"Steph, I nearly forgot what a nice lady you are."
- Kurt Angle

Nice. Really nice. I really appreciate that. I really, nicely appreciate that. After the week I had, that was really nice and I appreciate it. What you did for me was really nice. I did not know that you took requests. That's nice.

Hey. HEY.

I really didn't want them to take the belt off of one Chris Jericho. If Jericho had the title or Stephanie McMahon to anchor him in the topcard, I would feel safe. Now I am frightened. The best thing the company's done in months and they give the rematch and the title switch away on TV, and Jericho gets a two week title reign, and hmm these are frustrating times. At least they totally de-emphasized the McMahons this week. I bet you didn't notice!

The highlight of RAW is RAW was Kurt looking deep into Stephanie's eyes and remembering what a nice lady she was, and Stephanie gazing longingly at the U.S. champ and remembering what a nice lady he was. It's not so much a glimmer of hope as it was a harkening back to days of yore, way back in 2000, when Kurt Angle charmed young Stephanie and, concurrently, a nation. The year 2000 -- which ran from December 13, 1999 to April 1, 2001 -- was the greatest year in WWF history, which made it the greatest year in world history. Now lookatcha. Lookatcha. You're pathetic. You buy WCW, you get the biggest and easiest angle of all time handed to you on a silver platter, and what do you do? What did you do? I'll tell you what you did, you screwed it up. You dropped the ball. You want me to give you a little speech? Do you want me to? You suck. I'm ashamed of you. You make me sick.

I had a dream, okay, and it involved WWF superstars united against the WCW menace, and for two glorious weeks in July they gave it to me, and ah ah ah forget it. It's too late now. What's lost is lost, we can't regain what went down in the flood. But happiness to me is you and I love you more than blood.

By "you," I mean "wrestling." By "blood," I mean ... "blood," I guess.

Alright, our top story is what happened on RAW but y'know, you really should have watched the show. And if you did, how does me going through the quarter-hours and saying "I really liked the long anklelock spot on Undertaker but I wish he would've tapped out" appeal to you? It doesn't. Nassau has got to be the worst crowd they ever run. They should call it ASSau.

I'll tell you what astounds me is that WrestleMania at the Sky Dome is going to break the record gross set at last year's show. 52,000 tickets sold? With business being on a downswing and the cold product? That has to be encouraging. They've been saying since the summer that Austin vs. Hunter looks to be the WrestleMania main event, but I gotta say that if they didn't run Austin vs. Rock at SummerSlam as planned, and if they didn't run Austin vs. Rock at Survivor Series as planned, couldn't they save it for Mania? Now here's where you say, "But that was the Mania main event last year and two years before that," and then I say, "Exactly." You can do this great full circle hype where Austin stole the belt from Rock a year ago and Rocky finally gets his rematch, and Rock is 0-2 against Austin at Mania and 0-3 in Mania main events, and this time it's face Rock chasing heel Austin, and, well, it's so perfect that I'll cry if they squander it.

Dave Meltzer of the San Jose, Calif.-based Wrestling Observer Newsletter wrote on his website: "Expect major changes in the WWF over the next month, although with the nature of the business being what it is, nothing is for sure until it happens and if the crowd doesn't react right tonight, then many of the plans will change." On (sucky) Live Audio Wrestling with (sucky) Jeff Marek, Dave described these potential changes as "gutsy."

Hmm.

HMMMMMMMM.

Well, you've got me. Surely they're not going to go to split rosters. This Surv1v0r Series, I gots no idea what's going on or who's going to turn or who's going to win or what'll happen to the losing entity. As it stands, the "line-up" of matches, as we in the biz call it, looks something like this:

Unaugural Brawl
Team WWF: The Rock, Chris Jericho, The Undertaker, Kane, and Vincent Kennedy McMahon
vs.
Team Alliance: Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, Booker T., and Shane O. McMahon

Nothing says WCW like Austin, Angle, RVD, and Shane McMahon, that much is certain. And according to VKM, a member of Team Alliance is going to defect to the WWF during the match, and that man is Austin. Except Austin says "no" and gives Vince the stunner, but Vince says "ooh just like the good old days, great to have you back," and Austin is all "I am not turning, not after I did the shitty fake turn in July, not without doing my money programs with Rock and Hunter." Plus, Jericho beat the hell out of the Rock with painful Chairs, so they don't like each other, and folks are still saying "Ooh Kurt Angle is a double agent who's going to turn on his team just like Austin did at InVasion," and hey, my friend, the turn didn't make sense, but making him a double agent can only lead to more confusion, and the boy died as a face so why torture him some more by making him cut those lame babyface promos?

