Uh, sup. Welcome to today's (or this week's?) news and rumors here at TPWW.net. It's been a while since I've done one of these and in case I forgot, there were always a ton of e-mails reminding me. Summer's already over, which sucks, and since it's already over, time has been limited lately, so I haven't been able to update the site nearly as much as I'd like to. But regardless, over the next few days I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things as far as updating the site and following wrestling religiously goes. Anyway, there's a lot to cover in this one report, so without further delay, here's today's report.
As mentioned on Thursday's Smackdown, this week's Smackdown will air live on Tuesday night for both viewers in the US and in Canada. This will be a one time only thing and Smackdown will return to its Tuesday taped format the following week. The overall feeling is that the WWF made this move so they wouldn't have to compete with the MTV Video Music Awards, which air this Thursday night and will pretty much appeal to the same audience. Speaking of the VMAs, why aren't they called the "Music Video Awards" instead of the "Video Music Awards". They're called MUSIC VIDEOS, right? Not "video musics." Oh well.
It appears that the Undertaker has grown an ego backstage, with the most notable situation occuring before this past Tuesday's Smackdown tapings. The plan for this past week's Smackdown was to have the Undertaker take a loss to Albert and X-Pac in basically a handicap match. However, The Undertaker complained to "management" and got the finished changed. For those of you who missed Smackdown, The Undertaker kicked out of Albert's Albert Bomb finisher, survived a bunch of chair shots, and still basically destroyed both Albert and X-Pac, eventually getting disqualified after nailing Albert with a weapon. Looking at it one way, sure the Undertaker, who has been built up as "indestructable" would have lost some steam by jobbing to Albert, but on the other hand, this has to remind people a lot of the WCW-nWo days, where backstage politics like this led to the company's downfall. It prevented younger guys, who are investments for the future, from being elevated just to keep older guys, who didn't have much time left in their careers, on top. I'm not the biggest fan of the Undertaker, but I will admit that he still has a lot of drawing power left in him. But, he's going to eventually have to give it up in order to do what's best for the company in the future. On a somewhat related note, it was good and surprising to actually see Rhyno get a clean pin on The Rock on Smackdown after hitting him with the gore. The WWF seems to be really high on Rhyno and picking up that big win over The Rock will definitely give him a lot of credibility.
Speaking of the WWF being high on wrestlers, according to Dave Scherer, the WWF has been very impressed with Chuck Palumbo as of late. However, the same unfortunately can't be said for Sean O'Haire, who will be "re-evaluated". Personally, I always liked Sean O'Haire a lot more. The guy is 6 and a half feet tall and can fly like a cruiserweight. He's awesome in the ring, but the WWF just hasn't allowed him to show that yet. Palumbo really has never impressed me much, but it appears that a lot of people seem to think that he has a "good mind for the business."
The WWF has apparently also been very impressed in the work of the Big Show as of late. Although a lot of people aren't big fans of his in ring work, it really is a shame that his size has been badly wasted thus far. If built up right, the Big Show could have been one of the most dominating superstars in the business. Andre the Giant had hardly any wrestling skill at all, but he still ruled, since he was built up perfectly. It might be a little too late for the WWF to build him up that way now, but he can still be a great resource and it's good to see him being used more often the past few weeks.
The WWF "decision makers" apparently don't see much for Tommy Dreamer in the WWF, according to Dave Scherer. I'll admit that Dreamer isn't the best technical wrestler, but he uses great ring psychology and is one of the hardest working wrestlers I've ever seen, so his matches were always fun to watch in ECW.
Thursday's Smackdown scored a 3.9 rating, down from last week's 4.3. That definitely isn't good news for the company and it seems that things are starting to slow down again after The Rock's return a few weeks ago. Monday's Raw was also down, scoring a 4.8 rating, down from the 5.2 the week before. The debut of Saturday night's WWF Excess show with Triple H drew a 0.9 rating.
Tazz will be the guest on "WWF Excess" tonight at 10PM on TNN. I caught some of last week's show and it looks like it could be pretty good. The classic match feature is a great idea, but hopefully we'll see a few more old school matches showcased. Or better yet, since Tazz will be the guest this week and Triple H picked one of his own matches last week, maybe we'll see Tazz's WWF debut match against Kurt Angle. That is if the WWF didn't burn the footage or something.
Speaking of Tazz, there are some rumors that he may have some heat with Paul Heyman, according to Dave Scherer. For some reason, I doubt that these rumors are 100% true at all. At this past Monday's Raw, while Tazz wrestled in the main event, it seemed that Heyman was trying really hard to put over Tazz, mentioning that he beat Angle in his first match in the WWF (before JR killed his heat and reminded everyone that it was a "very long time ago"), among other things.
Speaking of Heyman, according to Wade Keller, he and Jim Ross apparently don't get well together backstage and often get into verbal arguments. However, in the end, they handle the tension professionally.
The WWF has apparently been telling their wrestlers to make early pinfalls a lot less dramatic by kicking out of them early, so that late pinfalls will be more dramatic. This is definitely a good idea, if you ask me, since it adds a more realistic feel to the match. I noticed that Tazz was kicking out early in his match on Raw and Edge and Lance Storm were doing so in their match at SummerSlam.
Big thanks to Michael from the UK, Paul Thompson from Newcastle, and several others for sending word that WWF Tough Enough will begin airing in the United Kingdom this month. The first episode will air on September 4 at 8PM on Sky 1.
The WWF will be making a "huge announcement" this Monday, September 3 at a WWF rally in Toronto. Vince McMahon, Triple H, Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, and others will be on hand to make the announcement, which is expected to be the official word that next year's WrestleMania 18 will be in Toronto.
The WWF has released Gangrel from his WWF contract and will not be renewing Chaz's contract when it expires in January, according to Jim Ross. The WWF's roster has become unbelievably crowded lately, so it wouldn't surprise me to see a few more unused talents released soon.
But as I mention that the WWF already has an overcrowded roster, word is that the WWF has signed two female wrestlers, WCW's Paisley and former ECW woman wrestler, Jazz. The only thing I can think of is that the WWF is interested in revitalizing their women's division again with the departure of Chyna. Maybe they're going to have a woman's title tournament?
Speaking of Chyna, she was recently a guest on CNN's Larry King Live. She had a few interesting things to say, to say the least. For a recap of the interview, click HERE.
Jerry Lynn recently had successful patella surgery, according to Jim Ross, and the WWF "looks forward to having this talented hand back in about three months." It's good to hear JR recognize JL's talent.
The Rock will be a guest on the best late night talk show on TV, "Late Night" with Conan O'Brien this Wednesday, and will also be a guest on the Howard Stern radio show this Thursday, then will be on the Rosie O'Donnell show on Friday. Also, The Rock is scheduled to host the fall premiere of MAD TV in late September. Busy guy.
The WWF has put up an article on the hectic schedule of WWF wrestlers, including a few words from Tazz. To check it out, click HERE.
Well, that was pretty fun, but it's just about time to wrap this one up. For those who have been e-mailing me asking if there are any available positions on TPWW, your answer is "yup." We're looking for a new top ten columnist, since Brad's moving on to a "regular column." Check out the application on the main page. Speaking of columnists, we're almost done making our final choices for TPWW's new columnists, so those will be debuting very soon. Anyway, thanks for checking out today's report and until next time... later.
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com
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