After nearly a full year of various rumors, negotiations, and several near finalized deals, the sale of World Championship Wrestling by Time Warner to Fusient Media Ventures was officially announced on 1/11, literally hours before the announcement that the final step of the Time Warner/AOL merger had been cleared.

Fusient Media Ventures, a one-year-old company headed by Brian Bedol and Stephen Greenberg, who are best known for starting up the Classic Sports Network, and then selling it to ESPN where it became ESPN Classics, for $175 million, is the parent company. The company, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, is an incubator type company that raises capital for media investments. The actual sale is expected to go through in 30 to 60 days, at which point the names of the various investors will likely be revealed. Change is expected to be gradual until the time the sale is finalized. Nevertheless, even days later, it was clear there was a greater emphasis placed on the cruiserweight division and on having a strong in-ring product with less run-ins, tables, garbage matches, and elimination of swearing as wrestlers were told specifically words like damn, hell and ass are no longer to be uttered on broadcasts. Bischoff described trying to get raunchy to compete with WWF as a failed experiment. While getting too raunchy can't work today because of the advertising climate, getting too tame doesn't come across as the needed cutting edge, although ultimately that's overrated as to sinking or swimming. A good wrestling product with soap opera that makes sense and good matches will, in time, since the company has strong television exposure, make gains in popularity, whether T&A or swearing is a strong foundation of the product or not. A bad product, littered with swearing and T&A, which was the Russo product, was a failure. If the good product had the T&A and the swearing, it would probably work best unless there is an advertiser backlash. WWF was successful with the latter formula, and then toned down, continued to be successful. Bischoff called Russo's excuses of blaming standards and practices for not allowing him to do certain things "a crock that Russo peddled" and said Russo's excuses were "a load of crap."

Time Warner, which was wanting to make sure the new company would be funded well enough to last at least one year, is maintaining a minority interest so it can retain the television rights. Terms of the sale were not revealed publicly, likely because the number was embarrassingly low, as someone very close to the situation described the figure as, figuratively, "pennies." It is ironic just how far the company's fortunes has nosedived, as it was less than one year ago, when SFX was interested in purchasing the company, that the negotiations fell apart because the Time Warner asking price was $600 million.

Bedol will take over as CEO of the new company and handle the finance side, with Eric Bischoff back in charge of the creative end as company President. Fusient describes itself as a media company focused on identifying, funding, developing and distributing next generation content and media brands. There is some concern because they are heavily invested in internet start-up companies, a genre which as a whole has become a major financial disappointment.

Bedol also has a background as Senior Vice President of Time Warner Enterprises, and was credited with overseeing a period of major growth in attendance at Six Flags Theme Parks. He also had a hand in the early stages of Nick at Nite and Court TV.

Bischoff has done numerous media interviews over the past week since the purchase. He's been vague on a lot of subjects, in many cases because final decisions haven't been made. Wrestlers, some based on friendship with Bischoff and enthusiastic because a change of any kind would be a positive in a stagnant, dying company, and others based on fear for the future of their jobs, upped their in-ring work rate tremendously for the 1/14 Sin PPV and 1/15 Nitro.

Bischoff stated that the company has to emphasize making its wrestlers look and come across more like stars and open up new ways to find and create new talent. The Power Plant's future sprung up in many rumors because Bischoff made a comment about the facility being good for its day.

When asked about why Fusient would buy a company whose revenues had plummeted and was deep in the red, Bedol said, "It's up to us to deliver. I think historically we have understood both how to create high-quality media brands, how to market them, how to listen to audiences and how to turn things around. I think that with any product, you can't make promises. You have to deliver and have people appreciate them that way."

Addressing the various rumors and stories that have come out:

Hulk Hogan - Hogan himself probably started this one indirectly through Bubba the Love Sponge, that he was going in to the new company for a $3.5 million to $4 million offer to do some wrestling and book the company. At this point, there is no deal with Hogan. Bischoff wants Hogan in the company, a decision that many have questioned thinking there is only a downside of Hogan's involvement. Until Hogan's legal problems with WCW are settled, it is doubtful he'll be back, and because his contract expires in two months, Bischoff said it would be suicide to put Hogan on television before signing him to a new deal. Hogan himself has several options, as he's had contact with many individuals and companies that are looking to start their own wrestling company based around his believed marquee value. There is also still the WWF option. Still, most feel his most likely choice would be to return. But those close to him say he's got some trepidations about it, believing that a wrestling company needs to run a regular schedule of house shows to be successful.

