Slobberknocker Central Monday Night Recap #105 November 17th, 1997 WCW Monday Nitro: Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Cincinnati, Ohio. HOUR ONE Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Larry Zbyszko. - They replay Sting getting the bejesus beat out of him. - The NWO come right out and immediately Tony Schiavone insults our intelligence. Hall and Nash are again carrying the new WCW World Tag Team Title belts and Schiavone again says they went out and had new belts made. If any of you have the Monday Nitro from May 26th on tape, check it out: right there we see Hall and Nash wearing those exact same belts for the first of many times. I guess in order to be fans of WCW we're supposed to be stupid and not be able to remember things from as little as six months ago. If you don't have that (or any Nitro after it) on tape, then check out "www.beltster.com": it's the site of the guys who made the belts, and he has a picture of them taken earlier this year before he delivered them to WCW. Bischoff strokes his ego on the mic. Hall badmouths Larry Zbyszko. Nash aims a few comments toward the Giant. Bischoff then brings out Hogan, who air guitars his way halfway to the ring. Unfortunately he's not alone. Rick Rude. "Ravishing" Rick Rude follows him out. Now, I'd been cut off from the Net since Saturday night, so I had no idea this was coming down. (I can't say as I was shocked or overly surprised. In fact, my first thought was "it figures"). Rude says there's things right and wrong in wrestling, and that Shawn Michaels claiming he'd beat Bret Hart when he didn't was wrong. He says Vince McMahon ordering a ref to ring the bell to rob Hart of that title was wrong as well. Bret's leaving the "Titanic" that is the WWF was right. He then joins in on the WCW program and says it was right for the NWO to lay out Sting. Hogan asks us all how great he is. At least this defection makes a little sense, as Rude feuded with Sting in the past. I guess this really does mean that the NWO is just "Degeneration X South" after all. Don't congratulate Rude for jumping ship because of Bret Hart, though. Word is that Rude (who wasn't under WWF contract) has joined WCW as part of a settlement in the lawsuit he filed against them after they fired him (because of an injury he suffered in Japan). Early word is that he'll be a pro-NWO color commentator on the new WCW show. ECW is the one who's really screwed here, as Rude was supposed to be part of the angle surrounding their main event at November to Remember '97. ECW has already announced that Rude will likely no longer be a part of their PPV (nor anything else, for that matter). Rude worked with ECW pretty much on a week-to-week basis. At least WCW paid the WWF back with some free advertising. - Nitro Girls. - Ray Traylor grants Mean Gene Okerlund a pointless interview which is quickly ended by an NWO stomp-fest. "NWO" is again painted on his ample body. Roughly 25 minutes have gone by now. Time for a match yet? - GLACIER vs. MENG (w/ Jimmy Hart) This isn't exactly what I had in mind. Meng pins Glacier with the Tongan Death Grip. Barbarian does a run-in, but Meng had already gotten the win. Ernest Miller then runs in, but he too tastes the Death Grip. - Diamond Dallas Page addresses Bret Hart in a brief comment on the way to commercial, saying he can't believe Hart is joining the NWO. - ALEX WRIGHT (w/ Debra McMichael) vs. STEVE "MONGO" MCMICHAEL Debra's only dumped Wright two or three times now, but the injury to Bill Goldberg has forced her to stick with him a bit longer. Mongo wrestles a Lex Luger-esque match, whereby he gets beat up for most of it then stages a comeback. Unfortunately he gets a bit carried away and tosses the referee aside to continue a beating on Wright in the corner. Wright via DQ. Move along folks ... nothing to see here. - Nitro Girls. - CHRIS JERICHO vs. REY MYSTERIO, JR. Good match, though they blew a few spots. Mysterio does a terribly unconvincing job of selling this time out, acting like he has a bad back from almost the start of the match. Jericho then lays in most of the offense, but Mysterio comes back to get the "surprise" pin with the springboard huracanrana. Jericho had hardly touched him before Rey started acting seriously injured. this allowed the announcers to hype the win as a "never say die" performance. Mysterio was still able to do all his moves during the match, which seemed to contradict with the "pain" that he indicated that he was feeling. Again, it was good, but I've seen better from both. - Lex Luger with comments about Bret Hart. Upset. Disappointed. You get the picture. - Eric Bischoff comes to the desk to taunt Larry Zbyszko. Larry responds to the