Yo, yo, yo. Welcome to today's news and rumors here at TPWW.net. There's a healthy amount of stuff to discuss today since we're coming off of a horrible Raw, which gives me a lot of material. Mwahaha. Anyway... news and stuff...
As mentioned, I thought last night's Raw was one of the worst shows in a while. It was unbelievably boring and predictable and I just had that "nothing important is gonna happen again" feeling while watching it. That feeling is unfortunately becoming a regular one for me while watching WWF TV, which is never a good thing. There were a few times that I just honestly felt like turning off the TV. It just didn't make me want to keep watching. Plus, the crowd being absolutely SILENT throughout the whole night didn't help the show's excitement at all, but then again, they didn't really have anything to be loud about, so I don't blame them for being quiet. The show centered around Paul Heyman receiving faxes from Stone Cold Steve Austin, which were pretty much stupid and pointless and got very annoying by the third time it was done. You could tell that the crowd wasn't buying it either. Heyman did a good job in reading them emotionally, but mic skills are never a problem with Paul E. Unfortunately, even his skills couldn't save the horrible angle.
We then had a main event between Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle, which actually had Shane beat the living crap out of Angle - the WWF world champion - for a good part of the match before Angle finally picked up the "come from behind" victory. Talk about adding credibility to the title, huh? And speaking of credibility, the Dudleys, in a handicap match, with the help of Shane McMahon, couldn't beat the Rock. The Dudleys could be a huge main event heel tag team if the WWF wanted them to, but it's obvious that they don't. Just watch a few old ECW Dudleys tapes to see what I'm talking about. Sure, the Dudleys couldn't do anything near what they did in ECW, but if the WWF wanted them to be huge big time heels, they could be and the fans would buy it... but with all the credibility that the WWF is stripping them of, it's only a matter of time before the fans wouldn't buy it. That's the WWF's main problem right now. Besides their top stars, Steve Austin, Rob Van Dam (I guess), Kurt Angle, The Rock, and The Undertaker, NO other wrestler has any real credibility whatsoever. Just look at what the WWF has done with guys like Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Tazz, etc. They've kept them down for so long that it's pretty much impossible for them to come back up now. They're simply buried in such a huge hole that it'll be extremely hard for them to climb out without a lot of help from the WWF creative team. Everyone in the Alliance other than Rob Van Dam and Steve Austin is pretty much a joke right now. And we're supposed to believe that the Alliance is a threat to the WWF? Anyway, I'm pretty much going off on a rant right now, but the WWF once again has a lot of problems to address. They need to look at each member of their roster very closely and figure out something to do with each and every one of them. There is really hardly any development at all in the WWF's mid card angles or mid card characters. All emphasis is on one or two "big" angles and everything else is not paid as much attention to as it should be. But that's just my opinion... I could be wrong. Dennis Miller rules, by the way.
The WWF's matches were also horrible last night. The crowd simply wasn't getting into them at all. The six man tag was awful (but it included Taker and Kane, so again, I'm not shocked), and the mix tagged match was also horrible. Tajiri and Tazz got literally under a minute in the ring in a match that ended when Ivory DDTd Torrie. The crowd just didn't care for it and neither did I.
One thing that was pretty cool at last night's show was the segment between Maven and Tazz. Once I saw Tazz interviewing him backstage, I knew something was about to go down and it was pretty cool when it happened. The two will go at it at Smackdown in Maven's first official WWF match. The WWF doesn't like pushing new guys above the old guys right? They believe in "paying your dues", don't they? Unfortunately, I have a feeling that Tazz will take the loss to Maven at Smackdown. I mean, I've been pretty vocal about how stupid the paying your dues thing is. I think that a wrestler should give a great first impression on the crowd (like Rob Van Dam and Kurt Angle) so they will be over. Making them lose a bunch of matches early on in their WWF careers will dig them into a hole that they won't be able to come out of. So, for that reason, it might be a good idea to have Maven pick up a win over Tazz or at least look good in the match before taking a loss. But of course, that doesn't mean totally embarrassing Tazz, which the WWF seems to have no problem doing. What I would do is have Maven get some good offense and look impressive against Tazz, giving the crowd a good first impression before Tazz eventually beats down on him, hits him with a few Tazplexes, and eventually locks on the Tazmission. Then have Al Snow or someone do a run in to either cost Maven or Tazz the match. It could lead up to a pretty good angle.