House shows - Bischoff has described the company as eventually running house shows after it rebuilds its popularity. It is believed the company has no plans to run a regular touring schedule at any time in the near future, continuing on with the four TV tapings and one PPV schedule with sporadic house shows the company is currently on. Bischoff said he thinks it has been a big mistake to tape Thunder after Nitro, which was done to save money, but has resulted in a depressing atmosphere nearly every week for Thunder, so would be looking at adding a second taping per week at some point. He thinks it would be a big mistake to move Nitro from Monday (I agree on that one, if both companies are fighting, and while this doesn't make sense on the surface, in practice as the last five years have proven to be the case, both companies if competitive will grow a new audience as opposed to split an existing one, and when one side isn't competitive, the audience for wrestling in general declines greatly rather than stays the same but switches over to the more successful product). Bischoff said if he had his way, Nitro would be moved to 9-11 p.m. (if the company was hot, I'd agree. Right now isn't the time for that move). He has no plans to cut the PPV shows back from the current once a month schedule. The television tapings are expected to all be from one location. There have been rumors of different sites as the permanent site of Nitro and Thunder, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Orlando, but a final decision has yet to be made.

The company will shut down and relaunch - A plan to at some point in the near future, shut the company down for three or four weeks and build for a relaunch has been discussed and is a possibility. The final decision has yet to be made either whether to do it, or a timetable to do it. After this past two weeks, it seems less like a good idea. It is clear from crowd reactions at Sin and Nitro, that the crowds will recognize a good product and react quickly to it. It'll take time to rebuild it economically, but shutting it down may only serve to kill momentum if the company starts running a string of largely good shows. Nitro doing its lowest rating for a live show in history on 1/8 can be blamed a lot on loss of momentum because of the consecutive pre-emptions. The 1/22 move will make four shows in seven weeks that either didn't air, or aired on a Tuesday. TNT will badly damage Nitro if it doesn't have a stronger commitment to its success. The future of Nitro on TNT has always been considered short-term, and as mentioned last week, while nobody is talking about it publicly with the sale, there has been talk of when Nitro is supposed to move to TBS, that TBS may cut back to only one prime time wrestling show per week.

Talent - Bischoff seems to recognize the need for creating new stars. Time will tell, as many blame the company's failure on its failure to eliminate the existing stars, and thus contributed to the perception of the company as old-timers wrestling. It was a disappointing start to Nitro as they created two big groups, similar to the open when Bischoff and Vince Russo took over in April, and none of the newer talent was included, and older dead weight like Lex Luger and good workers who, no matter how hard they try, don't have main event marketability like Jeff Jarrett, were being pushed ahead of more talented but lower paid wrestlers like Lance Storm and Mike Awesome. Bischoff said no more using active talent as bookers.

Will he become a performer? - He said that in the past he has spread himself too thin by being in charge behind the scenes and also being a performer.

Will contracts be changed? - It will probably happen. Details of how the new contracts will be given haven't been hinted on. All but the top wrestlers, and a few guys whose lawyers pushed hard for it like Shane Douglas, have the 90-day contract cycles at which point the company has the right to terminate them and then negotiate to bring them back with a different deal.

Is the interpromotional PPV idea possible with WWF? Variety in its coverage of the sale talked about the potential of an interpromotional angle. Bedol has privately talked with people thinking that with Turner out of the picture, he thought the two sides could sit down. Bischoff, with more understanding of McMahon, said he believed it isn't going to happen. Even when McMahon was thinking of buying WCW himself, it was the prevailing belief that doing interpromotional matches on PPV would draw less buys at this time than WWF was doing on its own because none of the WCW talent is over. The idea was to spend a year rebuilding WCW before starting the interpromotional angle, and that's with owning the company. The odds of doing it with a company not owned are greatly diminished from that.

International talent - Although contrary to reports going around everywhere, there are no meetings specifically scheduled with New Japan, Bischoff and Masa Saito have been in contact since the negotiations got serious and it is likely at some point they will meet and do business. Bischoff is also interested in doing business with Yoshihiro Asai (Ultimo Dragon) and Toryumon. Asai also has a lawsuit out against WCW. Bischoff had promised the company would take care of him after a botched surgery by a WCW appointed doctor resulted in his career ending prematurely, but after Bischoff lost power, he was then fired.

