QuestionMan

If they really want to stick it to Lesnar, have him do an injury angle after the Goldberg/Lesnar match where Bob Holly "breaks" his neck and gets his revenge.

I think it's safe to say that Edge isn't going to RAW now.

Brock paid for the plane out of his own pocket. Vince agreed to cover the costs, since it would wind up being cheaper for him than it would normally. Yet, no one else is being given the opportunity to have their own plane. I don't know where you heard that version of the story, but it's not right.

Brock paid for the plane out of his own pocket.

The Undertaker and Triple H have told Vince that they are willing to step it up to fill the absence of Stone Cold and The Ro---erm, Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg.

Probably Batista. Goddamn it.

He didn't quit because of that. He complained about it, so instead they teamed him up with Randy Savage against Ric Flair & Razor Ramon. In fact, he didn't even quit at all. He was fired (along with Davey Boy Smith) because Vince thought they were getting steroids from England.

You bet it would still stand, and it would be even better for them, since they don't have to pay WWE for it now.

The good news from last weekend's house shows was offset by bad news when the buy rate for No Way Out on 2/15 came in for the show headlined by Brock Lesnar vs. Eddy Guerrero. The first estimates are that the show did 248,000 buys and a 0.46 buy rate, which would have made it the second lowest buy rate since 1997. That's down a whopping 45% from No Way Out last year, although it wasn't about to come close to a show that featured the first match back after months being away of Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan and The Rock, the company's three biggest PPV draws in its history, all on the same night. On paper, it was one of the weakest line-ups in a long time, as the support for Lesnar vs. Guerrero was a cruiserweight title match with Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero, which would have been lucky to have been an opening match on PPV a few months earlier, and a three-way for a title shot with Big Show vs. Kurt Angle vs. John Cena which wasn't backed up with good promotion or interviews and came across as being thrown together. Lesnar vs. Guerrero, however, was promoted well. Guerrero did excellent promos and was even given a pinfall win over Lesnar on the final TV before the big show. Guerrero was getting phenomenal crowd reactions at all the arenas leading to the show, which again shows crowd pops and drawing power are entirely different. One could say that being sandwiched between Rumble and Mania, and with the strong Mania push, that people decided to skip this one, but if you look back the past two years, No Way Out was hardly overlooked on the way to Mania. While the undercard was weak, excuses aside, it was not a strong main event to the buying public. For a business hoping that catering to the Hispanic market, which boxing promoters feel has saved their business, it is not an immediate panacea. Still, this show did do better than Armageddon, the Raw brand's last show. ************************************* At this point, Ric Flair is said to be feeling very little discomfort overall other than three of his fingers are numb, which is actually a pretty big problem. His back isn't feeling bad right now but his neck problem should be keeping him out of action for a while, even though he did bump at TV and is wrestling at Mania. His exact problems still haven't been fully diagnosed, but he was having dye shot into his spine to get a better read after Wrestlemania. He was told even in a worst case scenario, which is a ruptured G-8 disc, he won't need fusion surgery. The belief is right now that any surgery he might need would be minor and wouldn't keep him out of action more than six weeks to two months, He is doing Wrestlemania, which is a 2-on-3 situation, and Orton will be the focal point of the team so hopefully Flair won't be required to carry the load or take too much punishment, but it is Wrestlemania and Flair is not in anywhere near the kind of pain that he's worked through in the past. I suppose if he gets the word he'll need surgery, they can make a storyline out of it in the match Regarding The Rock and the tattoos as noted last week, Rock did add more touches to upper body tattoos over the past week or two from Samoa's leading tattoo artist, Suluape Petolo. But what he recently got were considered the finishing touches to his existing tattoos: He is not getting full tattoos like his grandfather, Peter Maivia, was known for, which went from the middle of his stomach down to the bottom of his calves. In Samoan culture, it would be considered a sign of disrespect, and not respect, to get a tattoo like Maivia, when you are not an official Chief. Benoit vs. HHH for the World title will headline the 4/18 Backlash PPV in Edmonton. So much for making sense out of that Michaels pin on Benoit a few weeks ago on Raw. Add John Studd, Junkyard Dog, Pete Rose and Don Muraco to the list of those being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. The final list also includes Billy Graham, Jesse Ventura, Tito Santana, Greg