challenge, but is blindsided by Konan, Buff Bagwell and others. Bischoff, as the others hold Larry up, lays in a kick to the gut (which Bischoff has the good sense to shield from the camera by blocking the shot with his own body). The NWO then stomp Zbyszko into paste on the concrete. Bischoff poses with a foot on Larry's unmoving body. Family entertainment? Bischoff has now pushed himself right up there with past promoters such as Jim Cornette and Paul E. Dangerously. If Vince McMahon tried this fans would scream their heads off. Bischoff satisfies his ego and it's okay, though. WCW the home of tradition? Hardly, as Bischoff's continuing effort to put himself over makes a victim out of a legendary wrestler. I doubt Zbyszko's eventual "revenge" will ever make up for this. Even Cornette and Paul E. got their asses kicked on a regular basis. Other than two notable occurrences, this hour was pretty miserable. Only the Mysterio match stood out in in-ring action. HOUR TWO Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. - DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE vs. VILLANO V (w/ Villano IV) The two Villanos switch, doubleteam and use every underhanded trick they can think of, but Page still manhandles both to earn a pin. Both Villanos receive Diamond Cutters. Even though this was standard house show fare, it was probably still the most purely enjoyable match of the night. Page looked on fire and it just pointed out how badly he's being under/misused right now. - DEAN MALENKO vs. EDDIE GUERRERO One of Malenko's best matches in some time. Both men start off fast and crisp (and I wish I had the time to do a blow-by-blow account). Rey Mysterio (still selling his "bad back") comes out to watch as they cut to commercial. (Disgustingly enough, Tony Schiavone has spent a lot of time up to this point blathering on about the World War 3 main event). Eddie does all the great heel bits where he tries to beg off, asks to shake hands, etc. Malenko is firmly in control, but Eddie turns it around with a series of drop-kicks. They then run a sequence on trading very close pins. Both climb to the top and Eddie suplexes Malenko to the mat. Both are slow to get up and they again ascend to the top, where Malenko nails Eddie with a belly-to-back suplex. This time they're REALLY slow to get up. In fact, they don't get up at all. The referee makes delivers a ten count and declares the match a draw. Dean rolls out of the ring while trainers start to look over Eddie, who had landed squarely on his shoulder out of the suplex. - They replay the comments by Lex Luger. - Another of those really embarrassing Nitro Party videos is played. - SCOTTY RIGGS vs. SATURN (w/ Raven and his Flock) Billy Kidman (stepping into the departing Stevie Richards' shoes) gets on the mic and asks Riggs to join his Flock. Riggs declines. During the match he would lose his eyepatch and the gauze underneath, revealing a milky white cataract (obviously a contact lens). This match was pretty dull for the most part. Saturn did a few suplexes and took some light bumps, but did little else. Riggs pulls off the spot of the night (and possibly one of the gutsiest of the year) by doing a plancha from the top turnbuckle onto Raven and crew at ringside on the other side of the guard rail. Saturn then whipped Riggs into the steps, followed by a legdrop off the top. He finishes Riggs off with a really weak looking submission hold. The last minute or so of this match was pretty intense. I might give this whole scenario if Saturn were able to perform at that capacity for the entire match. Riggs again shows he has some skills. - Nitro Girls. - THE STEINER BROTHERS vs. ??? The NWO jumps the Steiners before they can reach the ring. Hogan directs traffic as the two brothers from Michigan are mudholed and spraypainted. - CURT HENNIG vs. LEX LUGER Though far from being an outright bad match, this one pretty much ran on autopilot for several minutes. Both took turns equally in the dominant position, laying in offense for a bit, then the other guy would take over. It was a little like one person playing two characters in a video game: control one guy for a bit, put the controller down and then control the other guy ... repeat. The match eventually spills to the floor, where Hennig tosses the ref into Luger, then nails Lex with the U.S. Title belt. Hennig drags Luger back in for a Hennig-Plex, but the ref signals that he's already DQ'ed Hennig. After Hennig throws down the ref the Giant comes out to chase him off and check on Lex. - THE GIANT vs. SCOTT HALL (w/ Syxx) Kevin Nash sits in for color commentary (sounding slightly drunk again. I don't just say this to be funny or insulting. Nash just wasn't