PLAN THIS

Column #9

December 30^th 2000 

“Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon”

Everything In It’s Right Place, Radiohead 

This is the last Plan This! of the year 2000 and I’m coming at you with my review of the WWF for this year. Hopefully my website will be up and running in the first months of next year, so look out for that, but I’ll probably tell you about it when it arrives.  

WWF: Business as usual

For the WWF the year 2000 was very successful both in and out of the ring:

• The WWF continued to dominate Nielsen ratings with every single Monday being won by them. Even when the WWF wasn’t in its usual timeslot it still won.
• This year was the year The Rock could become top face in the WWF, and he took full advantage of it. As well as being one of the most recognisable people in America he held the WWF title twice for a total of 6 months. The appeal of The Rock was shown when the USA 4-x 100m men’s relay team celebrated winning their gold at Sydney by impersonating him.
• It was also a good year for Triple H, who held the WWF Title for a 3 month period and was involved in the biggest angle of the year, the love triangle. He also had some of the best matches of the year as well, against Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Cactus Jack and The Rock.
• The WWF had the best PPV of the year as well in the Royal Rumble, which saw the debut of Tazz, the Hardys-Dudleys table match and the Triple H-Cactus Street fight.
• 2000 was a great year for women in the WWF. Chyna became the second woman in the WWF to appear in Playboy, and the issue she was in outsold the previous issue that a WWF woman was in. Also the WWF had 2 of the best women in wrestling debut in Lita and Trish Stratus. Both at one time were engaged in the best feud between 2 women since Aja Kong and Alundra Blayze. Women’s wrestling has also gone from being a joke T&A fest to actually becoming serious again.
• Returning from injury were The Undertaker and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, which meant a better variety of main event matches and could only help the company that 2 of their biggest stars were back.
• In February the WWF secured the signatures of the 4 men known as The Radicalz, Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Eddy Guerrero and Dean Malenko. These 4 men helped the WWF produce great wrestling this year, which the WWF has emphasised more this year. Also they picked up ECW legends Taz and Raven and also finally gave a TV debut to K-Krush now called K-Kwik.
• Popularity for the WWF is higher than ever here in the UK. Tickets for their shows sell out in just over an hour and with Heat’s arrival on channel 4 you can only look for the WWF to become more popular.

But, not all has been good for the WWF this year…

• The quality of WWF PPVs has been noticeably sliding since the start of the year. Sure, the Royal Rumble was the best PPV of the year, I said that. However only Summerslam has come close to matching the quality that the Royal Rumble showed. Also Wrestlemania was very poor, one of the worst ever. Only the ladder match, hardcore battle royal, and 6-person tag match were any good. All the other PPVs have been average to poor in quality.
• With PPVs lessening in quality, the WWF had its first non-sell-out PPV last month in Armageddon. It’s the first time in over 2 years that a WWF PPV has not sold out. This is an example of waning popularity for wrestling in general.
• That is exactly what my next point is, the decline of the wrestling business in general this year. I talked about it in a column I wrote last month but to reiterate, with the WWF having no competition, the wrestling business is suffering. No other companies are in any position to attack the WWF’s superiority so the WWF doesn’t need to work hard because they are not in danger of not being number 1. The WWF needs a strong other wrestling company to compete against, or wrestling suffers.
• The WWF has a packed roster. There are at least 10 wrestlers in the current WWF roster that are not being pushed to a level where they should be. These are people like Tazz, Perry Saturn, Al Snow, Taka Michinoku, Gangrel, and even guys like Eddy Guerrero and Chris Benoit at mid-card level. There is such a thing as having too full a roster and this is it. With guys like Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn being speculated to be joining the WWF you wonder who else will be held back.
• Vince McMahon at the moment is attending to his duties with the XFL, which most people think will fail miserably. He probably won’t appear on TV for a while or until at least the start of the XFL season in February. As he is involved in a major storyline at the moment that can’t help at all.
• The WWF tried to sign amateur wrestler Rulon Gardner to a similar deal that Kurt Angle had and offered him a million dollars but he turned down the deal, preferring amateur wrestling.
• The WWF will not only lose Vince but also The Rock for a period of time because of filming for The Mummy 3. Losing Steve Austin this year was bad but losing The Rock next year could be worse.
• This summer the WWF moved Raw, Metal and Superstars to TNN and also moved Heat to MTV. I can’t comment on Heat as we don’t get that version in the UK but Raw seems to be slightly worse than before. Worse is the point that not all cable subscribers in America get TNN as part of their deal. In my opinion it was a stupid idea and has affected the wrestling business terribly. Are they not surprised their ratings have suffered as a result of this?