Valentine, Sgt. Slaughter, Bobby Heenan and Harley Race. I don't know what happened to Bob Backlund. They got some mainstream publicity for this on 3/2 with the announcement of Rose, including a story in the New York Times and carried nationally by AP, with the idea Kane would induct Rose. John Minton Jr. (Studd's son) will be accepting the award for his deceased father and I'm presuming a member of JYD's family would be there as well. This is now an amazing list because, while granted, Billy Graham and Vince and Jesse Ventura and Vince have since made up, but Ventura successfully sued Vince and often was critical of him publicly, and Studd, before his death, was a government witness against McMahon in his 1994 steroid trial. While Dog was a huge star for Bill Watts, his tenure in WWF was more notable for his number of no-shows. The funniest thing I read regarding Rose was someone saying that Bud Selig announced the next day that Major League Baseball would be inducting Bruno Sammartino into its Hall of Fame. Eric Bischoff did a symposium for about 25 high school and college students (mainly University of Georgia) in Georgia for two hours before the 3/1 Raw. It was expected to be a 45 minute speech and some Q&A, but instead Bischoff just did a Q&A, which went two hours, and he impressed everyone there. Well, I can say a lot both good and bad about Bischoff. He is one of the most charismatic people on a one-on-one basis I've met in wrestling and speaks with so much confidence that it breeds confidence in him. I've also thought that Bischoff is a great listener, but much of what he says is very forceful repeating of what people have told him. There was a joke in WCW that Bischoff would tell people ideas, and sell them great, to the same people who originally gave Bischoff the idea in the first place. His track record, both good and bad, speaks for itself. He said that anyone who didn't have $150 million would be foolish to try and get something going in wrestling. He's right about that as far as trying something national. He talked about things the WWE was doing wrong and right, which apparently were the same things most wrestlers in the company would privately say to their friends. He didn't come across as having a lot of faith in pro wrestling as a long-term entertainment brand, and even said the future was scary for pro wrestling. He indicated he knew his tenure with the company wouldn't last forever. He placed a lot of the blame of WCW's failure on the suits at Time Warner, and was very convincing in that portrayal. He did blame himself for producing TV that people didn't want to see. When he was asked what he considered his crowning achievement in wrestling, he said the Hogan heel turn. One Observer reader there said that for an insider, he didn't really say anything you wouldn't know. When asked who the greatest wrestler today was, he said Angle. He said if Vince had to do it all over again, he wouldn't have bought WCW and would have let him buy it because he would now recognize competition is important for the business. He then noted that when TBS canceled the TV, it really didn't matter at that point. He said the most dangerous thing he ever did was take the power bomb from Nash. He said they never practiced it and Nash wasn't given instructions on how and where to drop him. He said taking hard chops is worse than any other bump except the Nash bump that he ever took. Ray Gordy, the son of Terry Gordy, worked a dark match in Atlanta, losing to Mike "Nova" Bucci. Match was sloppy. Crowd gave Gordy a huge pop, although most felt it was because he was announced as being from Atlanta (home town pop) as opposed to more than a few people recognizing him as Gordy's son. Dudleys win over Storm & Venis on Heat went more than 15:00 and apparently was a really strong match. This was the match that put the Dudleys into Mania. After the show was over, Rock & Foley laid waste to Orton, Batista and Flair (Rock was very protective of Flair when giving him a rock bottom due to Flair's apparent broken neck). Both Foley and Rock gave Flair the people's elbow. Austin came out and joined them for about 30 minutes of singing with Lillian Garcia, and Austin and Garcia drinking beer. They made fun of Rock drinking Gatorade. Foley talked about how he and Austin for years lived in the Atlanta area as Austin lived in Austell and Foley lived in Acworth and Marietta. At one point they tried to get Austin to wrap it up. Austin turned the ring crew head heel by telling him to repeat what he said. The guy said they needed to wrap it up because they needed to start taking the ring apart. Fans booed him more than anyone all night. Austin didn't leave and wanted more beer. This went on so long that finally fans started leaving. Rock doused Garcia with beer. The ring crew seemed to be getting impatient and actually was taking the ring down when Austin's friends came in to sing and the show ended at about 11:40 p.m. At one point a fire developed on the floor from the flaming Undertaker cross, but it was quickly extinguished. There were Goldberg chants all night long, coming regularly until Rock came out. I don't know if this is even true, but there was a Japanese magazine internet story written by