WOW UNLEASHED - CRZ ... LESS UNLEASHED by Christopher Robin Zimmerman WrestleLine/WrestleManiacs Fighting the aftereffects of my bronchitis, I flew down to San Diego over the weekend to visit my brother with the intention that he, his girlfriend Lise and I would head up to the Forum and catch the inaugural WOW pay-per-view. Along the way, I attempted to play the part of legitimate press with mixed results. Here's a highlight package of my weekend. WOW airs at midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning on XHUPN so I forced my hosts to watch - actually, Lise was converted a few weeks ago to WOW, but my brother has managed to pretty much avoid it to now. Episode #18, all highlight packages to set up the PPV, was very well done in my opinion - a good way to make the PPV seem important, higlight the feuds and buildup to the big matches - in short, it did it's job. It wasn't as slick as, say, a Sunday Night Heat, and that was just fine. The first thing that one needs to take from my personal experience is a brief lesson in navigation. Namely, in order to get to the church on time, one must first assimilate the following:
  • Don't watch The McLaughlin Group while in San Diego
  • While Mapquest generally works great to find driving directions in the Bay Area, it tends to make more bizarre choices in SoCal
  • It's best to read and memorize the entire set of instructions...or maybe print it out and take it with you to consult later
  • Despite my best recollections from four years and one quarter of UC Riverside, I didn't have enough of a navigational overview in my head to try this without a real map ...and finally
  • The Century Freeway (105) does not actually connect to the Golden State Freeway (5), and relying on the reverse to hold true will cause you to take a long involved detour...by the time you actually figure it out... at Griffith Park. So, rather than my clever plan of arriving at 3 with plenty of time to figure what's what, I ended up following the rather dimwitted plan of arriving well after 5, missing the pre-game show (but, apparently, no dark matches) as well as most of the curtain jerkers. I *did* make my way to the media sign-in where credentials and a press kit awaited. I now possess lovely glossy promotional photos of Ice Cold, Hammerin' Heather Steele, Slam Dunk, Sandy of the Beach Patrol, Lana Star and Bronco Billie...and after we run 'em by the Sportsline lawyers, maybe you'll see them too. We'll see. I have to pause here and give an enormous thanks and shout out to Dimitri Hodgkinson and (I think/hope it was) Stacy Grobe who work for the PR company WOW is using for making me feel welcome and not at all foolish for masquerading as a real reporter in the Media Area. The way things were set up were wrestlers would be brought in after a certain period of time after their match and be available for interviews. Since everybody I was thinking of talking to was (obviously) in the later matches, I decided to head out to the floor and see if my seats were still available. Before I had found out I was taking on a WrestleLine assignment, I had already bought a pair of second row tickets right in front of the camera, figuring (1) hey, it's historical (2) being on TV is always a hoot. Of course, when you're as late as I am, they've already moved some people down from the cheap seats to fill out the section, but there was still a free seat in the row, so I took it. As serendipity goes, I ended up right next to my own personal favourite man on the scene, Dr Feh, who filed his own report over on some other site with his own fascinating take on the night's proceedings. He also was burdened with knowledge of the post-PPV spoilers already taped a fortnight earlier but managed to set them aside and enjoy the show anyway. WrestleManiacs should just hire THIS guy for taping recaps and skip the middleman (me). Since I hadn't read Clint's report yet, due to the fact that the show hadn't taken place and he hadn't written it yet, I had no idea about the sign confiscation (they didn't search me the way I came in - heh) but as it turned out I didn't stay in the seat long enough to worry about getting that SCAIA RULES sign I always carry, yet never seem to get on camera, on camera. Oh well. I *did* sneak a HEY KIM sign on there, but you can't tell it says that and it was just a brief glimpse anyway - amazingly, Kim saw it, even though she had no idea that's what it said - now you know. If you're dying to see me, there's one really good pan after the...I think it's after the splash match. I'm the guy in the striped Big Dogs polo/rugby/whatever shirt - Clint is to my immediate right and surgically attached to his digital camera. My PPV report follows, gleaned both from an in-arena viewing (where applicable) as well as watching on tape at my brother's house that night. Now, keep in mind, I've watched about 18 hours more of this federation than our regular PPV recapper, and I'm going to guess that this kind of "preparation" will lead to a much different conclusion than our two friends who pretty much went into this show cold. First, let's get the major negative out of the