Fired talent - Unless Scott Hall gets his head on straight, there is no spot for him according to Bischoff. He said he's had bad experienced with Juventud Guerrera and that Guerrera needs to prove himself outside of WCW before he'll bring him in. He said he didn't know if he would hire Mark Madden back, saying that the announcers shouldn't be there to get themselves over, but said he doesn't think it was Madden's fault. He said Madden is very talented, but has to know his role.

In selling, it was Brad Siegel, who many close to the situation blame for the problems of the company since he made the decision to bring back Russo as booker after Russo's style was failing the first time (albeit with Bischoff) and Russo's second reign seemed to do tremendous long-term damage. Siegel also made some of the funniest quotes to people who have been close to the situation.

He claimed, "We never went out to sell WCW, but as rumors started to fly, various parties came to us and asked if they could partner with Turner. Fusient clearly rose to the top." He claimed TBS never even considered shutting down the company if they couldn't sell it.

Lost amid all the hoopla of the WCW sale is that just a few hours later, Bob Meyrowitz and Semaphore Entertainment Group announced the sale of the Ultimate Fighting Championship to former Nevada State Athletic commission member Lorenzo Ferititta and Las Vegas-based company Zuffa.

Ferititta, 31, is the co-owner of the Station Casino in Las Vegas, and owns the Zuffa company with brother Frank Ferititta and brother-in-law Blake Sartini. Dana White, the former manager of middleweight champion Tito Ortiz, who is the most charismatic of the fighters that have been in the UFC recently, will actually run the company.

Unlike the WCW deal, which had been rumored for months, this deal was consummated rather quickly. It is generally considered a strong positive for UFC from almost everyone involved because Ferititta's former commissionership background and the fact he's well connected in the Las Vegas area. He also has a strong boxing background. Flip Homansky of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, who replaced Ferititta on the commission, had attended the past two domestic UFC events in New Orleans and Atlantic City. The belief is these connections would open up Las Vegas as a live market for UFC, and Nevada sanctioning was always considered as the major stepping stone for getting the events back on PPV.

"It is great news for the UFC but it's truly a sad day for me," said Meyrowitz on Eddie Goldman's "No Holds Barred" show on eyada.com. Meyrowitz, who is the CEO of eyada.com, said that he guaranteed with the sale that UFC would be available everywhere on PPV again within six months. Meyrowitz has been part of UFC since its inception in 1993 when Rorion Gracie and Art Davie brought the concept to his Semaphore Entertainment Group for PPV packaging, and after surprising success with a first show, the popularity constantly grew, and Meyrowitz bought out his original partners, Gracie and Davie, and by 1995, it seemed on the verge of passing the WWF as the No. 1 regular PPV attraction.

But that never happened for a number of reasons, some of which were political. UFC has struggled along for the past few years, largely due to the smaller universe, but the lack of promotion and inability, largely due to the lack of exposure and promotion to create mainstream drawing cards like Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie were in the first two years has resulted in buy rates of the PPV drop probably every bit as drastically as those of WCW. UFC in its heyday, was a PPV marvel, doing buy rates as strong, and sometimes stronger than pro wrestling, and without any television support. Even as late as two years ago, the shows still did numbers in the 0.55 range within the universe of dish homes that they were available in. The world of PPV has gotten far more difficult with the preponderance of events, and UFC is faced with a very difficult prospect of having to try and get an audience back that in most cases hasn't seen the show since 1997 due to a lack of availability, when most of the major cable companies dropped it. In Canada, where the product was off for years, and was recently put back on, due to the lack of promotion, the numbers aren't in the ballpark of what they were before it was pulled, at the heyday of the promotion in 1996. UFC was and always has been an anomaly, because numerous other promoters have attempted to put on PPV shows, and even with strong marquee main events and tons of advertising, without the UFC name itself, all being big money losers, and most never did a second show. If Ferititta has the political juice to reverse the ban by cable companies, the company is also faced with somehow re-marketing the sport, which also has strong potential in the home video market. The show, if the cable ban breaks, would then have to face strong competition from the Pride shows, which has the biggest name fighters in its stable and has also expressed interest in promoting in Las Vegas should Nevada open up.

The UFC staff that had been working for Meyrowitz, is scheduled to meet with the new ownership group this week and it is expected all will be offered jobs provided they move to Las Vegas, where the company will be headquartered and that Zuffa would be taking over promotion of the next show immediately but not be changing any of the currently booked plans. Very little else is known as it pertains to plans other than the 2/23 Atlantic City PPV from the Trump Taj Mahal is considered a go with a proposed main event of Ortiz vs. Evan Tanner for the middleweight title. Meyrowitz over the years had turned down many offers for UFC, including feelers from the WWF, and it is believed that he was interested in maintaining a minority share, but that it was a 100% buy-out. There were talks recently that were described as serious for a group headed by Dan Lambert and booker John Peretti to purchase the company fairly recently, but ultimately Meyrowitz decided against selling at that point.

