the time on MTV. Unfortunately Vince didn't know who Tom Green was."
Russo also revealed who was to be the father of Stacy "Miss Hancock" Keibler's baby in WCW. As had been speculated, Russo was to be the father. In his own words, "Ric Flair was going to uncover the fact that I was indeed the father of Stacy's child. This bombshell would have turned David Flair against me. After being put in my place by David, he was finally going to forgive Stacy, and David and Stacy were finally going to get married. However, after they were legally married, I was going to return with a second bombshell. That bombshell was that Stacy was the result of a one night Ric Flair fling some 21 years ago. In other words, it was going to be discovered that Stacy was Ric's actual daughter. So the situation was, that David and Stacy, who were now married, were indeed step-brother and step-sister." ... Sounds pretty screwy to me and I bet it would have come off pretty bad on TV for some reason.
In other Russo notes, Russo was also asked the following questions: "How was your version of the Stephanie McMahon/Test wedding storyline going to end? Russo: Test was going to leave Stef at the alter after being bribed by Vince - and was going align himself with HHH." ... "Were you overworked, when Vince McMahon added Smackdown to your duties? Russo: There is no question that I was. Two months in and I was suffering from severe burnout and I knew that something had to give." ... "What's your current relationship like with Ed Ferrera? Russo: Ed who?" ... "Would you consider writing a day time soap opera like Days of our lives? Russo: Without a doubt - it would be a blast. In fact, we are developing a soap opera of sorts - that right now is in the hands of FX and the USA network. The truth is... Jeremy Borash and I have a meeting with the USA Network executives the first week in May." To check out the interview in full, click HERE.
In a followup to the Balls Mahoney ban from Maryland story, GTSpaulding2001 sent along the following: "Thanks to the problems that Balls Mahoney had recently the Primal Conflict Wrestling show set for April 21 in Bellirica MA has been forced to move to Club Stars in Johnston RI. People from the Boys Club in Bellerica asked that Balls be pulled from the show or that the show be cancelled....instead of doing either they decided to give the fans Balls and move the show to Club Stars , at the same time with a reduced ticket price ( from $12 - $10 )."
Just about time to wrap this one up. Thanks for checking out today's report once again. Just a little site related news... as many of you know, we put up an application for a new top ten writer and new columnists about a while ago. We received several hundred applications, which is why it's taking so long. However, we may do something a bit innovative in the selection process. Once we narrow down all the applications, we may put up a few of the ones we considered the best of the bunch and actually have YOU vote for the one you think is best, thus taking the burden of the selection (which will be a HARD one; there were a LOT of great applications) off our backs a bit. Anyway, once again, thanks for reading, and until next time, later.
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com