Jimmy Suzuki, who shoots for Japan at some of the WWE big shows, where he said he was going with Austin to a karaoke bar after the Atlanta Raw and asked Suzuki if the last Misawa-Kobashi match was as good as everyone says. The New York Times ran an article on 2/25 about Angle, and WWE's recruiting athletes from football and amateur wrestling. The story listed Rock, Faarooq and Lesnar as athletes the company recruited from college football or college wrestling. That's misleading since Faarooq was recruited by Championship Wrestling from Florida and Rock is in wrestling more because it was his family business than he was recruited out of football. It is Jim Ross' theory, and Angle and Lesnar have been shining examples of it on the positive side, that amateur wrestlers have no problem working hard and the most successful ones aren't going to complain if they are hurt a little. Football players are also going to be used to playing in pain. Ross has long talked about strengthening the recruiting, which as pointed out here, should be a high priority in the company for this year, because they haven't had, in football terminology, a strong recruiting year since 2000, which also coincides with the death of WCW. The fact was it really wasn't until the Monday night wars hit that developing talent was even an issue in WCW or WWE, as the belief was that the old territorial system would at least create enough new stars to keep the thing going. They also quoted Bradshaw, who was listed as having played a season with the Raiders. According to a member of Raiders management that is a regular reader, Layfield never played a down for the Raiders in the regular season, but was in training camp once. Layfield was a good lineman at Abilene Christian. If you look at the top stars in WWE, many have the good college sports background, but even more don't. Of the haves, you've got Austin (football), Rock (football), Lesnar (wrestling), Angle (wrestling), Eddy Guerrero (wrestling), Undertaker (basketball), Flair (football, although that was also in the 60s), Show (basketball), Bradshaw (football), Faarooq (football) and Storm (volleyball). Have-nots are HHH (although he was a teenage bodybuilder and a big fan), Orton (third generation wrestler and a very good age group wrestler when he was very young), plus super huge fans growing up like Jericho, Benoit, Foley, Van Dam, Dudleys, Edge, Christian, Hardy, Mysterio and Michaels. You've got success stories in both lists. Maybe part of the job application should be being able to give you the year that Snuka came off the cage against Muraco. If you get it right, if you can't cut it as a wrestler, you can at least get a job helping come up with matches and the right dates for them on their DVD's. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported that local High Falls Brewing Company is working with Austin on the Austin beer., CEO Tom Hubbard said Austin (with Vince McMahon) came in January and tested out different brews. He wanted to be involved in the creative end of it, since Austin is known for being very hands on when it comes to merchandise. HHH vs. Michaels was announced as the main event for the company's 4/3 debut in Monterrey, Mexico. From Smackdown, they will be doing Chavo vs. Mysterio. On the Shaq "Can You Dig That" thing in last week's issue, those who have covered Lakers basketball said he's been saying that before Booker T, dating back to his years with the Orlando Magic. A funny deal about Matt Hardy's losing streak gimmick. Matt himself didn't even know he was doing a losing streak gimmick. He just thought he was losing all his matches. He first found out about the streak (which ended to no fanfare last week on Heat) when he found out Lawler and Ross were talking about it on TV. Well, one week after writing about how Phil Mushnick no longer writes about WWE, lo and behold, on 2/28 he wrote a column critical of the WWOR-TV news of 2/19. It should be pointed out that when Smackdown was hot, many UPN newscasts around the country really were instructed to do WWF puff pieces. This was not coming from WWF, nor corporate headquarters, but the stations themselves, feeling that they should, during Smackdown, the highest rated show at the time on the station, they should tease a wrestling story to keep the wrestling audience watching the newscasts. When on the road in places like New York and Los Angeles, I saw it on many occasions. It's part of the news business, although if you were a news purist, you would find it revolting. Those stations would do wrestling puff pieces, but never touch the serious issues. Anyway, Mushnick wrote that on 2/19, there was a story about a report on the fine line between boxing and wrestling. Mushnick wrote that the UPN-9 news frequently does stories on pro wrestling, but has never examined any real issues in pro wrestling, noting they don't report on the deaths of wrestlers, even high profile wrestlers. Since I don't live in New York, I don't know how accurate that is, but the segment ended up being Shaniqua going on a shopping spree. If that was news, and UPN-9 didn't cover the deaths of Liz Hulette and Curt Hennig (I don't know if they did or not but going by this article you'd think they