Perry Saturn looked around the dressing room of the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, sticking close to Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Chris Benoit. The quartet had arrived at the building several hours earlier, keeping their presence a secret from the fans now lining up outside for the night's show. Days before, they'd all been prominent names in World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Then, suddenly, the "Gang of Four" defected. Within hours, the World Wrestling Federation would unveil them on Raw Is War. In the meantime, Saturn had time to reflect on his reasons for walking away from a lucrative contract, and jumping to the enemy camp.

"I feel like I've been freed," he said.

Slowly, tentatively, men who'd worked with the dissidents in other organizations approached. The Big Show embraced them, joking, "Glad you made it out alive." Chris Jericho stepped forward with a big smile, later inviting Val Venis into the cluster. Still, the majority of the World Wrestling Federation performers looked at the newcomers with curiosity - particularly Benoit. Some two weeks earlier, he'd captured the WCW Heavyweight championship in an exciting match that some said restored credibility to the title. Less than 24 hours later, he quit. Benoit had been in the business 14 years, and taken every moment of it seriously. Why now, when he'd won the belt said to be linked to the title reigns of Ric Flair, Lou Thesz, and Frank Gotch, did he simply dive it up?

"It wasn't about winning the gold down there," he responded. "Because, in my opinion, their gold strap is like wearing a piece of tin around your waist. When you look at the ratings (for WCW and the World Wrestling Federation), and compare them, it says everything."

Never before could anyone recall a situation quite as explosive, "I've been in the business over 25 years," said Jim Ross, the World Wrestling Federation's senior vice president of talent relations, in addition to its most respected announcer. "And I've never seen four top-quality talents like this - with national name identity - leave one group all at the same time and go to another one."

For the last several days, the Internet had been buzzing with rumors about the men the World Wrestling Federation announcing team swiftly dubbed "Radicals." Some people speculated that the Federation - experiencing its greatest surge, and perhaps hoping to deliver a knockout punch to its teetering rival - had made a monetary offer that the quartet couldn't refuse.

Malenko attempted to clear the air by replying, "You probably won't believe it, but this wasn't even a money issue. It was about pride. I love this business. I believe in this business. And the bottom line was I just wanted an opportunity in this business."

They received that opportunity on January 31, the night they entered the World Wrestling Federation. The Radicals hopped over the barricades to become involved in the first match of Raw, pummeling the New Age Outlaws.

Then, in the main event, they stormed the ring again, ending the program by throttling World Wrestling Federation Champion Triple H. Clearly, the foursome's emergence was the theme of the show - a situation Malenko said he'd have difficulty envisioning in WCW.

Benoit had been a lifelong wrestling fan. As a teenager, he'd buttonhole wrestlers in his native Edmonton, and pledge to ignite the ring one day. Like Jericho, he'd been trained for the squared circle by the inimitable Stu Hart in Calgary. Like Mick Foley, he'd blazed a trail in Japan, earning the reverence of both fans and athletes generally ambivalent about the skills of North American imports to their country. But, in WCW, he said, he felt like he was losing his passion: "I got to the point where I didn't care. I didn't care if I was champion. I didn't care who I was wrestling. I just wanted to get in and get out with my paycheck at the end of the week. And that's not what this business is about."

It's a business unlike any other, still subject to codes wrestlers developed generations ago to keep the profession's secrets among themselves. As the son of '60s and '70s star Professor Boris Malenko, Dean Malenko, as much as anyone, was groomed to "protect the business," leaving its inner workings a mystery to the people in the stands. "Wrestling fans don't want to know about the politics that go on behind the curtains," he explained, "and they shouldn't know. That's not why they come to the arena. They're out there, spending their money, to be entertained."

Part of the process of building a wrestler's reputation today involves creating compelling storylines that evolve - and draw in new viewers - each week. It's this skill that Benoit believes is the main distinction between wrestling organizations: "I like direction. I like to know where I'm going and what I'm doing with the storylines."

When Benoit last signed a contract with WCW, the organization was headed by Eric Bischoff. "He made a lot of promises to me to give me more opportunities," Benoit said. "Then he was replaced." Others were brought in to fill the gap. For a while, the Radicals claim that they were hopeful. But the constant turnover of leadership made them uneasy.

In particular, the group was troubled by the elevation of Kevin Sullivan, a former wrestling star, as a member of the "booking committee" to decide future WCW plot twists. "Kevin's very open about the fact that he didn't feel he could draw money with any of us," Saturn claimed. "He didn't feel any of us could get over. And, to me, that meant we weren't even going to get a chance to fail."

Sullivan's prominence was complicated by another fact: his former wife, Nancy - known to wrestling fans as Woman, a manager in both WCW and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) - is now Benoit's significant other. Still, the former WCW champion alleges that is private life had no bearing on his decision to join the World Wrestling Federation: "That's now what this was about. Of course, I had personal grievances with Kevin. But I can tolerate one person's animosity. This was not about one person in particular."

According to Saturn, the mind-set in WCW was "old school," a remnant of a prior era, and stacked against performers like the Radicals, as well as other lighter-weight but highly athletic grapplers like Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio, Jr. Saturn cites a recent pay-per-view as an example. Early on, Kidman defeated Saturn, then Dean Malenko. But in his final match of the night, Kidman was crushed by a larger - and, in Saturn's estimation, less gifted - wrestler called The Wall. "I got buried, and Dean got buried," Saturn said. "Then, finally, Kidman got buried, too."