I would say overall that it’s been a good year for the WWF. However if you take the first few bad points into consideration then next year could be bad for not just the WWF but wrestling in general.

WWF Awards:

Match Of The Year – The WWF, rightly as the biggest federation in the world, should have some of the biggest and best matches of the year. You had Triple H vs. Cactus Jack at the Royal Rumble, The Rock vs. Triple H in the Iron Man match at Judgement Day, Triple H vs. Chris Benoit at No Mercy, hell even the 6 man Hell In The Cell match was good. My match of the year last year was the Ladder match between The Hardys and Edge and Christian. Those 2 tag teams and The Dudley Boys gave us some memorable matches. There was The Hardys vs. Dudleys table match at the Royal Rumble. There was also the memorable Tables, Ladders and Chairs (oh my!) match at Summerslam. However my match of the year was the ladder match at Wrestlemania between the 3 teams listed above. Now the TLC match was equally as good, however you got the feeling that you knew what was coming next. At Wrestlemania everything in that match was unexpected, so thats why it won.  

Worst Moment – The WWF, famous for having some of the best moments of the year, are also infamous for having some of the worst. Who can forget last year when they did the whole “cancer angle” and also one of the worst matches ever the “Kennel From Hell”. The “from hell” part was definitely true. This year saw some “classics” as well. We had Naked Mideon (anyone else feel sick just mentioning him?), the farce that was the Hardcore Title, including the Pat Patterson-Gerald Brisco Evening Gown match, and also who can forget the Mark Henry-Viscera match from No Way Out? But one woman’s antics overshadowed all that. Mae Young did a lot of God-awful stuff that we all want her to die for that I won’t go into but the worst moment of this year I will. She spoiled the best PPV of this year, the Royal Rumble, and that really is just not on. You could have done what WCW did during their bikini contest, but no, they decided to have an 80-year old woman flash. I’ll leave it at that. Oh the painful memories!  

Most Improved Wrestler Of The Year – The title for the award is not really true in this case. You see, the award should be Most Improved Wrestlers Of The Year. The award goes to Edge and Christian and you only need to compare them now to the start of the year to see why. In January, they were respected as good wrestlers and their feud with the Hardys (which seemingly is the longest running feud in WWF history as it has gone on since mid last year and is still going) proved that. But they had no mic skills and they were boring teen-icon faces. More importantly they had not held the tag titles. Now they are regularly in main events and have won the Tag Titles 5 times and (trying not to deliberately impersonate them but wanting to) they reek of awesomeness. Hopefully, theyll hold onto the belts for a meaningful period of time like they did the first time. 

Finishing Move Of The Year – I kind of gave this away in my last column. Yes the Stunner rules, the People’s Elbow is electrifying, the Pedigree makes you mark out, the Swanton Bomb looks dangerous, and, like JR said a few months ago, you tried to do the Worm in your back garden and hurt yourself. However they all pale in comparison to the 3D. Like the Stunner, it can be put on from seemingly anywhere and the crowd pops madly for it. Plus it is aesthetically pleasing, or for those of you who don’t know what aesthetics are, it looks good. 

Most Missed Wrestler – Well this is pretty obvious, but as a side note, if we did a Least Missed Wrestler of the year it would be a tie between Billy Gunn and X-Pac. It is Steve Austin, who only returned properly at Unforgiven and didn’t turn heel, like 95% of those imbecilic people calling themselves reporters said. The WWF just wasn’t the same without him. 

Woman Of The Year – As I pointed out earlier, I was a good year for women in the WWF. I suppose the only 2 women who could win this in theory are Lita and Trish, however I will say Stephanie and Chyna had good years as well, not taking anything away from them. Although Trish is the best looking woman in wrestling by a good thousand miles I would still give it to Lita on the grounds that she is the best female wrestler in the WWF, much better than Chyna and she isnt that bad looking. If you add to this, the lengthy Womans title reign then youd see why she won.  

