FIRST THERE WAS STEPHANIE AND TEST. NOW WE HAVE STEPHANIE AND TRIPLE-H.
NOW WE WONDER THIS: WHY WOULD ANYONE BUY STEPHANIE MCMAHON'S GAMES?
By Bryan Ethier
DID YOU NOTICE the freshly curled ringlets of hair? (How could you not?) The rosy blush of her cheeks? The cherry glow of her pouting lips? Did you catch the scorn in her eyes? The extra sass in her posture? The look of power in a once-disheveled and forlorn face?
Mick Foley, did the night Raw closed the 20th century, and he did not like it. No, Mick Foley (along with most rationally thinking fans across the globe) neither welcomed nor appreciated the new Stephanie McMahon.
Ain't she sweet?
No she ain't.
"Stephanie, I have to tell you something, " Foley said on the December 27 broadcast. "The Godfather has a message: You belong backstage with his other hos."
Yes, mom and dads, go find your daughters. Make sure they are in bed, snuggling up with their Christmas teddies. No one is safe from the wrath of Triple-H. No pure-as-snow young coed is immune from the touch of impropriety. Steph's become a complete and total...
"I am saddened and disgusted by the changes in Stephanie McMahon," said Jim Ross. "What she has done to her family is unforgivable and unforgettable." In a nutshell, Mrs. Helmsley has turned from maiden to hussy.
It began with a foiled wedding, continued with a clandestine wedding, and extended to a plan to unseat the man who created today's wildly successful WWF.
By all rights, Vince and Linda McMahon should now be drinking a toast to their daughter, Stephanie McMahon-Martin, and her husband, Andrew. But something went amiss as both bride and bridegroom stood at the altar, about to exhange wedding vows. What went wrong was this: In the midst of Steph's wedding to Test, Triple-H announced to a stunned audience that he and Stephanie had secretly married a night earlier. Now the McMahon matriach and patriach are toasting their despair.
"I was torn to shreds when I heard that she had married that scumbucket," said Foley. "At the time, I could only imagine that she had too much to drink at her wedding shower and Triple-H had taken advantage of her."
In the wake of the stunning news came more shocking revelations: Steph and HHH had planned their wedding days in advance. Their marriage was all a part of an elaborate scheme for "The Game" and Miss Steph to take control of the WWF.
"We will achieve our master plan," said Triple-H. "Taking the WWF title from The Big Show was just the next step."
A world title seems insignificant considering their recent plundering of the federation. At Armageddon, the two teamed to help Triple-H defeat Vince McMahon. Vince was a sledgehammer blow away from defeating Triple-H when Steph interfered and asked if she could deliver the coup de grace. Seconds later, Triple-H snatched the sledgehammer from her hands and disabled his boss with a thunderous blow. Worse yet, after the match, Stephanie first cried at her father's side. Then, shockingly, she and her husband broke into broad grins.
Stephanie had turned her back on her father and the WWF.
"What a phony!" cried The Rock. "What is wrong with these jabronis? Somebody had better take the time to kick their roody-poo [butts]."
Problem is, with Steph and HHH ruling the roost, no one's had the opportunity to do so. The king and queen of the WWF have used their power to set wrestler against wrestler in some of the most bizarre matches imaginable.
"As a parent, I have to ask myself why she betrayed her dad," mused Foley.
Publicly, Stephanie attributes her treachery to months of hell that culminated in her abduction by The Undertaker. She had been used as her father's pawn on a number of occasions to help him win his battle with Stone-Cold Steve Austin.
"Stephanie McMahon takes business very personally," said Jerry "The King" Lawler.
"Her father has hardly acted as a loving dad. Would you lock your daughter in a basement and let her be run over by rats? Not me."
"Stephanie knew what she was getting into when she decided to throw her hat into the wrestling ring," one said one WWF executive who asked to remain anonymous. "She's lived a wrestling life; she's seen it all. She knew what her father and the other wrestlers were capable of doing. She should not have been shocked that she became a pawn in her father's elaborate schemes. Not it appears she is using others as pawns in her own scheme."
And some scheme: Stephanie falls in love with Test, gets amnesia after being struck on the head by a wastebasket hurled by The British Bulldog, regains her memory and decides she's not ready for marriage. Then, to the world, she proclaims Triple H "a turn-on."
Talk about thinks that make you go "Hmmmmmm."
"Is it possible that all this is a put-on?" wondered Ross. "I'd be real careful in posing that question. I would really have to think about the nature of her relationship with her family."
Lest one forget, brother Shane and father Vince twice had phony feuds, all for the sake of futhering the McMahon domination of the WWF. Could Stephanie's feud with her father be merely for show? Might we suddenly see the McMahon family rise as one to quash yet another nemesis, this one named Hunter Hearst Helmsley?
Triple-H beware!