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| TO THE LION'S DEN |
| MONDAY, JULY 9, 2001 : A DAY THAT WILL LIVE IN WRESTLING INFAMY by Brian Clegg |
| �ECW and WCW together?! May God Have Mercy On Our Souls!!� ~Jim Ross~ |
| On July 9, 2001 during the WWF program RAW IS WAR, fans the world over got to see something happen that rarely happens in such a form of entertainment...the unexpected. With the internet always giving out results and plans before they are seen, it was something to remember because no one saw it coming. Not since Scott Hall walked through the crowd on WCW MONDAY NITRO, and the following arrival of Kevin Nash and the heel turn by Hulk Hogan has the world of professional wrestling been shaken up and stirred around to make something new and even more interesting, at least in my opinion. It's the early days of the NWO all over again, only bigger. Back in March when the WWF purchased the burned-out hull of WCW from Time-Warner, people knew that dream matches and angles would eventually rise up. But lost in all the high-profile talk and news about the biggest entity in sports entertainment buying out the enemy it killed was another victim of the WWF juggernaut...ECW. An Americanised form of 'extreme' sports entertainment, they made their reputations on action and skill, not high gloss effects and soap-operatic storylines. They lasted roughly 6 years and eventually fell apart after losing their television spot and many of their top stars to the growing WWF roster. Paul Heyman filed for bankruptcy and showed up at the announcing table the week after Jerry 'The King' Lawler quit due to reasons unknown surrounding the firing of his wife, Stacey Carter. The 'Invasion' angle started, with WCW wrestlers interfering in WWF matches, then full-blown WCW matches on RAW and SMACKDOWN. But with the way the story was being handled, it was showing signs of self destruction fast. One WCW wrestler, Buff Bagwell, was recently fired as a precaution because of his attitude which hadn't changed much since the old WCW. The upcoming pay-per-view, WCW/WWF INVASION was in jeopardy of sucking so much that everything they worked for would go up in smoke... Until Monday night. During an inter-company match between Kane and Chris Jericho (WWF) vs Lance Storm and Mike Awesome (WCW), Tommy Dreamer and Rob Van Dam, both late of ECW, come through the crowd and attacked the WWF wrestlers. Former ECW stars and present WWF such as the Dudley Boys, Raven, Rhyno, Tazz and Justin Credible ran down to the ring and seemed ready to confront the reunited Storm,Awesome, Dreamer and Van Dam, all of ECW as well... Guess you can figure out what happened next. All ten ECW turned in unison and attacked Kane and Jericho. Hetman and Ross at ringside are going into 'WTF' mode, when Heyman throws down his headset, and climbs up to the ring, seemingly to get answers. The Dudleys look at him...and hold the ropes open for their former leader. On the mic, Heyman told the world it was a long-seeded plan to invade the WWF, and now was the time to take things to the 'Extreme' as ECW had reformed on enemy territory. He placed an open challenege to both WWF and WCW, anywhere and anytime. That time came later in the evening, when Shane McMahon (owner of WCW) and Vince McMahon (owner of WWF) decided to put 5 of their individual companies best into a 10-man tag-team war. Then it got interesting. During the match, the WCW/WWF faction warred against each other before the ECW faction come through the crowd. When they got there, it wound up being not a 10-10 match...but a 15-5 war, as the truth was revealed...ECW and WCW had merged. Vince come to ringside, only to watch in horror as his 5 were dismantled, and stood in horror as his son Shane introduced the new owner of ECW...Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley, his daughter and Shane's sister. What all this boiled down to in the end was that, no matter what Vince did to crush the competition, it would come back to bite him in the ass in the end. Sure Vince McMahon owns all three companies in soome form or another, so this story could go down without all the red-tape and negotiations. But the basis for the story itself is classic. The conquering hero must sit and watch as the world he has created rebels against him. He must watch as his own children side with the crushed and destroyed, all in an effort to dethrone the mighty king. In one night, a company saved what could be a very important PPV, as well as it's place in wrestling history. Mondays on RAW and Thursdays on SMACKDOWN are going to be very interesting to watch in the next few weeks to see if they can do what has rarely been done before... Change the way fans look at things. |
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| A CONFUSED KING WONDERS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN HIS WORLD |
| A KING LISTENS AS HIS SON LAYS OUT THE PLAN FOR HIS DEMISE |
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| A FORMER RULER LAUGHS AS HE SIDES WITH THE KINGS CHILDREN IN WAR |
| I hate to say it, but I think Shakespeare would be proud. |