way. The production gaffes went from merely annoying to rather pathetic. It seems like the only way to hear vignettes and setups was from crowd mics catching the audio off the big screens up on the stage - and not only was THAT not too loud to begin with, but the crowd mics didn't really seem to adequately capture the crowd, either - although the crowd dug just about everything going on while I was out there (and apparently everything save the cage match), it was much, MUCH quieter on the PPV. I guess a lot of vignettes were aired during the countdown show, however, so even at 4:30 there was a chance to at least get the least amount of "research" in before coming into the show. In the opening match, the returning Randi Rah Rah defeated Jacklyn Hyde in 2:23 with a springboard plancha for the pin. The first reward for long-time viewers is the surprise return of Randi Rah Rah - a nice touch, given that they didn't mention her return at all, yet it fits with the internal continuity (the mirror shot put her on the injured list for "about three months" - and sure enough, she's back just about 3 1/2 months from the airing of her last match). No problems with the quick match - Jacklyn is more personality than wrestler at this point, and for all intents and purposes this is Randi's second match, so we wouldn't expect her to have TOO much to show in the way of moveset. For the people who *weren't* in since the beginning, it was a second introduction for the first time and I think it worked. Farah & Paradise drew the Beach Patrol in 2:47 after an apparent double pin was counted by two different refs. Well, I can give points for originality, but this is a pretty cheap cop-out ending. Obviously, there were two legal ladies and the referee's decision should have been final. Also, I'm pretty sure the ladder has a pretty wide berth (well, given the small amount of teams, maybe not THAT wide, but you know what I mean) between these two pair and the Beach Patrol probably should have gone over, but no real complaints. Nothing terribly special, either - this is probably the only match out of the opening part of the card that I would have liked to have seen more time invested in...could just be because there were four ladies involved instead of two. Who knows. "Persian carpet?" Tanja the Warrior Woman pinned Jane Blond in 2:47 after a spinning heel kick. Blond seems licensed to job, much to Clint's dismay. One botched leapfrog, but all in all another fine syndicated match that was put here to fill time - there are probably two schools of thought here: syndie matches belong on the syndie exclusively and have no place on the PPV, or syndie matches on the PPV are just fine and easily explainable. Let me attempt to explain why I think they're just fine: this company has forty plus ladies on the roster and one hour of television a week. That's usually three or four matches, which means probably ten or twelve ladies get exposure a week. If running a three-hour PPV means lots of short matches in the first hour BUT more ladies appearing on the show, what's the harm in it? Everybody's got their favourite, so why not try to get everybody's favourite some TV time? Now, one can come back with "they have no business being on PPV" but this company has been airing matches for FOUR months - already, a lot of the ladies have shown *tremendous* improvement...leaps and bounds! So reward them - give 'em the time! I thought there was a lot to enjoy here - even with only three minutes to work with, both Tanja and Blond managed to get across "personality" in their match - and it worked. Officer Nicky Law (with Officer Kristy Order) pinned Hammerin' Heather Steele in 2:00 after a neckbreaker. Another bonus for PPV viewers - a debut! I'm not sure what the rationale is behind introducing a tag team by having a singles match, but you had to wonder why this particular gimmick hadn't shown up sooner. I was a bit surprised to see Steele go down so quickly, but more people will probably remember the post-match cuffs and nightstick shenanigans than the actual match...which, at exactly two minutes, may have been the point. Firmly entrenched in my seat and just in time... Boom Boom & Caliente defeated Jade & Lotus in 4:47 when Boom Boom hit a Samoan Drop on Jade for the pin. Caliente's forbidden mambo never looked so good - not that I was watching her lower half all that much, given that other prominent parts of her body were standing at attention to occupy me. The leis all over the arena for Boom Boom was a nice touch (Aaron and Lise each got one). The Jaded Edge was wicked and got a nice pop. Heenan busted out the classic Ricky Atakki line and it went over pretty well even in 2001. Nobody cared much about Jade's grandmother (it was her grandmother, right?) in the arena, but it looked better on TV. Boom Boom - who should (rightly) feel insulted to be called Mount Fuji - worked the bulk of the match for her team and really stretched out compared to what we've seen on the syndie - both in the delivering department AND the selling department (especially on that Jaded Edge!). It sure looks like an Asian Invasion split angle is coming up - Lotus will blame Jade for the fact that they never win, or vice versa, and it'll all blow up WHEN WEDGIES COLLIDE! Meanwhile, I'm wondering if/when either Boom Boom or Caliente will get some more singles action. Bronco Billie snuck out a schoolboy rollup to get the ironic pin on Disciplinarian in 3:55. Billie is even hotter live - oh sorry. They need to decide on that bulldog when it happens, though. All I really remember about this match is the fact that ring announcer Thomas Griffin botched his first call of the winner (and took a lot of grief from my section) *and* that I correctly predicted that Disciplinarian bought the ranch. Does it make sense? Absolutely it does not. And that's *precisely* why it DOES make sense in this WOW world we've all come up in over the past four months. I hate to drag a WWF cliche out, but either you Get It...or you don't. Obviously, Clint got it because he was set to high five me right after Disco made the announcement...what a hoot! Also, this match had the funniest (my opinion) exchange of the night, which I paraphrase here: Marshall: "You should see her spread!" Heenan: "Yeah, and her ranch isn't bad either!" Slam Dunk and Roxy Powers fought to a double disqualification in 3:36. Again, watching live, I got the entire story - you can clearly see Josh ready to call for the bell to DQ Roxy before Slam goes ahead and chokeslams him to bring on the DDQ. It didn't translate as well on TV. I was waiting for Josh Milton to pop the other ref...but this isn't that kind of show, I guess. The nameless ref did his best to sell *his* chokeslam...but didn't jump very high. Josh ain't in trouble. Riot pinned Wendi Wheels in a "hardcore" match following a powerbomb in the vicinity of a metal tray in 9:42. For the first long match of the night, they managed to take two very charismatic performers and craft a match that held the interest of everybody in the building - and not only because Riot insisted on continually dousing Wheels with liquids at strategic moments (ha!). The shopping cart full o' plundah was used very well, but loud WHACKs in the arena didn't translate at all to noise on the TV, so the match probably didn't seem as hot to the PPV viewers as it did at the Forum. Riot's top-rope spinning elbowdrop was a *great* move, and a nice manoeuvre to debut at a pay-per-view. Wendi, while following old-school tradition of coming out in jeans for a hardcore match, disappointed me by not wearing her open coveralls. I think I was the only Wheels fan in my section, though, so overall the crowd probably didn't care. Interestingly, when Riot asked the crowd if there were any Rioters in the house, I thought to myself "Hey, I'm a rioter for WrestleLine" but that's really a better joke when you HEAR me say it than try to READ me typing it. (Like, I pronounced "rioter" as "writer" - yeah - it loses something when you type...and explain...it. Come to think of it, that isn't that interesting at all. Never mind.) I'm starting to think Riot was born to do this. I'd still rev it up for Wendi, though. In a splash match, Jungle Grrrl pinned Beckie the Farmer's Daughter in 9:44 after a - yes - splash...from the top of a tall, tall ladder. Pop of the night from where I sat as Grrrl pulled out the ladder and hit the splash (sorta) for the fall. The rules weren't explained very well at all - it sure looked like Grrrl hit a top-rope splash earlier in the match but there had to be a 3 count afterwards. Then again, Griffith said the winner had to hit a splash from the top rope, and that ladder most certainly *wasn't* the top rope, so can we really say Beckie lost? Beckie's splash onto the knees looked BRUTAL - nobody pulled anything there and that was probably my second loudest "ohhhhh" of the night. Caged Heat won the tag team championship finals over Harley's Angels when Loca pinned Rider at 5:38 after Vendetta debuted, hitting a Savage elbow to turn the tide and counter Thug's interference. Caged Heat are *over*, wow. I'm not *totally* sure these are the two best combinations currently in WOW, but if not, they've gotta be pretty close to the top. Any time the Hart Attack clothesline is busted out, SOME part of you has to smile - doesn't it? Marshall kinda botched the call of Vendetta's run-in, but it helped to add to the confusion they probably wanted to project, and they figured it out after the decision. What I was interested in was does Vendetta get to defend the belt a la Demolition, or is she just a hanger-on without a belt? Unfortunately, I didn't think of this soon enough... At this point, I headed up to the Media Access room to see what was up. There were four camera crews there - the local (LA) UPN station, FOX station, Univision, as well as another Spanish show all had camera crews there. There were some other people around I didn't catch. When I went in, Sandy was sitting down with the Spanish show. I took a seat and watched one of the two monitors, which were broadcasting the PPV feed - one muted, one with the sound down REALLY low, so I didn't really catch much of the commentary. Beckie was led into an adjacent room behind a curtain to talk to...somebody. Perhaps a