Greetings, sports entertainment fans! Break out the bubbly, [slash] wrestling is 2 years old!!! Whoo hoo!! I know my writing's become pretty sporadic over the last 6 months but I'm still the same WWF mark I've been since my first column! My tastes haven't changed much since that first column-I still love the Rock, Edge & Christian and the Hardys; I still loathe XPac. The state of wrestling has gone through quite a bit these past 7 months, what with the demise of both ECW and WCW and their subsequent in corporations into the WWF.

We've seen Rocky go to Hollywood and most of the other top WWF guys either working around injuries-like Stone Cold, Kurt, Jericho and for a while both HHH and Benoit. Now HHH's on the shelf for a few months while Benoit is out for almost a year! We've seen a monster babyface try to be taken seriously as a heel, a great heel tag team be accepted as faces, and one of my favorite tag teams turned into a joke. (Yeah, seeing those hardworking Hardy Boys lose to the Big Suck & Billy Bitchcakes was the low light of the week for me! )

I wrote last week that I was enjoying this Invasion angle-well that was BEFORE I saw the mountain of ineptitude that is Marcus Bagwell! God what a crappy match THAT was! I don't know what freaked me out more-seeing Buff in that match or seeing Vince stripped down and doing bad porn dialogue!!! Yuk!!! Geez, one minute he's making out with Trish then he's pawing TorrieWilson-are you sure Steph is writing THIS? It's good to be the boss!

Anyway-evidently we're at yet another rebirth for the Light Heavyweight division, this time with X-Prat at the helm. Let me get this straight-he's done basically NOTHING the past few years and he's rewarded not only with the belt but with the booking sheet too? Whoa! So will he end up holding this belt for at least as long as Gillburg? And hmmm...against Billy Kidman at Invasion-could we see him holding BOTH the LHW AND the Cruiserweight belts after the PPV? Somewhere Kevin Nash is smiling....

Sadly there's not much to say about the women's division either. To mangle a popular quote 'I have not come to praise the Women's Division but to bury it'. If you're ever read my other columns, you know how I've disliked the women's roles in the WWF. As a female fan, I've longed for someone to admire and the WWF has lacked for a role model. When I first started watching the WWF, we had Sable but she was known more for her....uh...assets than for her wrestling skills. She had some interesting matches with Jacky and Luna but they were more gimmicks than anything.

It seemed that as her popularity grew, Sable wrestled less. Guess she didn't want to risk that surgery.... Not long after Sable left the WWF, citing sexual harassment. The word being spread was that Sable felt the WWF was holding her back, that she was fending off Hollywood offers after her successful spread in Playboy. She showed up on a Nitro not long after, on display in a front row seat. She and Vince eventually reached a settlement though I'm sure she didn't get quite the 150 million she was asking for. So with the absence of Sable, there was a void of T&A.

The division still had Jacky, Ivory, Luna and Tori ( and for a while Nicole Bass) but none took the mantle from Sable. If memory serves me, there was an evening gown match between with Debra and Sable, resulting in Debra winning the women's title. Quite a feat, considering Debra knew even less than Sable when it came to wrestling! Debra held it until for some reason, the Fabulous Moolah took it from her then Ivory got it then the Kat(!!) then to really insult the title, Harvey Whippleman won it during that stupid snow bunny match!

Jacky got it back for the real women then was tripped up by Tori to give it to Stephanie McMahon, who held it for 5 MONTHS before losing it to Lita, who lost it to Ivory who was beaten soundly by our latest departing woman-Chyna. Did you see Chyna trying to sound political when talking of her departure from the WWF? She left because she has no leverage! Vince has a monopoly-but that's fine, it's just business! Excuse me, but this was the guy you referred to in your book as doing more for you than your father ever did. Linda McMahon announced coldly that they were NOT renewing Chyna's contract-there's quite a story beneath the surface.

Regardless, Chyna still has the women's title and with no plans to have her on WWF TV, what will happen to it? She HAS to make an appearance at one of the PPVs, so the title can move onto someone else, possibly Lita. She's not MY favorite female wrestler but I give her respect-she's not seen as strictly T&A.

So-where is wrestling itself headed? Damned if I know. I've been finding myself getting exasperated with it sometimes but not so much that I can't watch it. I've been taping it for the past 3 years and it's not quite the fun it used to be but it still has its moments. So you know where I am on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays!

In closing, I'd like to say Happy Anniversary to our esteemed webmaster and also say thank you! You've given me a place to express myself creatively and I've befriended some very cool people along the way-hey to the Oracles, all of whom wrote for this site at one time or another. I've even been lucky enough to lose my heart to someone I'd met on this very site so [slash] wrestling will always be a special place to me! Again, a very happy 2nd anniversary and many more!! Until next time, dear readers.........

Sharon
First Lady of the Oracles