Over the last two years, with WCW piling up huge losses and the WWF's fortunes taking the opposite turn, it has led to something almost universally accepted in wrestling, which history shows to be a fallacy--that guaranteed contracts ruin wrestling because they create lazy, unmotivated performers.

The fact is, the structure of the contracts are immaterial in the motivation level of the performers if you look at the business in the big picture over the past two decades. It is all about the atmosphere created where there is felt by the wrestlers that they are going to be rewarded for their work and the examples set by the highest paid performers. Now, there have to be problems with the contracts in WCW as they are structured. For one, the company can't afford the current deals because there is no revenue to offset those costs coming in, but that problem isn't contract structure, that problem is no incoming revenue. For all the talk about the big contracts being the major problem in WCW, people who are saying that haven't looked at the big picture either. The big contracts are a problem only because of no revenue. Those same contracts were around in 1998 when the company's profit margin was very close to what the WWF's was in 1999 and what they probably will be in 2001 (2000 should be a better year when all is said and done because the XFL will take the profit margin down next year). If anything, based on the $50 million or more in profits both companies earned in their best years, wrestlers were underpaid in WCW in 1997 and 1998, not overpaid. Clearly, those same wrestlers, based on revenues the company took in this year, are ridiculously overpaid. But if every WCW wrestler had worked for free in 2000, that is, zero money spent to talent contracts, the company's losses still would have topped $20 million. The problem was not the contracts, the problem was the product that led to people not buying tickets and ordering PPV events or buying merchandise, falling ratings leading to advertising declines and another unspoken factor, taking Nitro down from three hours to two, which resulted in a 33% drop in television ad revenue from Nitro on top of the decline caused by the ratings falling. However, because revenue is so low, the contracts will need to be restructured to hold the losses down, as it expected to happen to most guys when their 90 day cycles run out. Fact is, in 2000, the payroll for the WWF will be higher, probably significantly so, than that of WCW, but with the WWF taking in tons more revenue, if anything, WWF talent that is better paid has a far better claim to being underpaid than WCW talent based on each company's production.

This is not an argument that the WWF approach, which provides in most cases for nominal downside guarantees and then bonuses based on position on the card, attendance and PPV revenue, is wrong. Structurally, any company making this kind of money in wrestling at a time when nobody else is, is doing more right than wrong. And the wrestlers are well paid. If one wants to consider them underpaid, which they are, compared to talent in baseball or hockey or football, all on teams that don't generate anywhere near the revenue of the WWF but numerous teams pay their players far more, that again is the fault of players, not management. Management never gives away significant advances along those lines without labor pressure, and wrestlers have been notoriously weak in that regard as compared to other athletes or entertainers who produce similar levels (or far less for that matter) of revenue. The point of this is, as the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Because the WWF is profitable doing this method, whether it be of payoffs, of in-ring style, of talent development, or whatever, means they are doing a good job right now, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to do a good job. I've spoken to people with vast wrestling knowledge in WCW who roll their eyes when certain people in power in WCW, whose only experience in the wrestling industry is a few years working in WWF, think that is the only approach that works. There have been many periods in many places with many companies around the world where pro wrestling has been on fire, and this is just one of them, maybe the biggest of all, but hardly the only success story.

Just turn your clock back to 1996 and 1997. WCW wrestlers were all making guaranteed contracts, the same as they are making today. WWF wrestlers were being paid based on the house. Up until this period, in 1996, when McMahon needed to offer downside guarantees to lure Marc Mero and Brian Pillman from WCW and at the same time he was losing Kevin Nash and Scott Hall because he refused to match the $750,000 per year offer WCW made for both of them, the WWF began offering downside guarantees. Still, during those year, WCW was more profitable than WWF. WCW offered a better in-ring product than WWF. WCW wrestlers, generally speaking, were happier and more motivated. WWF did provide better main events because that was the Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels era, and those wrestlers did start the pendulum swinging as far as workrate because they created one standard while the WCW headliners were starting to create another. But it wasn't the contract differences, as both Hart and Michaels at around this point were getting huge guarantees to keep from jumping (which Hart eventually did) and Hart's contract (Michaels' may have as well but I'm not certain about his) actually didn't even include bonuses if the gates were higher, yet nobody could look at the in-ring matches and performance of Hart in 1997 and say he gave less than 100% WCW undercards were awesome, but the main events were lacking. That spoke of the quality of the main eventers, and not the nature of the contracts. Those same wrestlers, if they worked main events in the WWF (see Roddy Piper vs. Jerry Lawler's King of the Ring main event) would have been just as bad.