website, I didn't catch it. One of the interesting things back in the media room was a strict adherence to what you and I like to call kayfabe - they made sure Beckie was shuttled out the door before allowing Jungle Grrrl to come in for interviews because "they genuinely hate each other and can't be in the same room." A couple of the cameramen actually bought this - of course, they also were sexist pigs who made a lot of offhand remarks about oil and mud wrestling when none of the WOW women were in the room. Jungle Grrrl gave interviews in flawless Spanish to both crews - after hearing a bit of Spanish from her on the hype syndie, I wasn't completely surprised by this, but it was definitely interested to see this side of her. I hope they can use this aspect of her character in later shows. She apparently grew up in Colombia, which would definitely explain an Amazon rainforest background...that is, if they didn't creatively rewrite her history. You can never tell, can you? I probably should have lined up for an interview with Jungle Grrrl, having missed Beckie, but the Univision folks took SO long that I really didn't want to impose, despite the fact that I was pretty much expected to impose. Probably not the best time to get shy, but not only was I still partially trying to recover from being so late, but I had some sort of sinus headache stemming from my bronchitis. Excuses, excuses - she was there, I was there, I blew it. I think Riot stepped in and out in here as well - again, all I probably had to do was tap her on the shoulder but I chickened out. In this case, I can pretty much say I was genuinely intimidated - must have been the fact that her hair was nicer than mine, or her eyes, or who can say. Come to think of it, Riot couldn't have been in then, because she interfered in the WOW Championship match, helping along the resulting ending as Terri Gold defeated Danger in 4:20 with the Perfect 10 quebrada and pin to regain the WOW World Championship. Lise made a big deal out of the fact that you could see a big knee brace under Danger's pants - I guess I'm used to seeing *two* big knee braces on Steve Austin, because I paid it no heed. Also, I didn't mind as much as others that Riot couldn't bring up Danger the first time - it just looked even more wicked getting dropped on the floor, which in storyline terms made the powerbomb even more devastating - of course, the table not breaking was unfortunate (Lise SWORE she saw "saw marks" on the table but I found the shot inconclusive). Anyway, that was probably the best looking moonsault Terri's hit. Is a rubber match with Jungle Grrrl in the works for Terri? I don't know - I wanted to interview Terri, but she ended up having other things to do... In the hair match, Lana Star managed to overcome the wrong end of a handicap match, pinning Ice Cold in 5:16 to win her hair - Poison decided to let it go...and took off. Patti Pizzazz was dumped in the trunk (legitimate arm injury?), leaving Star to fend for herself. She tried to get a release from the trainer, but David McLane ran out to make a "unlike (blank for you to fill in), WOW delivers on its promises" speech and try to look the face - and it would probably ONLY work against Lana. An errant crutch swing from Poison put Ice down. We never *did* find out what Poison was doing in Lana's dressing room, come to think of it. The shaving took a long, long time on TV - I was alternating between watching it on the monitors and watching Caged Heat talk to Univision 34 (Loca knew Spanish well enough to speak it - the other two understood what was being said but couldn't add anything). Lise described Poison's entrance video to me, and now I can't wait to see it ("It's all Spiderman! She's normal, but the poison changes her hair to that THING, then she touches some chemist guy and he DISSOLVES!"). Anyway, I *knew* I'd get a shot at Ice Cold, and sure enough, after she cut a promo for the TV crews that had stuck around (somebody had to leave to head into a forest - didn't know if it was a fire or not), I found I was the only other person ready for an interview. Only, I WASN'T ready. I still hadn't quite adjusted to a bald girl in front of me who was very good at staring RIGHT at my eyes. She was great at staying in character, and I ended up losing mine...mostly because when I tried to call upon my mental notes, all I could hear was the voice of my producer saying "Put WrestleLine over - put WrestleLine over..." Nonetheless, we did manage to get this 75 second WRESTLELINE EXCLUSIVE! which I transcribe right here, starting with Ice: Who are you, anyway? I'm - I'm sorry - I'm Chris Zimmerman from WrestleLine, a website that no one visits and no one likes. Right? Dimitri: No, everybody visits it, it's a big wrestling site. He's just not serious. I can't think of a - of a way to ask this, so I'll just have to come out and ask it: how do you feel? I feel completely betrayed...like I've been sold down river. Poison, I don't know what the hell happened to her, you know, she's supposed to be my great tag team partner - I took care of Patti Pizzazz, I took her out of wrestling for good, so it was a