Welcome back, everyone, to TPWW for the weekend news and rumors. I, first of all, want to thank everyone who e-mailed me their feedback on my first report. I also thank those who e-mailed me their wrestling questions. There are a few e-mails I have not answered yet, but I will return them very soon. Shifting back to wrestling, the WWF went forth with Smackdown on Thursday night with a pretty good show continuing, most importantly, the nWo invasion and the HHH/Jericho/Stephanie triangle. With that said, let's end this intro and begin the people's news and rumors.
Smackdown was a pretty good show in my opinion, a notch down from RAW, which is still not a bad thing at all considering how great RAW was Monday night. After looking unstoppable on RAW, the nWo was made to look more vulnerable, particulary Scott Hall. To keep my personal opinion as separate as possible, I will state I was somewhat disappointed with the WWF for allowing some retribution on the nWo so soon. I think it would had been more effective to continue letting them cause rampage in the Federation for a few more weeks before someone getting revenge on one of them. That's my opinion, I'm sure many of you disagree with me, but the fact is, it already happened, it's done, and the WWF now moves forward to Monday night.
I would except most of RAW to focus on the nWo planning revenge on Stone Cold Steve Austin for how he treated Scott Hall on Smackdown. The new alliance between Chris Jericho and Stephanie McMahon will definitely make an impact, if not on Triple H, then on some other superstar as an example to show Triple H what they are capable of as an entity. The Rock will not be on RAW as he will be off TV for a few weeks, taking some much needed time off.
As of now it looks like Steve Austin will wrestle Scott Hall at WrestleMania. There are two other matches set and that is Triple H vs. Chris Jerico for the undispuated WWF title, and The APA vs. the newly crowned tag team champions Billy and Chuck for the WWF tag team titles. As I wrote on Tuesday, I am not shocked Tazz and Spike lost the titles, especially to a heel tag team. The Rock vs. Hollywood Hulk Hogan also is set.
In other events, Christian, upset about his long losing streak, "quit" the WWF on Smackdown. I have no idea where this story is exactly going, but it will most likely result in a break for him where he may return either under a new character/gimmick, with a new tag team partner, or it could be some sort of unknown setup that we have no idea about yet.
The Undertaker again challenged Ric Flair to a match at Smackdown. Flair answered no, while 'Taker promised it would be the last time he would accept a "no" answer. Obviously that means the Undertaker most likely has something planned for Flair on RAW which would persuade Flair to change his mind. With Undertaker challenging Flair continuously, I would expect Flair to eventually accept the challenge.
In other news, the latest rumor concerning the WWF split is suggesting it will happen sometime in March, meaning most likely before WrestleMania. I still would not be surprised if it didn't happen until after WrestleMania, but the fact remains, the split WILL happen eventually. Most of my e-mails have been concerns regarding the split and the details about it. Right now, there aren't many specific details about it. We do know for sure that the WCW name will NOT be used. Many believe one company will be the WWF while the other will be the nWo, but that doesn't appear to be the route they are going either. WWF RAW will remain on Monday nights, but it is still unsure whether the Smackdown name will be used or not. There is a lot that doesn't make sense at this time, but it will become clearer as time goes on. After all, being a good wrestling fan does generally require patience :-).
It is being rumored that with Hogan, Nash, and Hall's new contracts, they will work five or six TV shows, which will leave about four or seven hours for house shows. This is per month obviously.
Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Lita, Test, Mighty Molly, and Jacqueline will all be on NBC's Fear Factor this Monday. The show will air at 8 p.m Eastern just before RAW.
Smackdown scored a 4.5 broadcast rating Thursday night, which makes it the show's highest rating in six months. Keep in mind the same program competed against the Olympics on NBC. It looks like the nWo is bringing back more interest, at least for the time being.
There seems to be a lot of rumors recently, concerning the atmosphere in the WWF locker rooms since the announcing that the nWo were coming back, and since they arrived. The rumors are that many wrestlers feel threatened with the nWo now in the Federation. The supposed feeling is that the younger wrestlers especially worry that their TV time may be lessened or taken away completely. I won't recap the other meaningless info like how the nWo showed up to RAW in a limo and in their nWo gear already. All I will say is that while these wrestlers may feel uneasy, I don't believe that the fears of backstage problems the WWF has had, have happened. Many wrestlers on WWF.com have mentioned their thoughts about the nWo, which leads me to believe the WWF realizes the uneasiness of their wrestlers and are doing what they can to minimize it. For the record, it is being reported that the nWo have acted in good taste and haven't caused any problems backstage.
That's going to end it for this report. Again, everyone is invited to e-mail me questions or comments. I am considering making an AIM screen name to chat with those who are interested in talking over the IM. If you may be interested in chatting over the IM, please be sure to let me know. I will make an AIM screen name to chat with those that are interested if enough people would like me to. Anyways, I or someone else will be back after RAW if not sooner. Have a great weekend.
Martin Hawrysko
Send feedback to Martin@tpww.net
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