LAST WEEK'S BIG MISSED OPPORTUNITY: When he was playing Connect Four with William Regal, Mick Foley unbelievably did NOT utter the words "Pretty sneaky, sis"! C'mon, Mick! YA SLIPPIN'!!!

One strange thing I've noticed about Net fans, ever since WWF took over WCW and ECW... they seem to want WWF to reconstruct the old world of wrestling for them! I have seen very few Net writers discuss how the three federations can be integrated into one program. Everyone who has an opinion to express seems almost to take it for granted that a separate "WCW show" and/or "ECW show" would be Very Good Things. The discussion has, for the most part, already moved beyond that. Now we hear little besides analysis of how WWF can best build up the other promotions to the point where separate shows become possible.

I suppose that the unspoken assumption is that the mid-1990's were a golden age for the industry. I can see where that comes from, certainly... ECW was re-defining the cutting edge, WCW was at its peak, and WWF was being forced to pull out all the stops every week to keep up. But guess what... that cannot be recreated. It's quite markish to think otherwise, honestly. The WWF can call their shows WCW, ECW, NATO, D.A.R.Y.L., or whatever they want... it'll just be an angle. All the shows will still all be owned by the same company. They are not going to challenge each other to a higher level. The shows would have the same names that they did back when you thought wrestling was at its best... but the resemblance would end there.

What's the advantage of interpromotional angles, anyway? Why did everyone describe the Invasion as their dream angle? After all, WCW and WWF had been taking frequent shots at each other for years on their own shows. The great thing about interpromotional angles is that things can be COORDINATED, right? So we could see people fight each other whom we had never seen in the same ring before... so we could see plotlines that span both federations. If you just split right back into separate promotions, aren't you getting rid of the very aspect that made the buyout potentially cool to begin with?

Let's also talk for a second about what's realistic in a business sense. Why did WCW and ECW fold? Sure, as rabid fans of the industry, we could point to a million decisions made by both promotions that hurt their chances. But couldn't it also be that there simply wasn't enough economic demand for wrestling to support three different promotions? You might disagree... but if you want WWF to start spinning off separate promotions, you'd better be damn sure. Because we KNOW that the WWF can stand on its own, and we don't KNOW that WCW or ECW can. If history repeats itself (which it tends to do), and WCW and/or ECW do fail as separate promotions, that is going to be absolutely devastating to the WWF. Which, in case you haven't noticed, is the only nationally televised wrestling company we've got right now in America.

Look, right now, the WWF has the greatest roster in American wrestling history... no one can seriously dispute that. Why split it up two or three ways... creating two or three more mediocre rosters... creating huge risks for the future of the business... and losing the advantages of having one set of storylines? I say, let's use all that talent to create the greatest SINGLE wrestling show that the world has ever seen.

I've set up some polls to gauge your opinions on this, because I really am curious as to what people think. Please take 'em, and if enough people participate to make the results interesting, I'll discuss them next week. The links are below.

Should the WWF portray its shows as being presented by different promotions?

If the WWF does decide to portray its shows as being presented by different promotions, which would you rather see?