Welcome everyone to the very first "Benediction!" I am looking forward to giving you, my online friends, some of my opinions and experiences in this column.

Well. Where do we go from here, now that the WWF has won "the big one?" Oooh, that was a swerve. We have all read in the 'rasslin news that the WCW product was worth nothing. This past pay-per-view was evidence of that fact. Vinnie Mac has decided to let his biggest acquisition rot rather than re-create a Titan flavored WCW product. Chances are, we will never see the name WCW, or ECW for that matter, used in any meaningful way in the wrestling future. And that is an absolute shame.

How many of you out there were thinking that WCW would achieve some sort of rebirth, when McMahon bought WCW at a bargain price? How many of you former ECW marks were salivating at the prospects of a ECW invasion? How many of you were like me, and wanted to see wrestling organizations that we grew up watching receive a new life? Let's be honest, we never thought that ECW would make a return, and I don't think we expected WCW to return to its glory days of the mid 80's or the height of the popularity of the NWO. But a fair expectation, at least for WCW, was for it to have its own timeslot, and see it try to rebuild itself again. But after this pay-per-view, will we see WCW mentioned again? Somehow, I doubt it--unless Vinnie Mac is planning to bring back the NWO when Hall and Nash get signed next year. For right now, however, WCW is dead. ECW is on life support in litigation. We have the return of a wrestling monopoly. And that is an absolute shame.

Can Hogan's new group be any kind of competition? Heh. Unless they buy out Goldberg, dig up the Von Erichs, and pry the Ultimate Warrior away from his commune will they have any shot at putting together a national product that could give the WWF a scare. What about MECW, or Dusty Rhodes' crew out of Florida? Do you think they have a snowball's chance in Kane's pyro? Right now, either you see your local indie group, or you see the WWF. It's that simple. Frankly, where is the WWF going to improve, if there is no other viable organization to give them ideas or competition?

It was not my intention for my first article to a be a gloom-and-doom piece about the future of wrestling as we know it. I did enjoy Survivor Series and there are not too many things to criticize in the show, in my opinion. I am just preparing myself for a future without WCW and ECW, and the alternatives that they could have provided in my wrestling viewing. But this is 2001; the Four Horsemen are retired, Steamboat is retired, the Midnights and Rock 'n Rolls are on video tape, and Dusty Rhodes is fat. Okay, some things stay the same. But WCW as I knew it is gone, along with any hope of a ECW rebirth. They are now sitting like paperweights on the McMahon mantle--worthless relics of wrestling lore that will collect nothing but dust. And that is an absolute shame.

God bless you and yours, and have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.