WWF/WCW/INDY NEWS

News and Rumors for Tuesday, November 6

No flashy intro today folks, so let's get straight to the "news" report...

Yesterday evening, the WWF presented their latest edition of their fabled RAW program, one which continued the long road towards the federation's next PPV Survivor Series. Speaking in general terms, the show wasn't brutal by any means, but it was also not a homerun. The primary theme, which was interwoven throughout the entire broadcast, was one which we've seen before as Vince McMahon declared that one member of the Alliance would be defecting to team WWF at Survivor Series. McMahon didn't stop there as he went on to specifically identify Steve Austin which caused chaos within the Alliance with everyone looking at Austin with an eye of suspicion. Elsewhere, the Rock recaptured the WCW world championship from Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle, fresh from defeating Kane, took on the Undertaker. The rest of the program was highlighted by a pretty lacklustre hardcore match between Rob Van Dam and Booker T, an Intercontinental title match between Edge and Test (which Test actually won), and of course some usual T & A in the form of Stacy, Lita, Ivory and Jackie. If you weren't able to catch the show, you can check out our RAW Report to find out what happened.

In ratings news, RAW scored a 4.0 composite off of hours of 3.8 and 4.1. That's pretty much average I guess. Sunday Night Heat drew a 1.0 rating which is pretty lousy. I guess the experiment to stack Heat with meaningful matches is now over. Excess ended up drawing a 0.6 rating which is towards the lower end of the scale.

Later tonight, the WWF heads into East Rutherford, New Jersey for the weekly Smackdown! and Sunday Night Heat tapings. Not much is known about the event so far with no previews to go by as of this writing. However, on the basis of what happened on RAW, we can assume that there will be definite fallout from the Rock-Chris Jericho title match, one which not only saw the belt change hands, but Jericho showing definite signs of a heel turn as he attacked the Rock. Meanwhile, Kurt Angle is still learning to adapt to his new friends and his respective relationships with Steve Austin, Stephanie McMahon and the rest of the Alliance will likely be an important theme in the coming weeks. As for a main event, it wouldn't surprise me to see Angle and Austin team up against Taker and Kane because of the interference and things of the like. If you're a mark for spoilers, please check back later tonight and we'll have the results posted as soon as possible.

Well let's start with the opening interview on RAW where Vince McMahon came out for the standard fifteen minute interview. The main purpose was here was two-fold from Vince's perspective, one from a storyline sense where he causes tension within the Alliance by stating that Steve Austin is about to rejoin the WWF and one from a business standpoint as he hopes the added intrigue will lead to a higher overall buyrate. Whether someone really does turn to team WWF remains to be seen though, but it almost surely will not be Austin simply because the WWF still has extensive plans for him as a heel, especially where the Rock and Triple H are concerned. I suppose it could be Kurt Angle in the much talked about "mole" storyline where he's simply befriending the Alliance just so he can turn on them at Survivor Series. Personally, I don't see this happening and I think Angle's turn is legit and he'll be staying on the Alliance team for the forseeable future. The only person that's really left is Rob Van Dam, someone who has seen his push scaled back greatly in the recent past to the point where he's replaceable in the Alliance. The storyline with Steve Austin seems over and Van Dam is still popular enough that it would happen quite naturally.

The only thing that you really wonder about is how the McMahon family will fit into the way Survivor Series plays out. If the hype is to be believed either the Alliance or the WWF will be out of business after Survivor Series wraps up and when and/if that happens, it will be interesting to see how the "losing" McMahons keep themselves on TV (cause you know they will). It's funny and maybe it's just me, but whenever I see Vince McMahon on TV after a semi-long absence as a face, I always wonder how far away his next heel turn is. And while I'm at it: how long it will be before he unites with Stephanie and Shane again and reveals that he succeeded in pulling a fast on everyone, including his wife Linda. Anyway, I really hope this all isn't leading to the evil Mr. McMahon but with the WWF you can never really tell.