didn't), then, well, slam dunk, Mushnick's point is valid. Mushnick also wrote that the anchors are encouraged to talk about pro wrestling, noting that in a piece on "Against the Ropes," the new Meg Ryan boxing movie, that Pat Collins, who was the face on the piece, kept asking the movies' stars about pro wrestling. South Africa's deputy president Jacob Zuma attended the first two shows of the weekend tour. Zuma said he had been a pro wrestling fan since the 70s, when Jan Wilkens was the local hero. Pro wrestling in South Africa was similar to that in Austria, where Wilkens was the local Otto Wanz. He was the promoter who would bring in 300-pound Americans to beat, like Don Leo Jonathan, Sailor White or Andre the Giant. Tim White, who hasn't been working as a regular referee for years, since being injured I believe in a Hell in a Cell match, tried working this weekend. Something happened on 2/28 in Birmingham during a Jericho vs. Christian match. White was doing either his first or one of his first matches back more as a test to see how his shoulder would hold up, and it didn't. He was in the ring but clearly favoring his right shoulder after it popped out of its socket. It was popped back into place by doctors later that night. Mike Chioda came out. White didn't want to leave, but after some near falls where he had to count with his left arm because the right was useless, he reluctantly left in the middle of the match and Chioda took over. At this point there are no plans for Jeff Hardy to return. As noted, his name was brought up a couple of months back as being a last minute surprise entrant in the cruiserweight Battle Royal for Wrestlemania. The explanation given as to why it didn't happen is that Jeff is hard-headed. His departure from the company originally was because he had failed two drug tests and was asked to go into rehab, and refused. Since his departure he still hasn't gone into rehab. Proof from D-12, who had been talked with about doing a rap battle with Cena at Mania, did an interview this past week saying it doesn't look like it's going to happen. WWE Originals was No. 108 on the Billboard charts this past week, which isn't good for a record with so much television promotion. It sold 13,599 copies last week for 156,010 to date. Actual attendance for the Raw TV on 2/16 in Bakersfield was 6,600 and 2/17 Smackdown TV in Fresno was 5,000. 2/26 in Cape Town, South Africa drew a sellout estimated at 10,000. We didn't get the complete weekend rundown other than the Montgomery, Birmingham and Chattanooga Raw run didn't draw well. All the South Africa shows were sellouts and Raw at the Gwinnett Arena in Atlanta sold out three days ahead for about 9,500 fans. It was Rock who sold the building out, making it the second Raw sellout in a month, and seven sellouts in the last seven Smackdown brand house shows since the Guerrero title win (not that I'm attributing it to Guerrero's win, as South Africa was selling out even if Chavo Guerrero was champion). The last TV shoot in Atlanta at the same building (Smackdown on 10/28) drew less than 3,000 paid and was heavily papered. There were ticket giveaways early and plans to heavily paper at the end for this show. But when they ran TV ads on Raw on 2/23 which basically told people that "The Great One" was rumored to be there and showed clips of Rock, there was a rush at the box office the next day and tickets were almost all gone by the end of business that day, and trickled in until selling out officially, including many obstructed view seats, a few days later. In Cape Town, they had Guerrero over Angle again to get them ready for Mania. It was the same basic house show they've been doing in the U.S. where Heyman suspends Cena due to his injury, and then Cena attacks him, Show lays Cena out and Heyman orders Cena unsuspended and starts the match. Show wins when Dawn Marie gives Cena a low blow to set up the choke slam. In Birmingham, Teddy Long filled Coach's role as the authority figure on the show. He came out and said Bischoff had put him in charge as G.M. for the night. The first thing he did to get heat was to distract the Dudleys, causing them to lose to Jindrak & Cade. Later in the show, he had a confrontation with Benoit, ending with Benoit putting him in the crossface. Main event was the same strong HHH vs. Benoit match where HHH wins with a pedigree after both Orton and Batista get involved. Orton & Batista earlier lost to Van Dam & Booker in a tag title match. In the match to get them ready for Mania, Wilson & Sable beat Keibler & Gayda. In another match likely as getting ready for Mania, Jericho beat Christian. Funniest thing on the show was during the Storm vs. Dupree match. The Birmingham crowd started chanting “USA,” but was clearly doing that to cheer Storm, despite Storm being Canadian and once doing an anti-American angle. They did largely the same show in Chattanooga except the women's match was changed to Victoria winning a three-way over Molly Holly and Jazz. The shows in Durban and Johannesburg were the same as Cape Town. The East Rand show on 2/29 saw them change it around with Eddy & Cena over Lesnar & Show as the main match and Chavo beating Mysterio in a cruiserweight title match.

