I thought they explained Austin's motivation well, working it as an extension of the "New Paranoid Stone Cold," but I think it would've been better if Austin had played the "Old Stone Cold" card by mentioning that the Old Stone Cold was a miserable, untrustworthy son of a bitch who hates Vince McMahon's guts. Austin's sure not getting any cheers anymore, though. Who ever thought they'd hear an "Austin sucks!" chant long and loud on WWF TV?

Your New WCW Champion, Kurt Angle: I'm glad they gave Angle a week in the sun as the top face before they brought back Dwayne. Especially since Smackdown was in Pittsburgh and Angle got to not only have the main-event face spotlight pretty much to himself in his hometown, but also win the WCW Championship! Boy, that was yet another time when I was glad I didn't read the spoilers on Wednesday, 'cause I marked out like a little schoolgirl when Booker tapped in the Angle Lock. After the OuiCW run-in, I threw my remote down on the couch. I was all set to finish up this column and rip the WWF a new one about them being predictable and going with a standard schmoz ending. When Angle kicked out of Booker's chairshot-assisted pin, I jumped up. When Austin came down and hit Angle with the Stunner, expletives flew from my mouth and my remote went flying towards (but luckily not into) my TV. But when Angle grabbed Booker, I was off the couch, cheering and jumping up and down! Nobody's more relieved than I am when my early cynicism turns out to be wrong. In this case, I'm really glad I was wrong! Now I'm really psyched for his budding feud with Booker T. Even if I would've liked a month of Austin vs. Angle, this works just fine for me. I know that the marks are the lifeblood of this business, and they love The Rock, so they'll get The Rock. I know, a couple of weeks ago I said I missed The Rock. I did. AT THAT TIME. So I'll watch Rock vs. Austin. Heck, I may even root for The Rock, though that remains to be seen, since he's such an arrogant jerk. But in my heart of hearts, I want Austin/Angle, at least for a little while. But who knows, maybe they could come back to Austin/Angle in a year, after Austin/Triple H has run its course? I love those long dormant issues, like using the Madison Square Garden incident as fodder for DX two years later.

Invasion Predictionz Recap: Eight matches were announced for Invasion at the time I wrote my last column. Let's see how I did.

Earl Hebner vs. Nick Patrick: Let's shock the world and say Patrick via screwy officiating. If they had announced that Foley was going to ref this match, I would've picked Hebner! I WAS ROBBED!!!

Tazz vs. Taijiri: My man Taijiri with the Blinding Green Mist. Bull's-eye!

X-Pac vs. Kidman: I'll go with Kidman, since X-Pac's been baked out of his mind on TV for two weeks straight. I don't know if he was baked, but I called it right.

Canadian Blondes vs. Team Canada: Team Canada gets the duke via dissention in the ranks of the Blondes. Eh, you can't win 'em all. I guess the E&C breakup is a ways off, though.

The A.P.A. vs. Palumbo and O'Haire: I'm tempted to go with the Acolytes here, but I think they're close to splitting up, and a win over the A.P.A. would really help Palumbo and O'Haire get some much-needed credibility with the fans. Palumbo & O'Haire get the win. I made the mistake of assuming the WWF was worried about giving Palumbo and O'Haire credibility.

Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy (Hardcore Title): I think they'll put Van Dam over. It's his first WWF match in 4 years, and most of the people watching on Sunday have never seen him before. Jeff Hardy is already over, so he doesn't need the win. RVD needs to be established, and beating Hardy and winning a title is a good start. RIGHT ON THE MONEY, BABY!!!

Trish Stratus & Lita vs. Stacy Keibler & Torrie Wilson: The WWF divas get the victory. Chalk another one up for the Amazing Boots.

Team WWF (Y2J, Kane, Taker, Angle, Austin) vs. Team OuiCW (Rhyno, The Dudleyz, DDP, and Booker T): Team WWF has to job here in order for the Invaders to have any future credibility. They do, when Austin abandons whoever's playing Ricky Morton/face-in-peril at the end of the match (my vote for that role is Angle.) Even though Austin's participation was more active than I predicted, I'm giving myself this one.