Meanwhile, Chris Jericho and the Rock seemed to have their blowoff match last night as the RAW main event, with the Rock successfully regaining the WCW championship that he lost to Jericho at No Mercy. There's two important things to note here that will have an impact on future storylines. The first is that at the end of the match, Jericho displayed a definite mean streak which seemed to suggest that he is pretty much through playing the babyface and will resort to any means to succeed. Whether this translates into a full heel turn will probably be revealed tonight because the audience reaction on RAW was generally indifferent to what happened. The other important ramification directly has to do with the Rock's win. As we heard backstage in a conversation, the Rock is "waiting" for a rematch against Steve Austin and now that he has the WCW title and Austin has the WWF title, some sort of title match seems imminent. If the WWF feels inclined, they may make it a title unification match where one belt is basically killed off. Obviously this match, when it happens, won't be taking place at Survivor Series but it could very easily be used on the year-ending Vengeance PPV or more preferably the Royal Rumble in January. Of course, this all ultimately depends on the outcome of Survivor Series because if one of the promotions doesn't even exist, then it'd be tough to have an inter-promotional match I guess. So bottom line is that it's pointless to speculate before we get a grasp on how things will fall into place after Survivor Series.

Kurt Angle's position in the Alliance seems on solid ground now, but as mentioned before his relationships with both Steve Austin and Stephanie McMahon have already begun to be addressed. The Austin/Angle situation is pretty simple - even though they are on the same team, there is obvious tension between the two owing to the fact that they've been at each others' throats for the past three or four months. It would be pretty silly if they were portrayed as being life long best friends because that just isn't believable. In any case, I doubt we'll be seeing one turn on the other anytime soon simply because of this - it's been beaten to death over the summer and right now it just isn't the in-ring answer for the WWF's troubles. Out of the ring, it's fine because Kurt and Austin have the ability to engage in some great skits backstage just because of their unique relationship. As for Stephanie McMahon, if last night was any indication, the WWF is perhaps heading towards re-starting the "friendship" that she once enjoyed with Kurt Angle. If anyone remembers back to 2000, this was perhaps the best and most interesting long-term storyline the WWF had come up with in several years, but it really went south towards the end and the payoff was so cheap that many agreed that the WWF simply ruined what was a marketable opportunity. If lighting can strike twice, then it's all good for the WWF because Steph's husband Triple H is about a month away from returning. If the Kurt-Steph relationship blossoms in the coming weeks, you can bet your bottom dollar that Triple H will have something to say about that.

Speaking of Triple H, like I just mentioned, he is fully anticipated by WWF management to be ready for action at the December PPV "Vengeance" in San Diego. Promotional posters and even commercials are now hyping his return for this event, which means that the WWF is probably very confident that they can use him at this event or they wouldn't purposely advertise it as such. Although it hasn't been confirmed and although Triple H left the WWF in May as a full-fledged heel, it is very likely that he will return as the prototypical "fan favorite", just because of his soon-to-be-witnessed problems with Austin and the Steph-Kurt thing I mentioned above. Furthermore, whenever a wrestler of Triple H's stature returns after such a long absence (examples: Austin after neck surgery, Rock after shooting his movie), there is no other choice but to make them face, at least in the immediate context. The fans for the most part are just so happy to see the wrestler back, they automatically cheer and I think the WWF will use this momentum to push Triple H as a babyface. I don't know if he will join the WWF though, just because he's not exactly buddy-buddy with either The Rock, Chris Jericho, Undertaker or any of the top guys, the mission could very well be accomplished by just having him be an independent badass who is after everyone and anyone. In fact, this is pretty much what Triple H said when he appeared on Excess a few months ago. He commented that his main goal as a performer was to reach the top again and it didn't matter who he had to go through to get there. Before I wrap this paragraph up, also note that he is expected to be cleared to wrestle at Vengeance, which logically means that he could make an appearance slightly before that date. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The WWF didn't really do a great job with the undercard on RAW in my opinion. Perhaps the only important development was that Test captured the Intercontinental title from Edge, which probably raises more questions than answer. For one, Test is still co-holder of the WWF tag team titles, which will probably lead to him and Booker T dropping those straps pretty soon. Additionally, if the Edge-Christian feud is still going on, then we're back to square one where they are concerned except with a different title. I also think that the recent numerous title changes are really hurting the prestige of the title and the history both promotions (WWF and WCW) have. Not only is it nearly impossible to keep track of who is the champ and who isn't (quick test: who's the WCW cruiserweight champion? If you can't answer that instanteously, then that's my point exactly.), it seems like historic occasions are not given the due they deserve. Like when Undertaker & Kane held both promotions' tag titles at once and when the Dudleys became the first team to win the WWF, WCW and ECW tag titles, they were mentioned and quickly forgotten. In my opinion, it should have been made into a bigger deal because it is wrestling history.