all that coherent. About all he said was that the Giant was "one dimensional", then mumbled a lot). Not much of a match. They stall at first, then the Giant picks up Hall and sets him on the turnbuckles. The two trade a few chops before going to the floor, where Hall slams the Giant's hand against the ring steps. Once back in the ring the Giant signals for the chokeslam (which would have been affected by the attack on the hand), but is jumped by the other NWO members. The show ends with a few WCW scrubs running in to save the Giant, conveniently filling up the ring to give a hint as to what the 60 Man Battle Royal at World War 3 will look like. (If you missed it, don't worry: they'll be doing it again this weekend at the end of WCW Saturday Night). - Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: Rude's appearance, while noteworthy this week (and embarrassing to the WWF), doesn't really amount to much. Two good matches aside, the vast majority of this week's show was pointless matches and run-ins. Isn't it ironic how WCW continues to use WWF talent to keep up their ratings momentum? It's simply amazing how so many WCW fans will say "the WWF sucks!" yet turn right around and cheer those same WWF wrestlers when they come in. I'm assuming that they are building to a triangle match involving Malenko, Guerrero and Mysterio. That seems to be the only thing that fits the scenario. Either that, or someone will get a definite win this Sunday and go on to face Malenko at the next PPV. While a three-way matchup would make for a great match, it's starting to make the Cruiserweight division look as limited as the WWF's Light Heavyweight division. The WWF has two stars ... WCW has three. The relative inactivity among the rest of the cruiserweights have definitely placed them far behind these three. The rumors say that WCW is going to try and make up for this by holding a tournament to crown the top contender to the title (which by next week will either be held by Guerrero still or Mysterio). If this happens it shows how much WCW has done to dismantle their existing division (since it'll necessitate their bringing in several guys from Japan). There's also talk of WCW trying to start some kind of "Tough Man" division: an idea which I think is really stupid. Since it's still just a rumor, I have no idea what the "rules" will, be, nor what being in the division will entail. It's just another effort to capitalize on the whole UFC thing. Bill Goldberg, Meng, Steve Regal, Fit Finley and Saturn are all names being tossed around as guys who'll be in the division. World War 3 is this Sunday and I freely admit I have very little idea what the entire card is. 60 Man Battle Royal ... Flair vs. Hennig ... Mysterio vs. Guerrero ... Goldberg vs. McMichael ... is there anything else? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WWF RAW is WAR: Live/Taped: Taped 11/10. Length: Two Hours. Location: Ontario, Canada. HOUR ONE Hosted By: Jim Ross and Jim Cornette. - Prior to the opening they show the finish to last week's Ken Shamrock/ Hunter Hearst Helmsley match. After RAW went off the air Commissioner Slaughter stopped the ref's three count on Shamrock. Helmsley then nailed the referee. A shoving match ensued and Shawn Michaels ended up being rolled up and pinned by Shamrock. Slaughter made the three count. Bret Hart has been removed from the opening footage. There was also no on-screen graphic identifying the location of the show. I'm not sure, but I think they used some canned crowd noise at times throughout the show. Seems like the WWF didn't want to convey the fact that this was a Canadian crowd. - Pull my finger: *KEE-RASH!* "Stone Cold" Steve Austin opens the show with an in-ring challenge to Rocky Maivia. The Nation of Domination's music starts up and the NOD gather at the top of the ramp. Rocky sends Faarooq, Kama and D-Lo to the ring. As Austin is busy laying out D-Lo with Stone Cold Stunner, Rocky slides in and swipes the Intercontinental Title belt (which Austin had left lying on the mat). Austin menaces the announcers, saying he'll get his belt back soon enough. - Butterbean is shown in the front row. - This week's embarrassing Karate Fighters segment. - MARC MERO (w/ Sable) vs. JERRY "THE KING" LAWLER (w/ Brian Christopher) Let's get this straight right off: Mero did not hit Sable, nor is the WWF trying to pass on that impression. Sable was kicked in the head by a horse several days before Survivor Series. Since then she has covered it up with makeup and her sunglasses. During this match the sunglasses fell off accidentally. Fans in attendance saw the black eye last week and word spread on the Internet that the WWF was doing a "wife beating" angle. This