But...but...it's the Undertaker's yard and Brock has to pay his dues.....and....and if Brock wants his spot he has to take it from him. But, yeah seeing the shit Brock has had to put up with for being a ME I can see why he's pissed. HBK said in a shoot interview once that the people on top trying to sabotage him and hold him back when he was trying to move up the ranks discouraged him from wrestling so much that he wanted to quit and was the total reason he was "such an asshole" when he got to the top. So, I don't doubt it.

Now Linda McMahon won't have an excuse when the "So, where's this new main-event talent the brand extension was supposed to create?" question comes up at conference calls.

I hope UT is happy. Maybe if he had actually done his job and put over Brock at Unforgiven '02 Brock wouldn't be so negative upon working with him. Stupid asshole.

I agree. Pull a reverse Bob Ryder and remove the "?".

I guess they are doing the Judgment Day '98 deal at WM20, where Austin beats the shit out of both guys and declares himself the winner.

UPDATE Brock Lesnar informed WWE management yesterday that his last date for the foreseeable future will be at WrestleMania. Check back later today for more on this story. credit: Dave Scherer/PWInsider

Hey, in Diamond Dallas Page's last wrestling match ever, he faced Bob Holly, and the move that beat him was a dropkick! FEAR THE DROPKICK! And by the way, Kenzo Suzuki sucks 100 different forms of ass. I saw him on TNA and he was horrible.