The Hurricane alter hero into reporter "Greg Helms" (a la Superman/Clark Kent) was a nice touch, but it seems like it's much too late for Hurricane, who is the Alliance's resident jobber. Elsewhere, Matt Hardy-Lita continue to run into more problems. There's nothing more to say except that we'll more see more of these communication errors as the WWF decides whether to go through with the split or not.

The WWF has yet to announce any more matches for the Survivor Series but because so many feuds involve more than two wrestlers, there is a good chance that they will simply build the rest of the card with two more four-on-four or five-on-five matches with the possible addition of a women's match as well since the latest trend has been towards women's matches. Either way, there probably won't be more than five matches on the card just because that main event is an elimination match with ten men and that in itself could around an hour to complete. I don't know why I'm doing this, but here's what a possible card could look like. I probably forgot someone and it's by no means accurate.
- Austin, Angle, Booker T, RVD & Shane vs. Rock, Jericho, Undertaker, Kane & Vince
- Christian, Test, Lance Storm, Hurricane & Kidman vs. Edge, Jeff, Matt, X-Pac & Albert
- Bubba Ray, D-Von, William Regal, DDP & Mike Awesome vs. Faarooq, Bradshaw, Big Show, Tajiri & Spike
- Raven, Credible, Tazz, Morrus & Chavo vs. Saturn, Gunn, Palumbo, Snow & Eddie
- Lita, Trish, Jackie & Torrie vs. Molly, Stacy, Ivory & Terri?

Wrestlemania X-8 (I still wish they would just call it 18 or XVIII) tickets went on sale last week and as we all know, the response has been unbelievably tremendous from fans in Toronto, around Canada and from all over the world. Tickets originally went on sale last Friday to "preferred" customers. I'm not exactly sure what a preferred customer is, but I guess it's someone who has attended live events or PPVs regularly in the past. Anyway, over 28,000 tickets were sold on this first day with reports indicating that all the floor seats were completely sold with only the upper and middle decks left. Tickets for the general public went on sale a day later on Saturday and it is believed that about 25,000 more tickets were sold on that day, bringing the total to somewhere close to 55,000. The stadium itself will probably accomodate around 70,000 and some simple math reveals that the WWF has already sold about 80% of the seats, which is simply fantastic. The gate for the event is already at $3.5 million, tying it with last year's Wrestlemania in Houston, Texas but with over 10,000 tickets still to be sold, that number will be shattered and in all likelihood this will be the first wrestling event ever to top the $4 million mark. If you're confused why the gate is so high, it's probably solely because of the low exchange rate the Canadian dollars get for an American dollar. Since the Canadian dollar is way lower than the American, prices are more expensive and so live events in Canada always draw more money than a comparable (seating wise) live event in the USA. Getting back to Wrestlemania, the WWF has been so pleased with the ticket sales that they issued a press release proclaiming all the info I just sputtered out. The end result is that Wrestlemania X-8 will be a huge event, probably bigger than last year's.

As we reported over the weekend, in some very saddening news, Helen Hart, the matriarch of the legendary Hart family, passed away in a Calgary hospital early Sunday morning. Hart had been ill for several weeks now slipping in and out of a coma after suffering two seizures over the past two months. The official cause of death is reputed to be complications from a stroke she suffered while admitted in the hospital originally for diabetes. Her condition was said to have deteriorated very rapidly and the entire Hart family was pretty much prepared for the worst case scenario. A site has been set up in memory of Helen, and if you want to check that out, click HERE. You can also send in your wishes via signing Helen Hart's online guestbook by emailing helenhart@shaw.ca. This is just worth sitting back and thinking about, but just think about how far the Hart family has fallen in the past few years. They were on top of the wrestling world in the mid 90s, then came Bret Hart's ugly incident at Survivor Series, Owen Hart's death in 1999, then Bret's bittersweet retirement from pro wrestling, all added to the messy divorces of the Hart family daughters, Ellie and Diana, both of whom were once married to wrestling superstars Jim Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith, respectively. With Helen's death, it's pretty safe to say that their era has indeed ended.