simply isn't true. The black eye wasn't meant to be seen. Both Ross and Cornette mentioned several times during the match that the black eye was from an accident, in an effort to kill the irresponsible rumor that was being spread on the Internet and hotlines. Mero gets in Butterbean's face briefly before the match. Christopher comes out after the match has started and sits in for color commentary. Pre-match they show clips of Mero beating Christopher in a match from about a month ago. A somewhat slow match, but Lawler showed he's far from needing to draw a pension. After a sweet looking drop-kick, he comes out to gab with Christopher (who's just arrived at ringside). Mero baseball slides out and knocks father into son. The match resumes in the ring and Mero sends Jerry back out (up and over the top rope) with an uppercut. The match then switches to the King doing comedy spots (such as "boxing" with Mero, then hiding behind the ref on his hands and knees when Mero pops him). Mero is sent to the floor and Christopher kicks him in the head. He then bothers Sable as Lawler manhandles Mero in the ring. Mero takes control, but is distracted when he's sees Christopher out with Sable. Lawler nails him from behind, then spikes him with a Piledriver (and were this Memphis they'd be getting a priest for Mero). Lawler gets ready to cover for the pin, but Sable climbs in the ring and wraps her belt around the King's neck. The ref calls for the bell. Christopher helps Lawler escape as Mero angrily asks Sable why she got his disqualified. (Sable's sunglasses had fallen off as she entered the ring. This is where the fans in attendance got the impression that Mero was "abusing" Sable. Jim Cornette went so far as to say the fans may have the wrong impression about the eye, and reiterated that it was from an accident). Butterbean is shown looking on disapprovingly. On the way to break they hype the upcoming "Why Bret Why?" Vince McMahon interview. - The new "WWF Attitude" spot, now minus Bret Hart. - Vince McMahon's "Why Bret Why?" interview: * When asked if he screwed Bret Hart, McMahon answers that while he accepts responsibility for any decisions he's made ("and I'm not perfect"), it was Bret Hart who screwed Bret Hart. McMahon talks about how it's a "time honored tradition" for a wrestler and a champion to acknowledge those who helped him get where he was when leaving the WWF. Bret refused to do this (i.e. "job"). * Hart leaving the WWF was a mutual decision based on Hart's dislike for Shawn Michaels and McMahon's decision that Hart wasn't worth the money he was being paid. The mutual decision cleared the way for Bret to come to terms with WCW for a contract worth $3 million per year for three years, with 125 wrestling dates per year. McMahon says that to his knowledge this is the largest contract in all of professional wrestling. * Vince suffered a concussion and some lingering vision loss due to Hart's attack. Vince says that he knew Bret was going to hit him, hoped he wouldn't, but ultimately allowed him to. Vince suggests that he might have had a better showing if he'd have fought back. He hasn't ruled out the prospect of pressing charges or filing a lawsuit, but says that it's "up to Bret". (McMahon had a clearly visible black eye). * Broaching the tender subject of what Bret should have done, Vince describes it as if he were telling a "story" (laying out the booking scenario the WWF had hoped to do). Vince says Bret should have lost cleanly to Michaels, stood up like a man, and proved the real champion he was to the fans and other wrestlers. * On the subject of sympathy, Vince says he has no sympathy for Bret. He wishes Bret had done the right thing for himself, the fans, the WWF and the other WWF superstars. To be continued in hour two. - LOS BORICUAS vs. "BAD ASS" BILLY GUNN/ROAD DOG Cornette says Savio Vega and Miguel Perez are upset because someone broke into their dressing room and looted it. It's quickly apparent that Gunn and Road Dog are the culprits as they come out to Los Boricuas music wearing some of their stuff. All four men brawl for a minute or so until the other two members of Los Boricuas come out. Gunn and Road Dog win via DQ. - They run a lengthy feature on Ken Shamrock, showing him beating everyone from Bret to Shawn (in non-decision "tap outs") to Vader. Some UFC clips are included. - Sunny comes out to serve as referee for the next match. - MAX MINI/MINI NOVA/MINI TAURUS vs. EL TORITO/TARANTULA/BATTALION The usual mini mayhem multiplied by three. Non-stop action during the few minutes in which the match lasts. Just as they set up a comedy bit where Sunny does a leapfrog over one of the minis the lights go out. Jim Ross: "Good