Hi there and uh, welcome to TPWW.net for today's news and rumors. Once again, these past couple of weeks have probably been the most eventful since the WWF's buyout of WCW, so there's a lot to talk about once again today in the wrestling world. With that said, here are today's news and rumors.
The major story over the last few days has been the rumor that Bret Hart had come to some sort of agreement with the WWF to lead a WCW invasion of the WWF. The story was broken by Bob Ryder on Monday, but was later shot down by several sources, including WWF employees and Bret Hart himself. The following message was posted on Bret Hart's official web site about the rumor: "Bret and Bruce Allen Talent wanted me to post this for all of you. To clear up any and all rumors that have come about this past week. Bret Hart is not medically cleared to wrestle and he has no intention of ever returning to wrestling again." When I first heard the story, I became very excited about the possibility, but my gut instinct knew that it just didn't sound right. Bret Hart coming back to work for Vince McMahon? After all that has happened between the two, including the "Montreal Incident" not to mention the unfortunate and tragic death of Bret's brother, Owen at a WWF PPV? Either way, as they say, anything is possible in this business, but when it comes to Bret Hart returning to work for Vince McMahon, that may be one exception to the rule.
On the subject of wrestlers coming to the WWF as a part of WCW, Diamond Dallas Page was at Titan Headquarters in Stamford today to meet with WWF officials, according to Dave Scherer. It appears that Page is one of the few WCW big names who isn't in it just for the money and has a love for getting in the ring and wrestling. Page has reportedly yet to take a buyout of his current AOL/Time Warner contract, but it is expected he will get out of it and will be allowed to work in the new WCW. The WWF has been very interested in bringing in DDP for his old WCW name value and it appears that will happen soon.
Monday night's Raw is War saw a main event featuring Steve Austin taking on Chris Jericho for the WWF title, a match that was originally scheduled to be the main event at King of the Ring. With that, the WWF has now apparently changed the main event for the PPV to a Triple Threat, featuring Steve Austin taking on both Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit for the WWF title. Not bad, considering this will keep Chris Benoit out of the actual KOTR tournament and will hopefully allow someone new to be elevated by winning the tourny. I'm praying the WWF doesn't give the tournament win to someone who is already way over and doesn't need it.
Monday night's Raw scored a 4.3 rating, up from the 4.2 rating it has received for the previous two weeks. The WWF's ratings may not be going up as sharply as they would want right now due to their new angles and overall better product, but at least the ratings aren't dropping incredibly sharply like they had been doing before.
I thought Raw was another good show for the third week in a row. Obviously, one of the highlights for me was finally seeing Tazz get another opportunity to get into the ring and wrestle for the first time since WrestleMania, as Paul Heyman mentioned. Did anyone else catch the enormous pop he received, while a few other wrestlers the WWF is very high on received virtually no reaction? I got a lot of e-mails from people saying how disappointed they were when Tazz took the loss to Rhyno. To tell you the truth, it wasn't such a disappointment for me and I was pretty pleased at the end of the match. For one, it's not like I was expecting Tazz to actually win and somehow get a slot in the King of the Ring tournament on PPV. After all, he's only 5'9 and we all know how Vince McMahon is deeply in love with large men. "Big man fetish", as my "esteemed colleague" Ry would call it. It's a bit weird though, considering Chris Benoit, a man who will now main event King of the Ring, is only an inch taller than Tazz at 5'10, as is Rhyno, and others are even shorter than Tazz, such as Eddie Guerrero, who's 5'8. Anyway, like I said, the match was fine to me and I was just glad to see the man back in the ring. Plus, he got to show off a couple of his suplexes, which also got huge pops from the Minneapolis crowd. Hopefully Vince McMahon and the WWF were taking notes, but I have a feeling they weren't for some reason.
The WWF reportedly sent Eddie Guerrero home at Raw Monday after Guerrero showed up in "no condition to work" (a common occurence these days, it seems), according to Dave Scherer. Guerrero reportedly had been suffering from a problem related to pain medication prescribed for a few of his injuries and was sent home before Raw. However, the WWF apparently does not plan on firing him and will give him a second chance, possibly sending him to rehab before he returns to the company. Guerrero had been scheduled to take on Matt Hardy in a King of the Ring qualifying match, but obviously that was canceled and Jeff Hardy was given the go.
In a related note, the WWF web site posted a preview early Monday stating that Guerrero would take on Matt Hardy and Tazz would take on Rhyno. However, later on, it was changed, stating that Jeff Hardy would take on Matt Hardy and Tazz had been replaced by TEST in his match against Rhyno. However, FORTUNATELY, the WWF changed their minds (or were probably talked into changing their minds) and Tazz was put back into the match. Oh man. What the hell is going on here? What exactly has Tazz done to be so HATED by WWF officials? Honestly, wtf?