"It just wasn't fun being part of something like that," continued Saturn. "On Sunday night, I'd have a knot in my stomach, knowing that I had to leave and go to work the next day."

Guerrero - the son of Mexican icon Gory Guerrero, and younger brother of stars Chavo and Hector Guerrero - admitted that he added to the negativity: "I was one of those guys who bitched all the time in the dressing room and never did anything about it. And then, for the last year and a half or two years, I just got quiet and accepted the consequences. And, basically, I was more miserable than I had ever been. When I was inside the ring, that's different, that a God-given thing, and I was very happy. But outside the ring, I was very depressed. This is something I grew up wanting to do, and I didn't think it would end up this way."

In January, the group concluded that it was time for a change. Together, Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero, and Saturn asked for their release. Recalled Malenko, "I think there's a point and a time in everybody's career when they have to do what's right for themselves. I spent a lot of time thinking about the career move, and what was right for Dean Malenko. And I thought that this was the best move possible for me at this point of my career."

It seemed like WCW was either trying to placate the group, or divide them, by programming Benoit's title win. Benoit reportedly told WCW not to award him the belt, but it was given to him anyway. Incredibly, he was still just as committed to leaving the company the next day. When a compromise couldn't be reached, Benoit claimed that he offered to lose the championship in the ring, in order to advance another wrestler's career. "He said, 'Let me put someone else over, so the fans can see him with the belt,'" Saturn insisted. "And they said, 'No, we're going to strip you of the title.' Chris did everything he could do to be professional about it."

Eventually, Benoit is said to have walked over to a referee, handed him the strap and left. "Everyone stuck together," Guerrero remembered. "It we were going to go through with this, we had to go all the way."

The unity was based on a deep friendship Malenko said he'd built up with his partners over several years in various organizations: "Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero and I have collectively known each other for eight years. We formed a bond when we were working overseas, and continued that friendship in the United States. And we kind of adopted Perry during the last year. These three guys have the same philosophy and work ethic that I do. And we all agreed that the situation we were in wasn't working."

At one point, other WCW wrestlers aligned themselves with the Radicals, most notably Shane Douglas, who'd previously appeared in the World Wrestling Federation under the name Dean Douglas. But, according to Saturn, Douglas wanted to continue discussions with WCW before leaving. "Shane started telling us, 'Let's wait, let's wait,'" Saturn asserted. "We were already focused beyond the point of waiting. So when Shane wanted to wait, I counted him out."

When WCW released the quartet, their legal representatives contacted the Federation. "The individuals in upper management at WCW must have been getting some pretty bad advice from their wrestling people to let four quality performers like this go," Ross said. "It made no sense."

Soon, the four were at World Wrestling Federation headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, locked in negotiations. As they toured the facility, they were apparently surprised to learn that Superstars like The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin didn't dress in private rooms, apart from the other wrestlers, as certain names allegedly do at WCW. "They said they'd been treated differently in WCW," Ross recounted. "Show up, wrestle, get dressed and go home. Their intellect and their opinions were irrelevant. It isn't that way here. We require our talent to contribute mentally. We're looking for feedback, for ideas, because it makes the product better.

"We promised to listen to their opinions and give them input about how they wanted to be portrayed. The fact is that we perceive these four guys as potential star, and were willing to give them the opportunity to achieve greatness."

Just the caliber of wrestlers in the World Wrestling Federation was enough to alter Benoit's attitude. "I've always thrived on different challenges and different opponents," he said. "I didn't feel like I was getting it down there. I expect it will be different in the Federation."

Regardless of the feuds eventually involving the Radicals, Guerrero is convinced that the World Wrestling Federation's corporate structure is an improvement over his previous environment of dueling supervisors. "The one thing about the Federation is that there's really only one boss (Vince McMahon)," he said. "One person makes the final decision."

Ironically, McMahon was the reason certain members of the Radicals never expected to end up in the World Wrestling Federation. In the mid-'80s through the early '90s, the league seemed to favor larger wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior and the Undertaker. "I spent 14 years in Japan," Malenko noted, "because of the stigma that if you weren't 6'8", and 280 or 300 pounds, you couldn't get a push in America."

But, over the last few years, the World Wrestling Federation has undergone what is arguably its most dramatic transition ever. As a result, streamlined grapplers like X-Pac and Chris Jericho have become focal points of the programming. "I never thought this opportunity would come," Guerrero said. "Thank God, Vince McMahon has changed."

Still, the Radicals have experienced too much disappointment to simply assume that all their dreams will be fulfilled in the World Wrestling Federation. "For so much of my career, it was just promises, promises, promises," Guerrero remarked. "It could turn out that way here. God willing it won't."

On his second night in the World Wrestling Federation, Guerrero suffered what appeared to be a setback when he was sidelined by an elbow injury. Amazingly, he refused to allow the impairment to slow him down. The next Monday night, he was back on Raw Is War, participating in an emotional angle involving the group turning on their "friend," Cactus Jack.

"You've just got to 'rock 'n' roll' and so your job," he said. His features tensed, Malenko finished a photo shoot, then prepared for a meeting to discuss the twists and turns of the night's TV show. "Three months from now, I might regret coming here," he reflected. "Who's to say? But at least I stood up for what I believed in and took a chance."