A lot has happened since last night. I figured it was better to write about the latest situations now rather then during the weekend when they may be considered old. This probably won't be a full report, so yes, it will be short. Before beginning, for those of you who missed Raw, you may read the results by clicking here.

Sometime before Raw went on the air yesterday, Stone Cold Steve Austin with Debra left the show out of protest. The story we know now is Austin was booked in a match to wrestle Brock Lesnar. Though one would expect the ending of the match was to have Lesnar win, there is no official word how the match was originally booked to end. Austin was not happy about something concerning the match, and possibly more so, his overall character. Austin has been unhappy with the direction of his character and the WWE overall. Austin took a hiatus the day after WrestleMania out of protest and was off TV for two weeks. As far as Austin's future goes, it is unclear when he will be back. From what I understand, WWE will move on assuming he won't be back soon.

Steve Austin supposedly left Raw before Vince McMahon arrived, and as a result of him unexpectedly leaving, most of the show last night was rewritten. Brock Lesnar instead of wrestling Austin wrestled Bubba Ray Dudley. The last match was then booked with Vince McMahon vs. Ric Flair with the stipulation of the winner gaining 100% ownership of WWE. According to various sources, that entire story was put together last minute.

Many are saying Raw was awful last night due to the last minute changes due to Austin's leaving. I disagree and despite the problems, I didn't think it was a bad show. Watching the opening promo with McMahon and Flair, to me, it came across as if the 100% ownership thing was planned as a way to set future storylines. When McMahon won the match, my first thought was, that this was to setup a new storyline that would be entertaining. Now knowing it was all last minute has me worried. Last night, the Raw wrestlers and Smackdown wrestlers at a houseshow were told despite Vince McMahon "gaining" 100% ownership of WWE, the Raw and Smackdown rosters will remain separate. Some wrestlers were worried that the individual pushes would end if the rosters were once again to become one.

The plan right now is to keep the rosters separated, however, the feeling backstage is that if the numbers for WWE (TV shows and house show attendance, TV and PPV ratings, merchandise, etc) continue to drop, then the rosters will rejoin. As of now, there is no plan to rejoin the rosters, not yet at least.

Therehas been speculation that Austin leaving WWE may be nothing but a work which will start a new storyline in which Austin being disatisfied with WWE brings Eric Bischoff back with him. Right now, those are ONLY rumors. Austin leaving Raw last night is definately a shoot. Even though this is not necessarily true, if this for whatever reason was a work, I'm sure WWE would have made it more obvious by either showing Austin leaving in disgust or something similiar to that nature.

According to 1Wrestling, X-Pac last night was at it again as far as giving the writers a hard time. X-Pac was scheduled to wrestle on both Heat and Raw, and he was not happy about having to wrestle twice in one night. Scherer from 1Wrestling stated some WWE employees who witnessed the conflict believed X-Pac was whining and that he should have been punished somehow. Speaking of punishment, it is unclear whether or not WWE will punish Austin in anyway for leaving Raw yesterday.

Raw scored a 4.2 overall rating last night, which is up from last week's 4.1 number. This is the second week in a row that the Raw rating has increased from the previous week. Though the increase is nothing significant, it certainly is not disappointing. Just like with WCW a few years ago, ratings don't increase overnight. However, WWE I believe is yet to proove that they can consistently give a good show each Monday and Thursday night.

In another mini tibit, Shawn Michaels apparantely had permission from Vince McMahon to take a shot at the Rock last night. Michaels stated that Rock has or is trying to keep Triple H down.

One funny thing I noticed, on Raw last night, there was a replay of the Undertaker and Tommy Dreamer segment in the ring. Either JR or Lawler stated that Undertaker did everyone a favorite by dumping the bucket of puke on him. I didn't notice any sarcasm from that statement, so assuming it wasn't, how is it a favor considering Undertaker dumped the bucket of puke on Dreamer right in front of the announcer's table?

Anyways, I did say this would be a short report. We will still have a full report this weekend as usual. For those interested in working with TPWW, we are hiring columnist and results reporters. Originally, the deadline was this Thursday, but it will probably be extended another week. Speaking of open positions, our top ten writer and News and Rumors fill-in Michael Blaszkowski wrote a very entertaining Top Ten List about the top ten things prospective columnist should know before applying. Very funny I might add. Anyways, I'm looking to continue my column, Mark My Words sometime this week, most likely concerning the Steve Austin situation and what WWE should do. Until the weekend, stay tuned to the TPWW Newsboard for anything new concerning Stone Cold Steve Austin, and anything else that is wrestling. Later.

Martin Hawrysko
MHTPWW@hotmail.com
AIM: INGAME21

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