Changing gears... as you may or may not recall, Jerry Lawler apparently had some sort of meeting with the WWF this past week about possibly returning to the company in his old broadcast role. According to several reports, the meeting did not go well, as Lawler stated he would not return unless his wife was also brought back. Obviously, the WWF did not feel like they should give in to Lawler's "demands," so it looks like "The King" won't be back on WWF TV anytime soon. Personally, a part of me is a bit disappointed, but a part of me is also sort of pleased. I hoped Lawler would be brought back as a Smackdown commentator so that Tazz would finally have an opportunity to return to the ring, but that would get rid of the WWF's excuse for not wanting to use Tazz, so it ain't happening. On the other hand, I'm glad Paul Heyman will remain in his color commentary position, which he has done a tremendous job in. Nobody can put over a wrestler or a match like Heyman can. Lawler sure as hell can't even come close to doing that. Plus, I just watched the infamous "ECW invasion" Raw is Wars from a few years back on tape, in which I hoped Paul Heyman or someone would smack the hell out of Lawler for all his idiotic comments, so maybe some of that ill feeling is still in me right now...
Jerry Lawler posted a message on his web site today about the current situation, basically reiterating his point that he would not be back unless his wife Stacy was also brought back. You really do have to admire Lawler's pride and ability to stand by his words. Lawler stated the following line in his statement, which really caught my attention: "The 'powers that be' in the WWF are going to do what they want to do whether it's what the fans want or not." Preach on, brother. Preach on. Lawler continues, "My position is simply this...If the WWF does not want me to return to my commentary duties on Raw or Smackdown, that is fine. It is not the end of the world...life goes on. But if the WWF does want me to return to do the color commentary on their shows, I would be agreeable, but only if Stacy is reinstated as well. I've made it clear to them that she doesn't have to be brought back as the 'star of the show' or anything like that, merely put back on the roster and used whenever the creative team decides to. I have since learned more about what the reasons supposedly were for her firing and I now believe more strongly than ever that Stacy was not responsible for these things and that she did not deserve to be released. It seems that it has now boiled down to a "political" thing or an ego thing, if you will, so I am not too optimistic about anything being worked out."
Jerry Lawler also commented on his son, Brian "Christopher" Lawler's release from the company: "I want to talk about an event that took place last week that was very disturbing to me, and that was the firing of Brian Christopher. Actually the firing of Brian was not disturbing to me but the circumstances surrounding the firing did disturb me greatly. I think that disappointment is the only word I can think of to describe my feelings about Brian's situation. I know we are all human, and no one is perfect...we all make mistakes, but if someone had asked me last week 'who in the WWF uses drugs?' my answer would have been, 'I can't tell you who does, but I can tell you one person that I know doesn't...Brian Christopher.' I guess I would have sounded like an idiot, and I feel like one now for not knowing. And I'm sad and disappointed. I can only hope that Brian will learn from his mistake and see how his actions not only effect him but the people that care about him as well. Brian is going to make a public statement about his situation here on my website later this week. I, like all of you will be anxious to hear what he has to say." To read Lawler's entire statement, click HERE.
Several readers sent word that the WWF has updated WCW's web site and there is one interesting thing to note: a new WCW logo. To check out the logo, visit WCW.com's main page.
As I posted on the newsboard this past weekend, several readers sent along word that a sound clip revealing the Undertaker & Sara's stalker was out on the Internet. When listening to the clip, it was obvious that the hidden voice was Vince McMahon's. The WWF simply recorded McMahon's sayings and slowed down the pitch, giving the extremely deep and "evil, scary" voice impression. The thing is, to decode that voice, the only thing you have to do is speed up the pitch of the clip to a certain extent, and voila, you get Vince McMahon's already evil voice. Of course, this doesn't mean that the stalker will be revealed as Vince McMahon, as the WWF has been known to swerve its Internet fans in the past (well, back when Russo was in power at least).
Mick Foley's book, "Foley is Good," dropped down to number 4 this week on the New York Times Best Sellers List. The book stood at number 1 in its first two weeks. To view the list, click HERE.
Finally, our weekly WWF Smackdown tapings report is up on our main page, courtesy of good ol' Mike E. To check out the report, click HERE.
With that, it's almost time to wrap this one up. Be sure to check out part 2 of Brad McCloskey's "top ten wrestling dreams." I have to say that I started cracking up throughout reading it, especially for that Stone Cold dream... Anyway, if you haven't yet, click HERE to check it out. Well, that's about it for today's report. Until next time...
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com