Ayo. Welcome to today's report here at TPWW. Because of the labor day weekend, this hasn't exactly been the biggest news day in history, so expect today's report to be a little on the short side. With that said, here are today's news and rumors.
Speaking of things on "the short side", a great angle erupted at last night's Sunday night heat between co host Al Snow and special guest Tazz. Michael Cole plugged an interview with Tazz coming up on the show and Al Snow said something to the effect of "it will be a pretty 'short' interview". When Tazz came out for the interview, he immediately got into Al Snow's face about Al's comment earlier in the night, asking if Al thought he could beat him because of his slight height advantage. The segment got a little heated, but Michael Cole tried to calm things down. Later on, Tazz stated that the only reason Al Snow was co hosting Heat was because Tazz joined the Alliance and when the alliance takes over, Al will be removed from his spot. Al Snow tried to cool things down, trying to mention Tazz's appearance on Excess on Saturday night, but Tazz didn't want to hear it. He got into Al's face and asked why he wasn't given a hug like Al does to everyone else when he came out. Al said that he'd give Tazz a hug if it would put him in a better mood and Tazz invited Al to come hug him right now. The interview got really heated. Tazz then mentioned how the WWF made Al Snow look like the main trainer on Tough Enough and hardly ever showed any of Tazz's altercations with the Tough Enough cast because he was an alliance member. Al Snow got angry and said that one of the two men had to leave and since he would be on the show next week and Tazz wouldn't, he offered to leave. As Snow went to leave, Tazz shouted, "That's right! Leave like the (bleeped) you are." Al Snow came back and both men stood up and got into each other's faces and began to trash talk each other. Security came and finally broke them up. It was an awesome angle that could have easily fooled some people into thinking that it was a shoot. Al Snow is a great assett to the WWF and last night's angle showed that both he and Tazz could put together a great, emotional segment.
The WWF officially announced yesterday that next year's WrestleMania 18 on March 17, 2002, will be at the Toronto Skydome in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The WWF held WrestleMania 6 in the Skydome on April 1, 1990 and pulled in a record for the dome of 67,678 people in attendance. Last year's WrestleMania X-Seven from the Houston Astrodome pulled in 67,925 fans. To read the WWF's press release, click HERE.
Speaking of Toronto, tonight's Raw is War will be from the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. The WWF has only announced two matches thus far for tonight's Raw. Rob Van Dam and Rhyno will team up to take on Chris Jericho and Jeff Hardy and The Rock will take on Christian for the WCW title.
As of now, it appears that the WWF is setting up another match between Steve Austin and Kurt Angle for Unforgiven on Sunday, September 23. Austin throwing Angle's "medals" into the river will definitely add a lot of heat to the feud and could lead to even more change in Angle's character. However, The Rock currently has no concrete feud with any one wrestler going right now, so it wouldn't surprise me to see him added to the feud in some way, although I doubt it for now. It's still a bit too early to speculate on any other possible matches for Unforgiven, since it is still a few weeks away.
The WWF has apparently signed former WCW tag team champions, Brian Adams and Bryan Clark, Kronik. Both men were spotted at yesterday's WWF press conference in Toronto, according to Dave Meltzer, and there had been quite a few rumors of their signing already. Both Adams and Clark have already been in the WWF in the past. Adams had a stint as "Crush" of the famous Demolition tag team and also played the Hawaiin Crush, while Clark played the role of Adam Bomb in the WWF. With the WWF roster already way over crowded, the WWF must see something in the big tag team that I don't. I guess it's Vince McMahon's "big man fetish" again.
There were rumors recently that the WWF made an offer to ECW's Francine but she turned it down. Those rumors are completely false. Francine released a statement today stating that she had not been offered anything by the WWF as of yet. Personally, I hope the WWF does decide to bring her in, as well as maybe Dawn Marie. They would work well with alliance wrestlers like Lance Storm or Justin Credible right now.
Scott Steiner's AOL/Time Warner contract expires at the end of December, according to Dave Scherer, meaning we may see him in the WWF soon after that. Jim Ross has clearly expressed the WWF's interests in signing the former WCW world champ, but they haven't been able to yet due to his foot injury. Steiner is making a very smart decision right now. Since he can't wrestle yet due to his injury, he's sitting out the remainder of his AOL/Time Warner contract and being paid what he's owed before signing with the WWF. Steiner can be a huge assett to the WWF. I see him as a huge star from the get go. He's just one of those guys that the WWF can't ruin, even if they tried.
Big thanks to Mr. Marcus for sending along the results of last night's WWF house show from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The results are as follows:
- X-Pac def. Spike Dudley w/Molly
- Raven w/Terri def Perry Saturn
- Christian def Justin Credible
- Hurricane Helms & Ivory def Matt Hardy & Lita
- Albert def Chuck Palumbo
- Kurt Angle def Rhyno (Angle kicked out of a Gore, very strange)
- Edge def Lance Storm
- Kanyon def Jeff Hardy
- Y2J def RVD (Raven came in and pushed RVD off the top rope to cost him the match)
- APA & The Undertaker def The Dudleys & Test
Thanks to several readers from the United Kingdom and Ireland for sending word that Tough Enough actually debuted for them yesterday morning. Rory Duggan from Ireland sent along the following: "Just a word correcting you about the debut of Tough Enough was on THIS MORNING, Sunday September 2nd, at 12.00 midday. It appears that Sky are planning on its mainstay being the midday slot and using the 8pm slot on Tuesday as the repeat slot. Kind of like what they did a few months back in the ill-fated "TestosterZONE" where they showed Late Night SmackDown on Sky One at 8pm (Note: They usually leave all the Late Night showings to the Sports channels). WWF Excess debuted tonight, Sunday September 2nd, also at 10pm on Sky Sports 1. It was the one with Tazz, which, I believe, showed only last night in the States."
On the subject of international news, thanks to Chris Hadges from Australia for sending the following: "The WWA, World Wrestling All-Stars are going to tour Australia in October. Some of the superstars that are touring are: Bret Hart and Jerry Lawler commentating, Gangrel, Luna, Stevie Ray, Jeff Jarret, Road Dogg, Ken Shamrock, Buff Bagwell, The Harris Boys, Big Vito, Konan, Disco Inferno, Crowbar with Daffney and Ex WCW Supremo VINCE RUSSO."
With that, it's time to wrap this baby up. Be sure to check out Rob Harvey's and Corey Silvia's latest columns on the main page. They're great reads, as always and I'm not just saying that to shill. Also, part one of Brad McCloskey's wrestling parody, "The Glass Ceiling" is up on the main page, so be sure to check that out if you're in the mood for a laugh. Anyway, with that said, enjoy Raw tonight. Until next time...
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com
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