And finally, here are the one-liners, random thoughts and rhetorical observations...

Sawan wanted me to point out the booger incident in the Angle-Taker match. Kurt had snot hanging from his nose, then you see the referee look at Kurt and rub his own nose, giving Kurt the hint that he had to clean himself up so to speak.

Also from Sawan: "I found it rather funny how in Hurricane's theme Molly says: "Holy Sidekick, Hurricane, it's Mighty Molly" and she wasn't even there."

From reader Klepto: "When Stone Cold confronted the alliance in the Hallway after RAW opened, everyone in the alliance was frowning, but DDP had a huge grin on his face. " [Lots of people sent this in.]

From reader MinnViking11: "I thought RVD vs. Booker T was a hardcore match... JR clearly stated that it was... but at the end, the referee ended it no contest!!! " [Lots of people sent this one in too.]

The above one liner makes me think this: Didn't JR say that William Regal made the match into a hardcore one? If so, how does Regal have the jurisdiction to do that if he's the WCW commissioner? That would be Mick Foley's job.

From reader CiscoFEP: "looks like the APA need to take some notes as to throwing a table into the ring. Bradshaw took it and slid it in right side up so the legs hung down and he broke them by pushing it into the ring. Then 5 seconds later, Buh Buh Ray was right next to him and slid it in the correct way, upside-down."

I'm sure many of you heard this but the women's championship is now officially declared vacant, even though Chyna's contract runs out November 30.

From reader Morgan Ruble: "Why is Steve Austin, the WWF champ, fighting to destroy the WWF? Won't that make his belt meaningless? The same is true for The Rock or Jericho and the WCW title. The two WWF stars (Rock and Y2J) have been fighting like wild dogs over this title for weeks now and for what? So they can go to Survivor Series and destroy the company whose belt they represent?"

From reader Mike and Andy York: "Did anyone else notice that prior to the final commercial break on RAW, J.R. said, in reference to the Jericho/Rock title match, "the time is here and the place is now"? Good ol' dyslexic J.R"

And a lot of people commented on the little hole in Ivory's pants that revealed some nice ass cleavage. I think all her outfits are like that now.

And that's about it for the news and rumors today. Some quick site related notes before I leave...first of all, I mentioned on Saturday that I'd be taking a little bit of a break from writing the news and rumors in the future. I'm not sure when it will start (maybe this weekend even) but it will only last a couple weeks. On the 14th of November, I officially get my Bachelor of Science diploma (yippee for me) and a week or so later, it's my parents' 25th wedding anniversary and that will take up a lot of time. I will return though, surely by the Tuesday rumors on the 26th of November and then from then on, things will be normal again as usual. Some of you may not realize this, but these updates are extremely draining and require a lot of time and thought, so I just won't be able to sneak on the computer at 3 in the morning like I do now. However, the rest of the site will continue to be updated regularly, including my postings on the newsboard. Anyway, I hope you'll all be here when I return at the end of the month.

The other order of business is a server change for the site coming up. As some of you may have noticed, we've been having troubles with that again because our hits keep going up and the machine we're on right now isn't able to properly handle our traffic. As a result, I really had no other option but to purchase a dedicated server and we'll moving onto that within the next week or so. If things go smoothly, there won't be much of a stall when this happens.

Oh wait, there's one more thing. If you look below, I changed some stuff around including the site donations sections. At the suggestion of a few readers, I decided to put up a monthly total of the donations we've got. Not sure if it really matters, but I guess some of you may find it interesting. Also, a lot of people ask about news and rumors archives. In case you did not know, that is also linked below (and always has been). Hopefully now it's a bit more visible. With that said, I am out. Later.