Totalz: I went 5-3. Not bad. Foley robbed me out of another win, though!

When Thrillseekers Collide: The cynic in me wants to complain that it looks like Chris Jericho is going to be feuding with Lance Storm over the Intercontinental Title instead of doing something higher up the card. But let's look at the positives: We're almost guaranteed to get some high-quality matches out of this deal. Those two have worked together in the past and mesh well together. I'm a Jericho fan, but listening to his schtick on RAW, I thought that it has gone a little stale. Maybe a heel turn is in his future, in order to freshen up his character? I wasn't watching WCW then, but I've heard almost nothing but good things about his feud with Dean Malenko, and his (aborted) feud with Goldberg seemed like it had potential. It's something to think about.

The Underachievers Connection: May God have mercy on my soul, but I'm actually enjoying Big Show and Billy Gunn right now. I know, I said I hoped this Invasion/Defection thing would open up some other slots for some developmental talent, and I still do. But Show and Gunn are fine as comic relief/jobbers-to-the-stars. I thought it was pretty funny when Gunn told Show that driving through the parking lot doesn't count as going to the gym!

Mutual Admiration Society: This week I was planning to plug an individual writer, but outside events necessitated a change. TheSmarks.com is one of the sites I visit on an almost-daily basis. Scott Keith has recently announced that the site may be shutting down soon, ironically due to too much demand. The server can't handle all the hits they're getting or something. He said he would have to go the 1Bob route and place pop-up ads all over the place, and that wouldn't even ensure survival, so he'd rather go out on his own terms, if he can't get a sponsor. You can read his whole statement here

This is a personal blow to me. Not only is Smarks one of the sites I depend on for news (and Don Becker's RAW recaps, which I enjoy only slightly less than Our Fearless Leader's,) it was the first site to publish a column of mine (even if it was slightly abbreviated,) in their "Smark Crew" section. If you want to read it, you can go here I'd like to thank Aaron Marco, who gave me the first (and thus far, only,) editorial guidance of my writing career. I hope you guys all land on your feet. I'm not worried about Scott, since he's under the Wrestleline umbrella with his RAW rants, or Don, to a lesser extent, since he's also with Wrestleline doing Heat. I hope the other guys latch on somewhere.

Go visit The Smarks before it goes under. The checkout date Scott gave was August 7. Geez, first Wrestlecrap, now The Smarks? Internet wrestling sites are dropping like flies. If I were ghoulish, I'd start a Dead Pool to see which one goes down next.

Parting Shotz:
I should've done this last week, but better late than never: I'd like my thoughts and prayers to go out to the family and loved ones of the late Fabulous Freebird Terry Gordy. Tragedy seems to stick close to wrestling. I wasn't a Freebird fan growing up, since the WWF was the only promotion I was into as a youngster. But I still appreciate the pioneering work that the Freebirds did, and Gordy was a big part of that. R.I.P., Terry.

Sorry, no Cheesy Movie Trivia again this week. Maybe I'm getting lazy, but they're just not presenting themselves to me, and I don't want to stretch too far, since this is a wrestling column, after all.

How long do we have to wait until Taijiri gets some gold? His skits are consistently hysterical, he speaks better English than Kanyon, and his matches are always outstanding.

I didn't get any requests for tape reviews. Should I take that to mean you think I suck and you don't want me reviewing anything? Well, I don't care what you think! If I want to review something, I'll review it! Seriously, if any of you have suggestions, feel free to drop me an email, along with any other questions/comments/bitches/moans/complaints.

I was watching VH-1 this week when this question occurred to me: Why are there no hot metal babes like Lita Ford around anymore? If you were a metal-head in the late-'80s (and I was,) Lita Ford was your dream woman. Now, who do we have? The closest thing to a current metal sex symbol that I can think of is that skank Courtney Love. [shudder] If I were married to her, I'd probably eat a shotgun, too.

Until next time, I'm Chip Boots, and this has been My Two Centz.