Hello everyone and welcome to The People's Wrestling Website. I am Martin Hawrysko, I have worked at various sites around the 'net for over two years now. This is my first report, and I thank Triple A for allowing me to do this. I have reported on the TPWW newsboard for a few weeks now, but since the summer, I have taken a much needed break. I don't want to take up that much space introducing myself, so for those of you interested, I have a more detailed introduction of myself in the forums, which you can read by clicking HERE. Anyways, with No Way Out and RAW behind us now, there is a lot to talk about so here are the people's news and rumors.
No Way Out is behind us now and the WWF went forward with RAW last night. The show, in my opinion, did exactly what it had to do and it answered a lot of questions that resulted from No Way Out. The nWo didn't take up the entire show, but were on camera long enough make their impression. The Rock and Hogan will wrestle at WrestleMania, which most likely will be a match themed as wrestling's biggest star from the past vs. wrestling's biggest star from the present and future. The match will indeed be hyped a lot, especially with the fact that the two being in the ring together last night was such a big deal.
The nWo marked their territory in the WWF Sunday night and Monday night by costing Austin the undisputed title and by assaulting the Rock the way they did last night. If this were real life, I would tell you The Rock would not be at Smackdown, but with this being wrestling, you never know what will happen. The WWF may have used last night's beating on the Rock as an excuse to give him more time off since he has been busy lately with both wrestling and re-shooting some scenes for his upcoming moving, The Scorpion King. That is also why The Rock was not on any TV shows last week. With The Rock off Smackdown, I definitely see Austin being back to try and get some retribution on the nWo from Sunday night.
Triple H, after beating Kurt Angle fair and square last night, will be challenging Chris Jericho for the undisputed WWF championship at WrestleMania. I would expect the WWF to build up this matchup for the next several weeks, while most likely keeping the two out of the affairs of the nWo for now. Two other matches are official for WrestleMania and they are The Rock vs. Hollywood "Hulk" Hogan as I already stated, and the APA will challenge Tazz and Spike Dudley for the tag team titles. With WrestleMania being six weeks away still, it would not surprise me if Tazz and Spike lost the titles to a heel tag team, but who knows what the WWF has planned. Though it is early, TPWW will have play by play coverage of WrestleMania for those who are not able to order the PPV (I just had to throw in that cheap plug :-) ).
With Rock wrestling Hogan, there still is the question as to who Austin will wrestle at WrestleMania. With Triple H most likely not being involved with the nWo, that leaves Austin, Nash, and Hall without opponents yet. The WWF has a few possibilities with what they can do though. I have a few ideas, but the WWF isn't obviously limited to just what I suggested. The WWF may have Austin tag with someone and have a match vs. Nash and Hall, or the WWF may have Austin wrestle either Nash or Hall while another wrestler wrestles the other man. The picture should become clearer as the weeks go by.
With Kurt Angle out of the WrestleMania main event picture now, he is open to any storyline now including the nWo. There are no rumors that Angle is turning face, but he may be the most obvious person that could team with Austin to try and eliminate the nWo come WrestleMania.
There recently have been rumors or ideas that The Undertaker may turn face and feud with the nWo. However, Dave Meltzer reported yesterday that a match between Kevin Nash vs. Undertaker will not happen. From what we saw on RAW, it looks like Undertaker will feud with Ric Flair since he challenged him to a match at WrestleMania. Even though Flair didn't accept it, I would still expect something to happen in the following few weeks that will persuade Flair to change his mind. I guess any ideas of Undertaker turning face are diminished unless something drastically changes in the upcoming weeks.
Before continuing, there are a quick No Way Out notes worthy of mention here. D-Von Dudley was bleeding from his mouth, while Billy Gunn was bleeding from his nose after their respective matches. Edge was also busted open at the mouth in his match with William Regal.
The official attedance from Sunday's PPV was at 15,291 with the gate figure at $966,000. It was the most sucessful WWF event since King of The Ring last year.
I have not seen any ratings results from last night's RAW, most likely due to President's Day holiday yesterday.
Dave Scherer has reported that Hogan, Hall, and Nash got along fine with everyone else backstage Sunday night. It is believed that Hall's attitude has improved a lot from the past. The WWF management is rumored to be pleased with No Way Out and were looking forward to last night's RAW.
Rey Mysterio Jr. is back in the news, as Dave Meltzer is reporting the WWF has told him they will give him some sort of offer following the roster split that is coming up. This is due to the fact that the WWF is once again planning on re-launching their light heavyweight division. The WWF told Rey Jr. until he hears from them, to accept any indy offers that he may receive.
The WWF is rumored to be interesting in hiring Marc Lyod as an announcer. He is the former radio host for the Orland Rage from the XFL and is currently an Orlando sports talk show host. It is rumored he was offered the job and agreed to taking it, but the two parties have not signed anything yet.
Stacy Keibler's Howard Stern appearance from earlier this month will air on E! this Wednesday night at 11:00 p.m. eastern time.
That will do it for today's report. I will be back sometime later this week with a post Smackdown report. I won't be able to watch Smackdown until Friday afternoon at the earliest so I may be able to do a report before Friday night, but if not, come back early Saturday morning, that is if no one else has written a report by then. Everyone is invited to e-mail me their feedback or wrestling questions. I've never had a problem answering e-mails in the past so why start now? :-) Until next time, I am out.
Martin Hawrysko
Send feedback to Martin@tpww.net