The return of Teddy Hart on 2/25 brought its share of news and speculation, as he got into a fight before the show, and then had a knee injury during the show, both of which, given his reputation, have been questioned. During the afternoon, Punk was eating at the White Trash (real name) Cafe, which is near the Fairgrounds in Nashville and allows the wrestlers to eat free. Hart came in and, according to one eye-witness, asked Punk if he had a problem with him, since Hart and Punk have ripped on each other on the internet since the 11/1 explosion at ROH. In fact, two weeks earlier, when the rumors got out that TNA was going to bring Hart back, Punk told people that he was going to slap him when he walked through the doors of the Asylum. Because wrestlers often talk like that and there has been old heat when a lot of wrestlers were brought in, but nothing has happened, nobody really paid that much attention to it. Those close to Punk say he hates Hart with a passion, and probably does even more now. Hart was wearing his headphones (which many think he doesn't even have on) and was smirking before Punk bumped him, and Punk made a comment and Hart either couldn't hear it because of his headphones, or others believe pretended not to hear it. When Punk repeated it, they ended up outside the cafe. The two were talking, with neither shouting at the other. Eye witnesses did see Hart take off his headphones, and then Punk slapped him very hard. Punk probably figured that would be it, but didn't realize Hart has trained in boxing, and responded with an overhand right that decked Punk. Hart got in two more shots on the ground, as Punk had a black eye and a goose egg before Sabu jumped in. Everybody stopped because Sabu, as nutty as he can be, is a vet and is respected, particularly by Hart. There were others watching who did nothing until Sabu jumped in, and then the other wrestlers helped Sabu out. As they were being separated, both started yelling at each other with the "you want some more" type diatribe. Punk, who lost a little face because he started it and got the worst of it, was saying later that he was going to get him before the day was over, until people in the company made it clear to him that if he tried, he'd be gone. Since Hart came in with the skepticism, the only reason he wasn't fired is because there were many eye witnesses who all, including those who hate Hart, said that Punk started it and the only thing Hart could possibly be faulted for was smirking, making the trouble worse, and retaliating after the slap instead of walking away. It was understood, had he done that, people would have called him a pussy so he was in a no-win situation. Both were brought in to talk with Don Harris, who told both of them they were brought in to be professionals, and if there is another incident with either of them, they'll be fired. Being that this involves Hart, who at his last MLW show did his own worked angles similar to this with both Steve Corino and Bryan Danielson, it's natural to be skeptical. In fact, Hart and Corino have done their own internet angle stemming from 11/1, took it to MLW, and now ROH is going to shoot an empty arena match video. There are even those who know Hart believe he and Punk probably worked it out and even hit each other hard to make it believable. Others in TNA have claimed that they believe it was a work, but the company had nothing to do with it, with the word going around backstage that they worked their own angle for ROH, noting Hart did a videotaped interview later in the week for RF video and they were publicizing it by talking about Hart's reaction to the incident. The fact that Hart and Corino are doing an empty arena match tape indicates ROH would love to jump on it, even though they had claimed from the start they wanted no part of this bull, and just a few months ago, that they would never use Hart again. Those very close to Punk are positive it was not a work, because Punk hates Hart with a passion. Rob Feinstein of ROH said he believed it was real because when he suggested the idea of the two doing a match off their internet diatribes before this happened, Hart was willing but Punk refused to work with Hart. I do know that both Hart and manager Dave Penzer were constantly pushing ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky to do these kind of angles, but Sapolsky kept turning them down because of how stupid WCW came across when they were trying to work their own talent all the time. Hart was telling people that it was only because there were eyewitnesses that Punk threw the first blow, that they didn't fire him. Hart then wrestled in a taped match for 3/10's America's X Cup deal, against Mr. Aguila. From several sources, they stole the show (petty theft on this night), with Hart winning with a spectacular acrobatic finish. During the match, Hart supposedly injured his knee. He was scheduled to work later on the live PPV in a three-way against Jerry Lynn and Juventud Guerrera, and the booked finish was Hart pinning Guerrera. The three were in the ring working out the match before the show. After his match with Mr. Aguila, Hart said he had a knee injury and was on the live show with crutches. However, Aguila was telling friends that Hart told him before the match when they were planning spots, that he was going to do a knee injury angle. That isn't disputed by anyone, but others who believe the injury to be real noted that the spot where Hart did a tope and started greatly overselling the knee was worked out ahead of time, but it was a moonsault off the guard rail before the finish where the real injury took place, because his selling was different. Then again, if he's trying to work the promotion, his selling would be different. Both the trainer and message therapist that worked on Hart believed he was really hurt, but not seriously, as they found no knee damage. Hart did wrestle four days later for Jersey All Pro against Homicide, using the bad knee as part of his storyline, including when he did the job, his storyline excuse for it on the microphone, so I'm guessing few take it seriously nowadays. Some wrestlers claimed when Hart left the building, sans crutches, he was walking without a limp. Others said in the hotel later that night Hart didn't have crutches, which made people suspicious, but that he was limping, whether a sell or not they weren't sure. According to those familiar with him in Calgary, he has on more than one occasion, pulled out a worked knee injury, including once even working family members Bruce and Ross, because he attempts to be a martyr when mad things weren't going his way. One TNA source couldn't understand why he would pull himself out of a match which would have been his highest profile win of his career and it was that reason why many believing he was hurt, plus citing the trainer believed him. The other first round of the Canada vs. Mexico X Cup bouts that air on 3/10 saw Guerrera pin Petey Williams, Johnny Devine (who looked okay) beat Abismo Negro, and Hector Garza (who was the best performer on the show according to one report) pinned Jack Evans. They are in negotiations for a TV deal, and it's not with WGN. There have been reports, and there is something to them, of trying to do a late night deal with Fox Sports Net. Paul Heyman, in 2001, had a shot at getting ECW on that network, but he felt it wasn't strong enough to promote off because the local sports channels would so frequently preempt the shows. The bad news is again in the poll for the 2/25 show. We had 2 thumbs up (6.9%) and 26 down (90.0%) and 1 in the middle (3.4%). A.J. Styles vs. Abyss got 11 for best match, while Simon Diamond vs. Johnny Swinger got 8 for worst match. History has shown a strong correlation between our responses and the buy rate ups and downs for both this group and WWE in the past, but it's clear that people have pretty much given up on TNA. Live show, even with ICP going on their web site saying they weren't going to be there (they had to do some recording, but were scheduled to be back on 3/3 and shoot an angle, as the plan was for an ICP match to be on the 3/10 taped show with the X matches), still drew about 1,150. Pre-show lines made it appear about 70% of that were freebies, and there were very few fans in ICP juggalo gear. They dumped the dancing girls in cages. Until it was pointed out on the air as a move made by Vince Russo, I hadn't even noticed. Lex Luger returned in the main event of the live show. A.J. Styles was wrestling Abyss in a match where you had to twice put your foe through a table to win, with both tag titles at stake. There was a ref bump, so they missed Styles putting Abyss through a second table, which took him three tries. Luger came out, pressed Styles overhead and threw him out of the ring through a table. Abyss was given both belts, and it was implied, but not made clear he was going to pick Luger as his new partner. They never learn. Raven & Sabu beat Julio Dinero & Punk when Raven pinned Punk with a DDT, and then challenged Jarrett. They are having Jarrett defend the NWA title on 3/17 against Chris Harris. Russo is now in the role of babyface Director of Authority, and he's trying to toughen Harris up for his title shot. They had Harris first beat Chase Stevens, then Andy Douglas and then both of The Naturals together. Russo did a long promo to try and make himself a face that backfired incredibly. Russo was near tears, which apparently turned some folks off, and then talked about how everything he had done in wrestling was wrong and he really was the Anti-Christ. People were chanting "bullshit" and "boring" until Jarrett came out, and they actually cheered Jarrett. Russo's speech saw him talk about how he did everything for ratings in wrestling, promoted violence and nudity (people cheered that, and booed when he said it was wrong), and that he had made more than $500,000 in his best year (that's a real number of what WCW paid him to jump in 1999, which will make a good subject for somebody's book). Jarrett threw him down and slapped him, but Russo wouldn't hit him back and walked away. Jarrett acted all confused the rest of the show. With Hart out, Petey Williams was put into the three-way X match with Guerrera and Lynn, and pinned Guerrera after Lynn gave Guerrera a TKO. This match didn't click. Lynn was legit still mad at Guerrera for not protecting him on his 911 Juvi driver a few weeks ago and the two didn't work together well.