Intercontinental Title
Edge "Adam" Copeland
vs.
Test "Andrew" Martin

They haven't announced this but I heard things. Edge and Christian are both turning into the Marty Jannetty of the break-up (a remarkable reference to wrestlers from the olden days, p.s. "barber shop"), and it damn near breaks my heart. You know what they SHOULD do is put Edge and Christian on opposite sides in the main event instead of the McMen and push the hell out of both of them from here on out. I can't believe they did the ladder in their second PPV match. I can't believe the feud is over. I can't believe a lot of things. Test, he and Booker T. are going to drop the WWF tag belts to Tajiri and the Big Show sometime soon, I reckon. These wrestlers are both Canadian and Blond. This match probably won't even happen.

I guess that's it for now. The show is on 11/18, and it is of dire importance because this could be the end of the World Wrestling Federation, for over 50 years the revolutionary force in sports entertainment, after two decades of national television. Not really. ;) I hope they mention Bret Hart's name at the pay-per-view.

Speaking of ... Canada, Helen Hart died. She was 76. I think. Helen received The Stroke on the Spanish announce table on September 28 and never recovered. She was the Matriarch of the Hart Family and a wonderful woman. She really probably might have been. The Harts have had a rough go of things these last few years. Seriously.

The XWF has been a sneaky, quiet little start-up group, but Bret and Hulk Hogan's names have been mentioned as potential top draws. Bret was over there in Australia doing those crazy Australia shows, and I'm thinking if you combine Bret and Hogan with the disenfranchised WCW loser-squad from WWAS (Buff, Konnan, Disco, Lenny, Lodi, Crowbar, Smiley) and the disenfranchised 1998 WWF Attitude guys from WWAS (Lawler, Jarrett, Road Dogg, Shamrock, Mean Streets Posse, Gangrel) and the dorkus Hogan cronies from XWF (Jimmy Hart, Brian Knobbs, Kevin Sullivan) and the HWA guys that the WWF will cycle out of their 90-days one of these days (Kaz Hayashi, Yang, Skipper, Knoble, Moore, Karagious, EZ Money, etc.) and tasty luchadors (Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis) and the ECW leftovers (Shane Douglas, Sandman, Sabu, Mahoney, C.W. Anderson, Simon Diamond, Dawn Marie, Roadkill, Sinister Minister, Nova, etc.) and Sable and Vince Russo and Brian Lawler and Kronik and Modest and Daniels and ICP and Vampiro and Eric Bischoff and the itty bitty Matrats and the Tough Enough rejects (Josh, Chris, and Taylor~~~~~~~) and a TV deal, you could make like a fifth-rate version of the already second- or third-rate Thunders from the last days of WCW. And I would watch that in a heartbeat. Once in a while.

Actually, we still need a financial backer.

Money, Mark Corner of Jabroni Drive and Know Your Role Boulevard .......... 316-3160

They could make Netcop the booker and everything. That'd be a treat.

In Mixed Martial Arts news ... I can't. I didn't even figure out that it stood for "Mixed Martial Arts" until a couple weeks ago.

In King of the Indies news ... Bryan Alvarez and Dave finally met face to face and shared a warm embrace.

Countdown To Kevin Nash Saving The Industry: Courtesy of Dave Meltzer, according to those close to Nash, he's acting as if it's a given he's coming in and has largely given up the idea of working the New Japan show in January. His sticking point might be the schedule, since he doesn't want to work more than 12 days a month. WWF still has mixed feelings about Scott Hall for obvious reasons, but Nash is saying he won't go in without Hall. How about a picture of Scott Hall ... in a BOX? Outsiders inVading is one of those things that won't lead to any good matches or any Elevation but would be totally awesome ... for like two weeks.

Then again, in 2001 (which will run from April 2, 2001 to an as of yet undetermined date), "awesome for like two weeks" has been par for the course.

Justin Shapiro
[slash] Tuesday

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