Tag Team Of The Year – The WWF has the best tag team scene in wrestling, we all know that. Even with teams like Too Cool, Lo Down, T&A (though after this week they probably will split up), the Acolytes, the RTC and Road Dogg + K-Kwik the tag scene is still good. The team of the year would only come from the Dudleys, Hardys and Edge + Christian and that is true. The Dudleys are the most over but they only held the tag titles for a month. The Hardys are the best wrestlers, but they are becoming a bit dull, and they have mic skills worse than Damien Steele, which is bad. Edge and Christian have the best mic skills but their wrestling skills have lost something recently. So, why not give it to all 3? The winners are the Dudleys, Hardys and Edge + Christian. Now thats how you solve a problem!  

Newcomer Of The Year – The WWF had a lot of new talent enter the federation this year. You had Tazz, who since has gone from the most feared wrestler in ECW to a commentator, the Radicalz, Raven, K-Kwik, Just Joe (you can’t forget him!), William Regal, Molly Holly, and of course Trish Stratus. However another woman debuted this year and had more impact than any woman in the federation’s history. I am talking about Lita. In the past 2 years, The Dudley Boys, Tazz, Shane Douglas, Chris Candido, Raven, Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, Chris Chetti, and Sabu have left ECW. Apart from maybe Lance Storm, the least known signing from ECW has turned out the best. Who could have thought when Lita signed for the WWF that she would be in the position she is in now? The WWF should find a suitable place in the roster for her.  

Suckiest Wrestler Of The Year – Okay, picture the scene. You’ve been in a headlining feud with the top face in the company. You’re going to be in the biggest match of the year, the main event of Wrestlemania. Nothing can be better right? Well actually what I neglected to say was that you were in the main event of Wrestlemania for all of about 5 minutes. As happened to The Big Show this year. At the start of the year he was WWF Champion, and he almost won the Royal Rumble. Traditionally nobody over 300 pounds ever wins the Rumble, so think of it as an achievement he was even second. Yes, he was in the main event of Wrestlemania. Then he turned face and did all his impressions, the only one of any value whatsoever being his Hogan impression at Backlash, which was hilarious. Then he got injured, and stayed away for 2 months. When he came back, he made his predictable heel turn and joined Shane McMahon. That’s when things got really bad. 3 weeks after coming back, he disappeared from WWF television and has not been seen since. Well, unless you count Ohio Valley for the last 3 months feuding with Mark Henry. All I can say is I hope he stays there for a very long time. 

Wrestler Of The Year – There were a lot of candidates for this, and you’ll see why. As well as the obvious candidates like The Rock and Triple H you had Kurt Angle, Kane, The Undertaker, Rikishi, Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit. You could have even included any of the 3 Tag Team Of The Year winners to this. However the most deserving man for this award must be Triple H. Triple H is respected throughout wrestling, hell even Goldberg must respect him a little bit. He held the WWF title for 3 straight months at the start of the year and throughout he has literally been the WWF. I read something a while ago from somebody who was fed up with Triple H always being in the spotlight. I disagree with that person wholeheartedly. Triple H deserves to be where he is now. He has a great attitude, portrays a great character, face or heel, is over with the crowd, and importantly can wrestle very well. I would put him behind Benoit in terms of the best technical wrestler in the WWF. I along with many people wonder how he will do next year when he comes back from his injury.  

I won’t give any advice to the WWF as they probably don’t need it. 

Finally, the wrestling business saw the retirements of Vampiro, New Jack, Fit Finlay, Stevie Ray and of course Mick Foley. In 2001 all will be missed. 

Well that’s all for the year 2000. Next Saturday I can go back to writing on regular wrestling topics. It’s been an interesting year in the wrestling business with its many ups and downs. Next year will probably bring more but this time I’ll be here for the whole year to cover them. So as the final 10 count erupts for the start of next year remember 

(The Man With The Plan knows…) 

themanwiththeplan@the-mothership.co.uk