no-brainer. And I think McLane had something to do with all of this. McLane seems behind everything. He is, and maybe he's the devil. (pause) I can't respond to that either, ahh, it seems that you've been better off as a loner. Do you think you - do you'll ever trust anybody again? Hell no. I'm gonna be a loner all the way. I'm not trusting anybody in this company, seriously. Didn't you pick the stipulations for this match? (pauses - ha! Got her back!) I did, because I know that, you know, I knew that if Lana Star were to go bald, it would ruin her frickin' life. And I'm gonna go on and I'm STILL gonna ruin her life, whether I'm bald or not. So, do you anticipate ruining her life a different way? Absolutely. Ummm....I didn't prepare, I'm sorry. I have nothing. She'll be out of the entertainment business for good when I'm done with her. Watch your back. Thanks. And just like that, it was over. I mean, here I am with all *this* hair talking to a bald woman who could no doubt give me her unique perspective on what it'd be like, and I completely forgot to bring it up. It went by so FAST. Also, she was STARING at me. Not much of an excuse, but there you go. You see people on TV...you expect them to be taller than you and not the other way round. Another disconcerting thing. I should sit down so everyone I interview can be taller than me. Anyway, we can chalk it up to a learning experience and assume I can (and WILL!) do better next time. Meanwhile, before any of this took place, Thug won the steel cage match in 14:55, getting enforcer Terri Gold to count the fall on a bloodied Selina Majors. Apparently, there were entrance problems, pyro problems, and most of the fans that were brought in were only interested in the hair match, because the lights had to be dimmed when a lot of people left before this match had even gotten underway. Lise and Aaron both said they were bored by this match, but watching it on the monitor and later on TV, it looked like a perfectly acceptible old-school brawl - oh, with the added help of a *major* bladejob by Majors. I guess old-school didn't play as well in the arena (or even with some high-profile viewers), but even granting that it was probably the worst of their four (so far) WOW matches, I still really dug this match. What was also a lot of fun were Caged Heat pointing to the monitors and (amazingly!) predicting Josh's top of the cage bump - a few people pointed to this moment as overshadowing the competitors, but anybody who's been watching the syndie for weeks know that it's just Josh Milton being "Reff Hardy" as he's come to be known on the message boards. Just another ingredient in this match - Harley's Angels, Terri Gold, everybody had a part to play, and while it may not have provided a per se "blowoff," it *did* set up some interesting possibilities for Selina and Terri...for me, it worked: I want to see what happens next. Anyway, once the PPV was over, Ice Cold came out - she'd needed some touching up, we were told, and that was why it took so long. Also, it was rapidly becoming clear that she was going to be the last person to give interviews - Terri Gold wasn't available (selling Selina's chairshots, wink wink) - Selina and Thur weren't going to be available, and most disappointing of all Bobby Heenan wasn't going to come out after all. On a whim, I tried to see if Josh Milton was available - I figured I could at least ask "Do you know what day it is, and where you are?" to get a laugh, but he was busy selling his Shane McMahon and wasn't going to come out. Given what he went through, I was willing to give him more the benefit of a doubt than, say, Terri. After the end of the show, there were some other web folk milling into the Media room who had stayed in the audience to watch the show (perhaps a smarter move) - I saw Jim Quigley, the 1wrestling Pervert, taking pictures but I didn't introduce myself. I saw WAWLI guru and Cauliflower Alley Club higher-up J. Michael Kenyon and meant to introduce myself as the RSPWI moderator to see if he'd recognise me, but he had an entourage with him, so I chickened out. Check his website for bald Ice Cold pics, by the way. He should have some up by now, I'm thinking. Finally, there were two or three guys I'd never heard of with 'Net radio shows - they all seemed pretty cool and I probably should have gotten their names and plugged their sites, but again, I am forced to defer to the haze in my brain. A lot of the ladies had gathered outside in the Forum Club and were milling about with VIP's and fans. The only item of note I'll share is that Beckie hugs EVERYBODY at the drop of a hat, so she's definitely the perfect choice for her character. I stuck around long enough to confirm that, indeed, I was taller than most all of them - this should have been obvious to me, so I don't know why I was actually disappointed to learn this - then, after a quick goodbye to Clint (and a pose for a photo with him - Hammerin' Heather Steele took it!) I found my way back outside to catch up with my brother and his girl for my ride back to San Diego. They had hit the souvenir stand - shirts $10, pix $3 - and duly dropped some tenners