God no! Through fire and brimstone ... it's KANE!" Kane strides to the ring as the minis scatter. They and Sunny end up huddling behind Cornette and Ross. Cornette, brandishing his tennis racquet, yells at Paul Bearer "Paul ... I've always liked you!" As Kane decides what he's going to do the Head Bangers sneak up behind him. When he turns they smash their radio over his head. Kane doesn't react. They then climb up separate corners and come off with axehandle shots, which staggers Kane, but doesn't knock him down. Kane quickly takes out both Head Bangers with Tombstone Piledrivers. Paul Bearer enters, surveys the carnage and gives his nod of approval. Pretty funny stuff. HOUR TWO Hosted By: Jim Ross and Jim Cornette. - They recap the first hour, then they replay the entire Helmsley/Shamrock match finish clip which they showed at the top of the show. (Arrrrrrgh!) - Rick Rude is in the ring. (What the ... ? Somehow he's grown back the beard which had been missing on Nitro). Shawn, Hunter and Chyna's entrance is intercut with the Degeneration X video, which gets disorienting after a while as they switch every half second or so. Shawn gets on the mic and runs down Ken Shamrock. He says he ran Bret Hart and his family out, and will now do the same to Bret's friends. Hunter then takes the mic and tells Commissioner Slaughter to bring his "fat ass" out. Slaughter comes out, giving Shawn a "three count" clap. Hunter says if Slaughter sticks his chin in their business again they'll knock it off. He then goes on to talk about Slaughter's "old Lady", and how he hears that she's unsatisfied with Slaughter's "privates"-that Slaughter can't go past "half mast". Hunter says if Slaughter doesn't watch out, he'll go over to his house and show his wife his "lance corporal" and show her what it means to "stand at attention". Slaughter smacks him. This leads to the whole gang laying out Slaughter, whacking him with Rude's Haliburton, Pedigree'ing him, and finally laying a big "X" on his chest made out of toilet paper. A few hundred crotch chops follow as other WWF officials try to rescue Slaughter. I'm almost positive the audio was tinkered with during this segment. - SCOTT TAYLOR vs. ERIC SHELLY Solid match, but a bit on the unspectacular side. Taylor hits Shelley on the floor with a drop-kick off the guard rail. He ends up with the pin following a DDT (applied as Taylor leaped from the top rope). Jeff Jarrett "phoned in" during the match, ragging on the WWF for not hyping this phone call (while they overhyped Bret Hart, who isn't even with the WWF any more). Jarrett says he'll make his "debut" on RAW next week. Taylor faces the winner of the Brian Christopher/Flash Flanagan match. The Light Heavyweight tournament final will be at the December 7th PPV. - Marc Mero and Sable come back out. Long story short, Mero challenges Butterbean to come into the ring. He does and the to get into a shoving match after Mero tells him to stop looking at Sable. Really weak. - "Why Bret Why?" part two: * Would Vince welcome Bret back to the WWF? Yes, though Bret would have to apologize for what he did. McMahon says he'd apologize for the decision he was forced to make. There'd also have to be an complete understanding beforehand about what the return would entail. If troubles did arise, Bret wouldn't get any more "free shots". * Did Bret "sell out"? Yes, says McMahon, because Vince helped him sell out. He says Bret sold out and he doesn't blame him for one bit for doing so given the money involved. He says Bret acts touchy about this subject, and that every time Bret denies selling out he loses some of his credibility. Vince says it's no big deal and that other WWF superstars may come to him asking for help "selling out" as well. * The WWF will go on. He regrets the decision he was forced to make, regrets that Bret made the wrong decision, regrets that Bret's fans are hurt by what Bret did, and regrets that his own son had to see what happened backstage. Nonetheless, McMahon stands by the decision he had to make. * When asked what he would say to Bret, Vince reiterates several of the above points. He says it's too bad that Bret forgot that they were in the business of "sports entertainment". * When asked when he'll be over it, Vince says he's over it now. Bret will always be a part of the WWF in some small way or another. McMahon will remember the good times, thinking of Bret as the "Excellence of Execution". "It's just too damn bad that in the end Bret really wasn't 'the Best There Is, the Best There Was and the Best There Ever Will Be'. Bret had his chance to prove it in his final match in the WWF ... and failed." - VADER vs. GOLDUST No match. Goldust comes out (in pajama top, nylons