Heyyy, welcome to today's news and rumors here at TPWW.net. Coming off of a spectacular Raw on Monday night, there's a lot to talk about in today's report, so without further delay, here are today's news and rumors.
As mentioned, I thought Monday night's Raw is War was one of the best shows put on by the WWF in recent memory. It seemed that the WWF tried to pull out all the stops at the show, giving fans a little of everything. The Undertaker's stalker was revealed, we were treated to a great opening angle with Spike Dudley and Steve Austin, all four King of the Ring matches took place, there was some great wrestling, Chris Jericho debuted a new titan tron video, tons of comedy, and a great main event. Raw was a really entertaining show Monday night and brought back memories of the WWF prime a couple of years ago.
One thing that made the show great for me was the ECW influence it had. Spike Dudley has been receiving a huge push over the last couple of weeks and it's making for some great TV. Tajiri also has been in a great angle and wrestled a good match against Rhyno, and Tazz actually picked up a victory over Hardcore Holly. You know I had to love that.
Diamond Dallas Page was finally revealed as the Undertaker's stalker, to a pretty loud pop from the hot Tampa crowd. He began to lose the fans after a while during his interview, but got them back again after it was over. I thought the WWF gave us a decent explanation as to why Page was the stalker and given all the possible choices, I'm glad they went with a "new face". Although Page seems to be playing the heel role by default by going up against the Undertaker, it's still expected that he'll be on Shane McMahon's WCW side as the WWF continues the WCW invasion angle.
There's an article on Diamond Dallas Page being revealed as the Undertaker's stalker up at WCW.com. It can be read by clicking HERE.
Diamond Dallas Page was not the only wrestler backstage at Raw. In fact, Mike Awesome, Kanyon, Shawn Stasiak, Kidman, and Torrie Wilson were all also backstage at the show, according to Dave Scherer. In an interesting note, Mike Awesome and Paul Heyman were said to have acted totally professional near each other despite their problems in the past, where Mike Awesome jumped to WCW while still under ECW contract.
Lance Storm has posted his latest commentary on his web site, StormWrestling.com. Storm talks about his run-in at the WWF house show in Toronto this past weekend. Storm's commentary is always a great read and can be read by clicking HERE.
Despite a very strong show on Monday night, Raw drew only a 4.2 rating, off hours of 3.8 and 4.6. However, the show is up from last week's 4.1 rating and did steadily increase as the show went on. The show actually did hit the 5.0 mark for the past 11:00 overrun of the main event, which is definitely a good sign. The revealing of Diamond Dallas Page as the stalker drew a 4.6 rating, while the lowest rated quarter hour was the opening of the show, as usual, which did a 3.3.
In other ratings, Sunday Night Heat drew a very disappointing 1.0 rating, as did Livewire and Superstars. The Heat replay at 11:00 on MTV did manage to do a 0.8 rating, according to Dave Scherer.
Another match has been added to the King of the Ring card featuring Jeff Hardy defending his Light Heavyweight title against X-Pac. The WWF built up a Hardys vs. X-Factor feud on Raw this past Monday, which will help lead up to the match.
Chris Benoit has reportedly been suffering from a nerve damage injury and will be undergoing a test to locate the damage today. Benoit has been experiencing numbness in his tricep, according to Dave Meltzer, and a decision on treatment will be made by the end of the week. However, in good news, Benoit will not miss this Sunday's King of the Ring main event.
As previously reported, Tazz was not at the WWF Smackdown tapings last night because he was at WWF New York for the special early premiere of MTV's new show, Tough Enough. Paul Heyman will fill in for Tazz this Thursday on Smackdown.
On the subject of the Smackdown tapings, we have complete results of the show up, courtesy of good ol' Mike E. To check them out, click HERE. Also, I'll be attending WWF Smackdown next Tuesday at Madison Square Garden in NYC and I'll try to get a report and thoughts of the show up on the site that night.
In pleasant news for me, Kurt Angle will be a guest tonight on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien, which airs at 12:35 AM, after The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Conan O'Brien is KING.
Well, it's just about time to wrap this one up. Stop by tomorrow for more news and updates and always be sure to check out our newsboard for more news updated around the clock. Until next time...
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com
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