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DECEMBER 30
The taped edition of WWF Smackdown! was presented on Thursday to wrestling audiences in the USA and Canada and whether it ties back into the low viewership time of the year not, the show followed on the heels on RAW by offering up a relatively
average showing. The special person of the night was Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley and as she has done quite frequently in the recent past, Steph is the authority figure "in charge" right now with Vince McMahon back home in
Connecticut, Linda McMahon mentally incapacitated, Shane McMahon off of TV, Mick Foley fired and of course your favorite and mine, Debra doing pretty much nothing as usual. Steph's main order of business was to agitate those she dislikes and that included
men such as Chris Jericho, Steve Austin, the Rock and Undertaker, all of whom were either not given the respective matches that they had hoped for or were booked in unfavorable encounters. Other highlights included three championship matches, two of them involving
the Hardy Boyz and an atypical WWF world bout featuring Kurt Angle and tag team specialist Buh Buh Ray Dudley. The logic behind this booking was that it came as per Angle's wishes since Buh Buh had injured his brother Eric on RAW. In any case, if you missed the show and would like
to catch up in a more detailed fashion, please surf on over to the Smackdown Report. There is no Thunder Report this week because well, there wasn't much of a Thunder to begin with. I believe WCW went ahead with a
"Best of 2000" show, so oh well.
Mid-week ratings are out and the story doesn't need much elaboration. We start off with WWF Smackdown! which drew an overnight rating of 5.0, down from last week's 5.4. The final, broadcast number which was released at the end of Friday came in at at 3.8 way down
from their ten and four-week averages. Although it is easy to blame the low numbers on the festivities going on at this time of the year, Smackdown's share wasn't overly hot either which should be a cause for concern, but not anything to panic about...yet. I'll wait till the second week of January
before taking these numbers seriously. WCW Thunder for those interested drew only a 1.7 rating.
Tonight is week two of two of the WWF's weird tapings schedule, all because of Christmas and New Year's Monday. RAW is being taped tonight in Austin, Texas and straight from the grapevine, it is expected to be a pretty packed show. Some of you may be slightly confused because this update
as "Saturday" labelled on but suffice to say I usually write them on Friday nights. What this means is that when you read this, the RAW tapings will be all but done and in that case you can find the spoilers HERE. As usual, this report will contain no spoilers so no need for
you sensitive people to hit the back button. Just a word of note, Triple H will NOT be on the show and I wouldn't expect Vince to be either. Next week is when things really heat up.
Where Trips is concerned, the guy is all but ready to return but I'm suspecting is being held off to not only sell the injuries he suffered during the Hell in a Cell (weird cause he got more injured in that match compared to the car incident from Survivor Series) but because
they are saving his return for a big, live edition of RAW, where the WWF has pretty much their entire audience at their disposal. The time away is also allowing the writers to recreate the feud between Steve Austin and Triple H as the incidents between Austin and Mrs. Helmsley would suggest. In other words, the fact that Austin
dumped beer on Stephanie could tie into the HHH/SCSA feud being freshened up a bit. Although it's not confirmed yet, it is expected that these two will go at it in some form or another at the Royal Rumble, whether it be one-on-one or as part of a larger, more involved type affair.
The WWF seems to be trying their best to incorporate all their top stars into main event angles. Guys like the Rock, Steve Austin, Undertaker, Kurt Angle and Triple H will always be in the picture, but recent actions seem to indicate
that Chris Jericho, William Regal, Kane, Rikishi and to a lesser extent Chris Benoit all are just a notch below. Benoit for his part is not directly involved and is instead focussed on defending his Intercontinental title against the likes of Billy Gunn and Matt and Jeff Hardy. With him out of the picture, we have an odd
number of "main eventers" but as has been the case for the last several months, every wrestler is intertwined with more than one other, thereby not limiting matches in any way, shape or form. For example, Steve Austin is obviously not getting along with either Kane or William Regal, has unsettled business with Triple H and still has a big money
PPV type match left with Kurt Angle. What does this mean for the new year you ask? I'm not sure but at the very least I would expect some big matches to play out as the WWF shuffles the roster and tries to subtly put a "ranking" on each wrestler, in essence preparing themselves for Wrestlemania.