for shirts (hey, the price was right). They also showed off their leis, and Aaron told me he had some of Terri Gold's gold confetti...but never showed it to me. He said he tried to get some Ice Cold "snow" but suspected it was soap. They relayed their experience of attempting to get their fifth row seats with people moved down into them - didn't sound like a fun time, and I guess after a certain time the Forum Security just don't care if you have a ticket for the seat - next time, we'll be on time or early for sure. Hell, we'll get front row while we're at it. Dimitri revealed that there would be a taping in February, one in March, and that the 8 April PPV *would* be at the Forum, so I guess the church hasn't affected the routine just yet. It sure seems to me they will still be taping post-PPV matches prior to the PPV, though, so we'll have to see how that works out. Once back in San Diego, Aaron (who had to be at work early next morning) hit the hay while Lise and I watched the PPV to see how it turned out. Lise has experience working on live shoots and was quick to point out that the video switcher managed to pick the wrong camera angle almost every time he had a choice - after a while, I started to see what she meant. Also, the obvious production miscues were disappointing, because as the old ad goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. I have a feeling, however, that almost everybody who bought this PPV will probably buy the next one because it was only - check that, MOSTLY - "hardcore" WOW fans purchasing the pay-per-view. Which leads me to the raving lunatic part of this article. (What, it isn't long enough?) Shaddup. Perhaps we should do it Final Jeopardy! style: A: 1/2*, DUD, -*, 1/2*, *1/2, DUD, -*, *1/2, *1/4, DUD, -**, -**, -***
    Q: What were the twelve most recent Amazon ratings for Scott Keith's book? It's one thing to have a pre-conceived notion coming into the pay-per-view, and I'm sorry that David McLane stole Scott's lunch money when he was a young lad, but even with production problems taken into account this pay-per-view was LIGHT YEARS and EONS better than our esteemed PPV recapper let on. This company has been putting out televised product for just about FOUR months, but a style has definitely developed in that time, and I feel that all it would take is actually *watching the programming* to get a sense of the flavour of this promotion...and to set your expectations accordingly. And even if you can't be bothered to do THAT, and let's face it, it's hard to look like a "wrestling historian" when your choice of facts is so bizarre as to appear to be thumb-in-the-ass guesses (calling Thug the 2001 version of Peggy Lee Leather is either a retroactive joke that didn't work, or an ungraceful, poorly worded stumble into the truth - either way, not ID'ing Selina Majors in the same breath proves the point) - hmm, where was I going before I picked three different ways to bitch - oh yeah, this particular review, even more than your standard ECW review, even more than your standard WWF review, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that some people have no business (a) assigning star ratings, and (b) being taken seriously as a source for said ratings. Both simultaneously AND separately. Let's be real here - negative stars are SUPPOSED to be for absolute bottom of the barrel, and even THEN, it's ONE negative star. That was ABSOLUTE ZERO "when I grew up in this business." Check the mains: Terri Gold vs. Danger: -**
    Lana Star vs. Ice Cold & Poison: -**
    Thug vs. Selina Majors: -*** Come on. That's a JOKE. I mean, I refuse to give out star ratings and even *I* can see that that's nowhere NEAR what these matches should be getting. The only possible conclusion is reached, again, in Celebrity Jeopardy! terms, this time by Sean Connery - or was it Ted: "Not a fan of the ladies, are ya Keith." We shouldn't be watching WOW purely for workrate. We'll notice when it's improving, to be sure, (and with precious few exceptions, EVERYONE has improved markedly - this ain't GLOW...no matter how much GLOW/POWW trivia you want to try to trot out, this ain't GLOW), but also we'll enjoy the cheese for what it is because we should *expect* that out of WOW, we'll laugh when McLane tries to get across that he's cheap by switching flowers, we'll STILL pop for high spots that we don't expect...look, this is a fledgling promotion with unlimited potential - when they start backsliding and blowing it, THEN it's time to bitch. But not yet. Not now. It's a pity that people went into it blind and/or claiming "sadomasichism" FORCED them to watch it... and that they are read so widely, because a lot of people might get the wrong impression about this show, and this promtion. It was a GOOD show. This is a GOOD promotion. This is my bias...but also, I happen to be right. (wink) "WOW Spring Vengeance" is 8 April - give the syndies a looksee between now and then, adjust your expectations accordingly, start saving your two thousand pennies, and hopefully, I'll still be around then to talk about it! See you next week for WOW #19! Christopher Robin Zimmerman
    www.CRZ.net