I don't understand how HHH pinning HBK hurts Benoit at all, but whatever.

Hooters in Macon, GA. No way I'm paying $50.

Michaels will probably do the job at Mania and do a knee injury angle (to explain his absence with the torn ACL) and to set up the "Benoit never lost" angle.

I remember when Jeff Hardy took time off and became a music-obsessed druggie.

"A big topic in the Smackdown locker room this week was an incident that took place at the talent meeting before the show on Tuesday. Neither Vince McMahon nor Jim Ross, who are usually at the meetings, attended this week’s. Ross was in Louisville for OVW. I am not sure where McMahon was. This left John "Ace" Laurinaitis ran the meeting. He reportedly mentioned, in a chastising sort of way, an incident on the first flight of the last week’s long and brutal South Africa trip. It happened on the WWE charter from Kansas City to Atlanta, which was the flight right after Smackdown was taped on February 24. The Smackdown crew then flew from Atlanta to South Africa. At the meeting on 3/2, Laurinaitis started off by "getting tough" on the Smackdown crew, even though it was common knowledge to everyone there that problem in question was just Bradshaw putting away a few cold ones and getting boisterous. As Laurinaitis continued the speech, The Big Show spoke up and challenged him. Big Show reportedly asked how the company can expect the talent to sit through a session in which the man who is second in command for talent relations doesn't even thank the talent for the brutal tour, and instead chastises them for something that wasn’t really a big deal. From what I was told, Show felt that if the office didn't like a talent’s behavior, they should place direct blame on that person instead of disrespecting everyone's contributions. In the eyes of some, they felt that there was some favoritism shown here since it was Bradshaw, who is tight with the office, that was the person in question and not named. Later in the meeting there was another incident in which Kurt Angle started to speak up, but when Laurinaitis started looking at Kurt, Angle reportedly backed down and started saying how he wishes everyone was more professional. In the end, the general feeling was that the wrestlers gained a lot of respect for Big Show and probably lost some for Angle." CREDIT: Dave Scherer/PWInsider

Well, at least we got 2 months into 2004 before the first news-making death. RIP Super Invader

This is the same company that said the UT/Jeff Ladder Match was one of the four best RAW matches in history.

"Both Bobby Heenan and apparently Low Ki have pulled out of ROH. Heenan canceled his appearances on the company's scheduled April debut shows in the Chicago and Minneapolis area. Heenan consulted with several friends as well as his agent and they felt it would be smart for him not to work the show." CREDIT: Dave Meltzer/WrestlingObserver.com