Last night's Raw scored a 4.4 rating, which I guess is decent, and is definitely not shocking considering how bad the show was. The ratings declined throughout the second hour, according to Dave Meltzer. Again, not surprising. Thursday's Smackdown drew a 3.9 rating for those wondering, but was understandable considering it was going up against some very tough competition in the season premiere of Friends on NBC, which did a 19.5 rating.
The season finale Tough Enough was the highest rated prime time cable show of the week, as Jim Ross mentioned last night on Raw, scoring a 2.5 rating.
Speaking of Tough Enough, my personal favorite, Josh, will be making his indy wrestling debut for World Wrestling Zone on October 20 in Hammond, Indiana. The show will be headlined by Terry Funk, according to a press release. Also, Tough Enough's Greg, who was forced to leave after finding out he had herniated discs in his back, made his debut for New Jersey's CZW, Combat Zone Wrestling, this past Saturday, attacking CZW wrestler Doomsday Danny Rose. He was reportedly wearing a Tough Enough shirt, which he tore off to reveal a CZW shirt underneath. So, to get this straight... he left Tough Enough because of a herniated disc, but will work for CZW... OK then.
Tough Enough will finally begin to air in Canada on TSN starting this Monday, October 15 at 8:00 PM, right before Raw on TSN. Thanks to Marny Coles for pointing that out.
According to Dave Scherer, Jim Ross actually had a cold/flu last night during Raw (welcome to the club), but was able to work through it, obviously. I may not be his biggest fan, but a thumbs up to JR since you couldn't even tell.
You may have noticed that Jim Ross called Raw "The Raw Zone" sometime in the second hour. Well, the WWF has released a statement saying that the first hour of the show will now be called WWF Raw (as previously mentioned), and the second hour will be called WWF Raw Zone as opposed to the War Zone.
Chris Benoit will finally make his return to WWF television this Sunday night on MTV's WWF Heat. That should definitely be something to look forward to and there's finally a reason to watch Heat now.
For those wondering, Kurt Angle's autobiography, "It's True! It's True!" debuted at #13 on the New York Times Bestsellers list for non-fiction books. This is coming from not nearly as much promotion as the WWF gave past wrestler books, so it's definitely not a disappointment. The book should still hopefully have some time to climb the charts with more promotion.
And speaking of Angle, he will be a guest on Live with Regis and Kelly on Thursday morning to help promote the book.
The artist formerly known as Chyna, Joanie Laurer recently announced that she will be doing a second spread for Playboy, which will be released on December 1, according to Dave Scherer. *shudder* It obviously won't do nearly as well as the first spread for more reasons than one, but mostly because the WWF won't be there to help promote it this time around.
iN DEMAND has released the WWF Survivor Series promotional poster, which features a great image of Lita and Torrie Wilson. To check it out, click HERE.
In an update on the court case between the World Wrestling Federation and the World Wildlife Fund, the WWF has been granted an appeal for their case and has been ordered to pay $229,700 of the World Wildlife Fund's legal fees, according to Dave Meltzer. The original ruling called for the WWF to abandon the letters "WWF", since their use of the letters in their website and their logo violated their agreement with the World Wildlife Fund in 1996 which only allowed them "limited use" of the letters. The WWF (wrestling) claims that not being able to use the WWF letters will take as much as a $50 million hit on the company, so they will appeal the case. Until the appeal takes place, the WWF will not have to make any changes, but the original ruling calls for them to make the changes within the next five months. It's really baffling how the World Wrestling Federation had the friggin' NERVE to actually try to shut down fan sites for having the WWF letters in their domains when they, themselves, do not even have the rights to the letters. Give me a damn break. This is why it brings a smile to my face to see this happen to the WWF.
One of the most popular features in TPWW's history, the Wrestling Q&A;, is finally returning and will be done by myself and Rob "Van" Harvey. Be sure to submit your questions for the Q&A; by clicking here: TPWW Wrestling Q&A;. Also be sure to check out the archives. If you want a good read, check out numbers 4 through 8. The guy who did those rules. (Rob Van Dam point)
Well, I'm done. Until next time, later.
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com
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