It's me, it's me, it's DDP. Well not quite, but anyway, I'm Moonax and I'm doing today's News and Rumors.
Well, according to Triple A I have to introduce myself. So introduce myself I will. My name is Moonax, I don't have any website to plug, I'm a reader, who has by luck or by judgment ended up writing News and Rumours for you whilst Triple A is otherwise engaged (insert Tazz/Sleep joke here). The plan is that I will write one report a week and hopefully other people will write reports at other times of the week. With that said, here are today's news and rumors.
The WWF is coming off a fairly impressive Vengeance PPV. The big news is of course the win by Chris Jericho which seems to have finally broken the glass ceiling that the WWF has had for the last two or three years. This is obviously a good thing as Jericho has worked hard and overcome a number of knocks that were levelled against him: too small, too sloppy etc. But the two matches that he worked were excellent. He is also a much better heel than face and this has injected some fresh life into the main event scene. I was, however, annoyed that yet again despite his claims Vince McMahon just can't write himself out of the storyline. I also hope that the WWF will actually do the decent thing and give Jericho a decent title run rather than completely destroy him as they have done with Kurt Angle. But this is the WWF and I doubt that they will do the right thing. Many people also found the RAW main event between Jericho and Austin disappointing, however, the return of Booker T at both RAW and Vengeance can only be a good thing especially if he gets a hot feud with Steve Austin and also if Austin gives him the rub and puts him over. I also thought that Undertaker and RVD had a good match hopefully, this will have silenced some of the people within the WWF locker-room who have been critical of RVD's style. But more on the WWF locker-room later.
The WWF seems determined to revive the Women's division despite the fact that the belt is at the moment around the waist of one of the worst female workers in Trish Stratus. The WWF seems determined to hire women for their looks rather than their wrestling talent or ability on the mic. If they are going to push the division then why are they not pushing the women who actually can work a match such as Molly Holly, Jazz or Lita? But then I guess that if they pushed them then Jerry Lawler couldn't do his dirty old man shtick.
This is of course against a backdrop of the WWF releasing 9 wrestlers from HWA who were on developmental contracts. The wrestlers released were: Russ McCullough, James Yang, Sam Roman (Kid Romeo), Allan Funk (Kwee Wee), Elix Skipper, Rick Cornell (Reno), Mark Larue (Lash Leroux) Essa Rios and Evan Karagias, so much for Jim Ross's constant but empty promises to push the Cruiserweight Division given that the majority of those wrestlers fall into that section. Perhaps fans would get behind those wrestlers more if they were given a decent chance to put on some matches and if the writers of the WWF actually did what they are supposed to do and write some stories for the undercard. Still at least we seem to have seen the end of the Vince McMahon kiss my ass club.
Lance Storm appears to be the latest wrestler to be 'Tazzed' (Triple A is currently in therapy over the mistreatment of Tazz) - jobbed left, right and centre and made to look stupid thus destroying any semblance of credibility that the wrestler might have. It is funny but this time last year when Storm was being misused by WCW and stuck with the stupid 'Team Canada' gimmick - you remember - the team with only one Canadian in it. I remember reading an article by someone claiming that if he had signed for the WWF he would be in the same position as Kurt Angle and a main event heel. How wrong can you be.
But this has been the story of the WWF this year. The great expectations that everyone had when the WWF bought WCW and Shane appeared on Nitro were quickly squashed after the debacle of Booker T - Buff Bagwell, that the WWF bought WCW without any idea of what to do with it. There then followed the ECW invasion and all the hopes that that would bring - but again instead of pushing either WCW or ECW talent they instead opted to turn Steve Austin, William Regal, Test, Kurt Angle. Given the return of Ric Flair and Jericho becoming champion many people hope that this will be the start of the WWF doing things right. But given their record I won't hold my breath.
The other big story at the moment concerns an interview given by the former WCW referee Billy Silverman. Silverman was one of the referees who joined the WWF after WCW was bought by the WWF. He resigned shortly afterwards and his recently given an interview which was transcribed on the PWTorch.com if you want to read it. Silverman basically claimed that WCW staff were subjected to 'hazing' in order to gain the respect of the WWF locker-room and that this hazing included physical threats and public humiliation for WCW workers. According to Silverman, Bradshaw one of the 'respected locker-room leaders' apparently led this. What has amazed me in the debate that has followed is how many people have supported this as a way to build team spirit and accused Silverman of being a baby. I'm sorry but nobody in any job deserves to be publicly humiliated, nor do they deserve to have their working lives made unpleasant as Silverman clearly found this. Given how bad the reputation of the WCW locker room it would perhaps be good for the WWF to re-examine itself.
Finally, the WWA has just completed its tour of the UK. From most reports the tour was highly successful drawing crowds in the 5000 range. Whilst these are by no means sell outs - they should hopefully encourage promoters to come to the UK more often because at the moment the UK gets two WWF UK only PPV's which are little more than glorified house shows. The releases by the WWF will hopefully also allow groups such as the WWA to sign more quality wrestlers for these tours which will in turn encourage more people to come out and watch live shows.
Anyway, that's it till next time. I ought to come up with some cheesy sign off line like Rob 'Ban' Harvey but I'm not that sad. Be sure to check out the TPWW discussion boards and all the other stuff on the site.
Moonax
Moonax@tpww.net
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