and gold slippers) and says he hasn't been cleared to wrestle. He presents a letter from his doctor, which Vader crumples up. As Vader is arguing with the referee Goldust pulls a hammer out of the sling his arm is in and whacks Vader on the head. Vader drops like a sack and lays on the mat twitching. - Commissioner Slaughter comes back out and says that Helmsley crossed the line. Slipping into the old Sgt. Slaughter persona, Slaughter announces that he will come out of retirement to face Helmsley at In Your House "Degeneration X" on December 7th. - ROCKY MAIVIA (w/ the Nation of Domination) vs. DUDE LOVE Rocky, carrying the Intercontinental Title belt, announces that this is a "non-title" match. Imagine my surprise when Rocky and Dude go into a sequence where they trade scientific holds, reversing armbars and such. Going into the break they run the promo for 13 tape WrestleMania set. Dude Love signals for and nails the "Sweet Shin Music". In comes the other Nation members, who deliver a whipping to Dude Love. Steve Austin runs in for the save, though Rocky manages to escape with the title belt. D-Lo Brown suffers a second Stone Cold Stunner just before the show ends. - Next week: Taka Michinoku vs. Aguila. Brian Christopher vs. Flash Flanagan. Comments: A lot stronger show than I expected given that it was taped. Rocky Maivia is getting almost as much heat as Vince McMahon! I'm really starting to get into his heel bit (just as it took a while for Eddie Guerrero to win me over with his new persona). Dammit, just when I figured Survivor Series would be the last PPV I'd get this year, the next In Your House is starting to interest me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bottom Line: Once again I switched over to RAW when it came on and never switched back. For all its lack of depth in the roster and lack of quality in-ring action, RAW is still going farther to entertain me. They're still doing things that are surprising and entertaining from segment to segment. With WCW, they blew their wad ten minutes in after Rude had come out. From that point on I, as a regular viewer, know that the most that will happen is one or two okay Guerrero/Malenko/Mysterio/Jericho matches will take place, some NWO run-ins and a possible Sting appearance at the end. The rest-and this is the way it's been for weeks-looks hardly better than the average WCW Saturday Night. RAW is still only hampered by their lack of depth in the roster, which has meant lesser quality wrestlers have had to be used, which has brought down their overall match quality. For those asking "why doesn't the WWF hire more wrestlers?", the answer is, simply, there are none. WCW, with their bottomless checkbook, has them all. Cruiserweights who aren't being used ... quality midcarders not being used ... names from the past ... there's just so many wrestlers currently under WCW contract that they just don't have time to show them all. Maybe half of WCW's roster is on a "revolving door" and they're lucky to be seen on TV once a month. People gripe about the WWF's lack of talent as if the WWF can actually do anything about it. No matter how much money the WWF makes, and how much they have to offer, WCW can offer more-almost always in conjunction with a promise of less work. Literally dozens of guys are currently wrestling for WCW completely blinded by the money and easy schedule-oblivious to the fact that their career is going absolutely nowhere. For those only in it for the money there's no need for them to look beyond what WCW is currently giving them. This is why holding out hope for guys like the Giant and Ric Flair to jump to the WWF is probably a waste of time. In the past there would have been a natural migration of talent between the two federations, which kept the rosters of both fresh, as well as serving to revive sagging careers of those wrestlers. Both companies are now employing a siege mentality, locking all their wrestlers into long term contracts. This quickly leads to the wrestlers becoming boring to the fans of the respective promotions. That's why Bret Hart jumping ship becomes such a big deal (just as most any defection the other way would be to WWF fans). Hart's hardcore fans aside, deep down many WWF fans realize Hart had done all he could, and were on the verge of losing interest in him (if they hadn't already). WCW's fans, always just as anxious for new talent as the WWF's fans are, welcome him with open arms. Even a great many of the WWF's fans (myself included) regain some interest in Hart because of the new potential matches. The once natural flow of talent back and forth has been cut off by WCW. They have signed most everyone there is to sign, and those not