Well Test and Albert finally broke up, a move which was inevitable no matter how you slice it. As duo, the team enjoyed modest success being one of the few "real" tag teams to never capture the tag team titles despite being in the mix for the better part of 2000. The physical presence of each of these men went a long way in deciding
their tag team future, as the WWF would likely never keep two youngsters with such great size and natural abilities (Test's "main event" look; Albert's pure strength) tied up in what was basically a jobber tag team. The only thing holding the two together all this time was Trish but now that she has more...umm...important fish to fry in the form
of a Mr. McMahon, it paved the way for a split. What is interesting though is that it appears as though Stephanie has seemingly "recruited" Albert for her own good, a move which if is carried on a more long-term scale will surely set the big man up for a great run as a singles wrestler. I proposed a bodyguard type role for Albert on Tuesday
and I still think that would work well. In light of all this, the question remains whether Steph is doing this to get back at Test or whether she's doing this to ruin Trish's stable (or both?) remains to be seen, but it should go without saying that Test and Albert will end up feuding with one another, if for nothing but the Royal Rumble. I think what would be interesting
would be if Trish remained aligned with Test because then we could really be subjected to some fireworks, all stemming from Stephanie's hatred towards Trish. But for some reason I get the feeling that it won't be happening simply because Test looks poised for a face turn and Trish is being portrayed as a heel. If they do part ways, it wouldn't surprise me to see the WWF
dwell on the fact that Test has been screwed over by two women now, thus increasing the symphathy he is bound to receive from the fans. We shall see.
In what will arguably turn into a huge story over the next few weeks, possibly months, Shawn Michaels has apparently stepped up his training in anticipation of a match or two sometime this year. We've all heard these rumors before, however, the latest turn of events is the most promising yet (if you're an HBK fan of course). Michaels has long told friends
that he is eager to return to the WWF as nearly three years on the sidelines have helped his previously ailing back recover from surgery. The stumbling block so far is pretty simple to understand: WWF management hasn't even approached Shawn about a possible return, whether that be because they have no suitable storyline for him or whether they are worried his presence
will upset a currently harmonious backstage WWF community. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this isn't much of a hinderance at all, especially when you consider Shawn Michaels' worldwide appeal. Whether you love him or hate him, you can't deny the fact that a Shawn Michaels match in the WWF would be a HUGE ratings or buyrate grabber, moreso in today's time of
downward trending numbers on both accounts. There is one wrestler whom Shawn will surely not face, that being the Rock since the two aren't exactly friends and the Rock has previously stated he would not work with Michaels. It doesn't matter though because the Rock is pencilled into face the man who is the wrestler that Shawn probably won't face, that being "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. The reason
an HBK/SCSA match won't happen, you ask? Simple: it's been done before and for all intents and purposes, wouldn't make much sense if the WWF made two home-state heroes battle it out at Wrestlemania with one ending up laying down for the other. Apart from Mick Foley, who is really out of shape to even consider wrestling, the odds-on-favorite for a potential match is indeed Triple H, and if I had to guess how it would come about
right here in the last report of 2000, I would say it D-X and the true leader of it could play a huge factor. It would be hard to match the interest of a match between two real-life friends, with so much history between them. Logically speaking, all it would take would be for HBK to say to Triple H: "Hunter, I made you" and the match would be all but set...
As many of you know, a lot of what I write out here are to be taken strictly as rumors and the above paragraph is no different. I always get emails asking me what I think are the chances of this happening or that happening and usually I shy away from just blatantly putting my ass on the line. Because this topic is of such great importance to the WWF to wrestling fans in general, I'll make an exception and say
that I truly believe Shawn Michaels will return for AT LEAST one more match. The main reason I am saying is this is because all over WWF.com, articles are popping up about Shawn's future return, Jim Ross even brought it up in the past and in this week's "Ross Report" (more on this later) and Shawn himself has let his feelings on the issue be known over at his official site. When so many people at the heart
of the story start talking about it, you better believe it's gonna happen. Anyway, in this week's update by JR, he stated that being the Vice President of Talent Operations for the WWF will begin talks with Shawn Michaels regarding his future in the WWF and more importantly participation in a match or perhaps more for the year 2001. With Texas being the home of this year's huge Wrestlemania X-Seven, I would anticipate this being the starting point and depending on
how Shawn feels or how the fans perceive the return, he could remain on TV and wrestle a few more matches before packing it in for good. I presume this is what the WWF refers to when they say a "farewell tour". Michaels' WWF contract reportedly expires in August (I've heard June as well from Wade Keller so I dunno) and so I would expect the promotion to end up re-signing him as well, and potentially guaranteeing him a front-office position
upon his "official" retirement.
