Hi, yo te llamo Rob T. I wrote for [slash] from August '99 to September 2000, and a whole other site and faction spawned out of the opportunity Chris gave me, but that's a story for another day. Suffice it to say, CRZ rules. That out of the way....

New Era? HA! Nothing has changed, except for the fact that the one thing I [and a lot of people] used to watch WCW for, the great wrestling is now gone. What's left? A promotion in shambles, with the same old guys at the top, and the 1800Collect guy as the World Champion: a fact which is somehow so appropriate - because to quote somebody who's actually been caught in a bear trap on national TV, the Road Dogg, they better call somebody and fast.

Don't call me, I'll be watching the WWF. - Bitterness, 4.28.00, by yours truly.

I've been a wrestling fan of sorts since 1994, when we came across a funky looking show on Saturday morning. Superstars (? Memory fails me) was the most fascinating thing that then-14 year old Rob T had ever watched. I watched it every now and then, even then developing huge markdom for Owen Hart, Undertaker, and The British Bulldog. And then, in 1996, I met a friend that also liked wrestling. He invited me over to watch "Wrestlemania." The first ever PPV I watched (on a black box! My friend stole cable back then, in the days before the digital receivers.), was Wrestlemania 12. I remember marking out like mad when Shawn won in overtime. I remember the "funny fast talking guy" (you know him as Vincent K. McMahon) mentioning this "RAW" show. And I was hooked.

Why am I giving you the "how I got into" speech? Because of what came next. WCW...and the n W o. My younger brother (also hooked by now) and I would constantly fight over which show to watch during the glory days of late 96-early 97. And we also got into that most inevitable of debates....what if.

"What if Scott Hall faced so and so?"

1996-1998 (and even into early 99) was a lot of what if Monday nights. Goldberg-Austin/Rock/Kane/etc. Hall-Rock. Ahmed-Hall (hey, there was a time when Ahmed ruled! Deal.), Goldust and Rey Mysterio (okay, they weren't ALL dream matches, but wouldn't that be cool in a weird way?). Sting-Rock/Austin/UT/Kane/etc. Flair/UT! (We were big on this one. Ryan always said that Flair's chops would not hurt the Undertaker.) The fact of the matter is, we knew it would NEVER happen, but it was always awesome to think of what would happen if WCW and WWF joined forces. Fast forward to 3.23.01. WWF purchases WCW splashed IN BIGTIME letters on WWF.com. YES YES YES Major markdom. Even at least a year, possibly two, after the luster fell off, this was enough to revive the "what if, what if" sessions.

And watch your head, we're back in the present. 7.6.01. The WCW angle is bombing. Shanking. Billy Gunn-ing, to rip off the totally awesome 2001 KOTR. It doesn't help that WCW is a damaged and very fragile brand as it is, but it's a miracle that it survived Booker-Buff. It can't take much more - another Buff/Booker will sink this angle for keeps, at least in your humble writer's opinion.

It's fitting that we just had Independence Day, because the present truly is the day of reckoning. One more fuckup. MAYBE two, if the first one isn't really bad, and WCW is dead for real.

How do you save it? It's a question already being tossed around among the smarks.

Easy answer for me: answer the what ifs. By that, I mean, start delivering the reason for this angle: the f'n dream matches! You need only one. Booker/Rock is already possible. Surely someone can coax Sting out of retirement. Maybe Vince swallows his pride and we see someone get speared out of their boots at Invasion.

WCW has to be rebuilt to be viable, there's no denying that. But the rebuilding itself is of little to no interest to fans. Don't scrap the angle, just give us something to mark out over whilst it runs! Keep running the angle and bring in a big name, have them [finisher] the bejesus out of Angle or Austin or someone like that, build that for Summerslam, and there you go. Admittedly, giving away a big money match may seem a little desperate. But ....it's the day of reckoning. The chips are down. They don't have much more room for error.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Let the weak be strong

Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay

It's Independence Day.

And agree with me or not, another year of [slash] excellence is in the books and you *can* quote me on that.