on TV are sitting at home watching Monday nights, content to be paid without working. The WWF simply can't muster enough money to draw away a significant number of wrestlers. When they do get any, like Jeff Jarrett, it's because WCW decides he's not worth matching the money the WWF is forced to pay him. Many of WCW's wrestlers are kept on the payroll not because of their talent, ability or drawing power, but merely to prevent them from working for the WWF. There currently exists a serious, legitimate threat to the future of the WWF. All it would take would be for the USA Network to drop the WWF to turn them overnight into a regional promotion barely on par with ECW. What would happen then, you might ask? First off, a great many WWF wrestlers would be unemployed, with only a slight few being able to find work elsewhere. If the WWF folded altogether it would be the single most disastrous event in the history of professional wrestling. First off, the vast majority of WWF wrestlers would be out of work. ECW and the other indys would employ some, some might go overseas, and some could end up in WCW. Most of them would simply disappear from the business. The second thing that would happen is that WCW would probably fire a great many of their own wrestlers, since there'd be no further need to keep them under contract. Next we'd see the average match quality go way down. Wrestlers wouldn't need to push themselves. With WCW being the only show to watch, the wrestlers would know that they wouldn't have to knock themselves out to get over. They also wouldn't want to risk injury, as there'd be numerous guys waiting in the wings to replace them. Pro-wrestling would become a very bland, watered down pastime, dominated by the fading stars of the past and present, crowding the young athletic superstars out of the spotlight. This is obviously a very drastic scenario, and one that would take a whole hell of a lot of (further) bad luck to strike the WWF. While the chances of the WWF going away completely are next to zero, (as the name of the promotion would live on somehow, no matter how small it became), there does exist the real possibility of the WWF being knocked out of competition with WCW. As I said above, all it would take would be for USA to drop them (especially if it happened before the WWF were able to arrange a new television home elsewhere). Anyone who thinks the WWF could fold and have it benefit WCW are really ignoring the reality of the situation. WCW obviously wouldn't hire all the WWF wrestlers. Why? Because they wouldn't have to. Any wrestler who declined a low offer from WCW, who couldn't cut it in ECW, wasn't willing to wrestle at fair grounds and swap meets, and wasn't willing to leave the country probably wouldn't work at all. Guys like Ahmed Johnson, who are near the top of the WWF, wouldn't even get a job in WCW if he didn't accept what little pay they offered him. With there being no one to outbid, and the wrestlers having no other credible career options, the minimum salary in WCW would get pretty low pretty quick. Again, WCW stars aren't currently being paid based on ability, potential, and drawing power: most are being paid to keep them out of the WWF. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the WWF, even when they marched over the competition back in the 80's, never sought to shut down all the competition in the wrestling world. They realized that they needed other promotions to exist to serve as breeding grounds for new talent, as well as a place for the older wrestlers to go every so often. Wrestling promotions need the talent to move because the fans need to see new faces periodically to stay interested. WCW, if they had their way, would shut down all the opposition and replace it with themselves. Vince McMahon only wanted the WWF to be the biggest wrestling promotion in the world. Since Ted Turner took over WCW, he's not only wanted his to be the biggest, he wants it to be the ONLY wrestling promotion in the world. That's why he's trying to kill the WWF. If not in the whole world, at least in the United States. Then Mexico, Canada Japan, and the world. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Week's Winner: RAW. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Slobberknocker Central" and "Monday Night Recap" are copyright 1997 by John Petrie, and all opinions expressed therein are his own, and not those of "Internet Access, Inc". Check the "Slobberknocker Central" main page for info on how to receive the "Recap" free via E-Mail every week. Volume One, Number 105 of the "Monday Night Recap", November 17th, 1997. John Petrie petrie@bji.net Slobberknocker Central http://www.bji.net/pages/petrie/index.html