I have no idea why so many people keep asking about the Big Show since to me it seems like every site out there has reported this at least a dozen times in the last part of this year. The Big Show is still under contract to the WWF but management has not been pleased at his lackadasical attitude and general apathy towards
his career, so much that they have all but demoted him to Ohio Valley Wrestling where he is getting back into shape. When he was last seen in the WWF, Show weighed nearly 500lbs legit and the federation wants him at 400lbs maximum. As of last count, he was at about 435lbs, which unfortunately prevent him from competing in this year's Royal Rumble as Jim Ross reported in the Ross Report. It may seem really trivial of the WWF to do this over a few pounds of weight, but
keep in mind that Big Show was signed to a very lucrative 10-year contract by the WWF in '99 and since he is still in his 20s, the federation is looking at him to carry the torch so to speak when guys like the Undertaker and Steve Austin are gone. Because of the length of his contract, the WWF is probably willing to sacrifice up to a year just to get him to realize how much more dominant and effective he can become. Mark Henry is nearly the exact same story.
Henry won't be in the Rumble either, but was also signed to a 10-year deal in 1996 and has been asked to lose weight and get into better physical conditioning. He is said to be very close to where the WWF wants him, but isn't going to be rushed back.
Other highlights from the "Ross Report" are listed below with elaboration on my part where needed...
Lita's back exam turned up some positive news as surgery is not required. Although JR did not say it, I would expect her to miss no TV time at all, but I wouldn't be surprised to see her take it easy on the women's division matches and instead concentrate on Dean Malenko or whatever
other plans the WWF has planned for her. The WWF team are no idiots and they realize Lita's enormous appeal to fans of all kinds from males to females from the young to the old and it's no coincidence that we're seeing her in so many non-wrestling segments as a result. It's just smart marketing if you ask me.
X-Pac is scheduled to return to the WWF before the Royal Rumble. His neck is improving (it also did not require any surgery) and he will continue to rehab it until his return and even on a consistent basis afterwards. Due to the fact that he will likely be returning just before the Rumble, I would expect him to participate in the Royal Rumble match itself, because a match such as this
requires little storyline background and relatively little exertion as well. In other words, if X-Pac is really hurting, he can just lay low in the corner and then get eliminated when he has to and no one would really notice. In a singles match, you can't do that.
Dean Malenko is having knee problems but won't miss any TV time. This isn't a new injury for Dean as he has been battling these problems all through summer and it was part of the reason we barely him saw on TV in that time.
Ross says that this year's Royal Rumble looks to include five "regular" matches plus the one Royal Rumble. No word yet on if some talent will double and pull of an individual match as well as the Rumble but what we do know is that the battle royal itself will contain
entrants entering in two minute intervals. That means that the Royal Rumble itself will be at least sixty minutes, which I think is great. It's always been my favorite WWF match and I'm still hoping and lobbying for as many of the top stars to be a part of it.
Eddie Guerrero will also be good to go for the Royal Rumble. His situation is like X-Pac; he isn't 100% yet and might not be at the PPV itself but due to the nature of the match, he doesn't necessarily have to be.
That was about it for the major points. If you feel inclined to read it in full, simply click HERE.
I don't have any one-liners per se, but I just wanted to make a couple comments. First, the Ivory/Val interview on Smackdown was hilarious. Not to undermine the seriousness of a spinal injury, but we all Chyna isn't really suffering (to all the doubters, this proves it because the WWF wouldn't joke about it if it was legit) and just
seeing Ivory and Val imitate Chyna and JR, respectively, was great. Val's imitation wasn't especially strong (personally, I woulda went with Bull Buchanan) but like I said, it was funny.
And to all the people who emailed me about my "Mr. Belding @ RAW" comment from Tuesday's update, I have since learned that it was indeed him since he is a Chattanooga resident and according to some readers has a job at the local university. I just thought it was a man who looked like him, hence my reason for sticking it into the rumors.
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