What did kill WCW's workrate was not the contract structure as far as guaranteed money vs. incentive based, was lack of discipline, lack of reward for work and lack of upward mobility. Now if the contracts are structured to where a wrestler could miss a house show without a valid reason, or could miss public appearances without being fined, or if their contracts allow them to miss dates with no punishment, yes, those are badly structured deals or a result of bad management. Even when WWF was struggling and behind WCW in ratings, that didn't stop them from firing Jim Hellwig when he blew off some house shows after a confrontation with McMahon, or getting rid of Sid Vicious soon after he overslept and failed to appear at a major promotional appearance, even though they were behind in star power and Hellwig was perceived by fans as a major star and Vicious by management and some fans as a major star. Those same things were frequent in WCW, and nobody lost their spot. Soon, due to complaints from guys at the top who bitched about having to do things like actually go on the road and do house shows, wrestlers in WCW started thinking that actually wrestling or promoting wrestling was an unreasonable demand by the company paying them seven figure contracts.

And when they would get away with excuses not to come, and the company didn't realize it was going to kill them at the other end because fans felt ripped off paying for advertised matches and superstars that weren't there, and the undercard wrestlers, who ironically were working fuller schedules for far less money, knew often the excuses headliners got away with were bogus, what happened? They didn't want to do house shows. They didn't want to do public appearances. And ultimately, the last 30 months resulted. But that's the discipline set by management, or lack thereof, and motivation level inspired by headliners. It has nothing to do with contract payment plan. The great undercard workers in WCW that at the time were blowing away the in-ring product of WWF, were all wrestlers who came from environments where they earned guaranteed money, whether it was New Japan or AAA. In both places, in fact, they earned far less than they did in WCW, but if you ask any of those wrestlers today, to a man, they'll tell you they were more motivated and happier while working a harder schedule and more physically demanding matches for less money. It's just that in those environments, they were taught by the companies that hard work paid off and was appreciated. Those same wrestlers, whether it be Rey Misterio Jr. in AAA or Chris Benoit in New Japan, were limited, by size and not ability, to how far the company would let them go as well, but they did get incentive in other ways from management that their match quality was highly appreciated, and most importantly, fans were educated that their matches were important and reacted. They were never put in positions where they looked like jokes because the company recognized they were too valuable in their spots to kill them off. Even the old guys on top may not have been able to outwork them, but, whether they were Perro Aguayo or Shinya Hashimoto, they never worked with the attitude that they didn't need to work hard to entertain the fans and keep them coming back for the next show. In WCW, it became clear that the management didn't care and thought because houses were packed, it would always stay that way even without giving those fans a strong show, and the arrogance of killing towns with bad shows, no shows, killing off the regional heroes for whatever ego-driven reason and not rewarding hard work in any fashion eventually killed the incentive of most of the wrestlers (Benoit being the exception as he performed well until the last day he was with the company). At that point, the WWF, whose top guys instilled the messages of wanting to work while injured because you were advertised and didn't want to disappoint the fans who paid money to see you and knowing that the job of a wrestler involved travel and working four nights a week, started blowing WCW's product away on virtually every level. I'm not saying that is the reason WWF far surpassed WCW, although it is one of many reasons. Three years ago, WCW had better young talent than WWF. But that WWF young talent improved year-by-year until they became superstars. The WCW young talent stagnated, or went to WWF, the ones who could work at the top level became bigger stars in WWF, and the ones who didn't have the work ethic, Big Show as the perfect example, never made it as nearly as big a star in WWF as he was in WCW when he first started.

Case in point. Let's go back to 1987. Jim Crockett had lost a lot of talent to the WWF. He started signing his major acts to guaranteed money contracts to keep them from going to the WWF, where wrestlers didn't have guarantees at all, but overall, because the company was more successful, were making a lot more money. Now, ultimately, Crockett went out of business for a number of reasons, largely because McMahon sabotaged his PPV business, where Crockett expected to make the money to justify those contracts, and because he made so little money on PPV, combined with the downturn in his own business from the bad booking, he nearly went bankrupt and had to sell to Turner Broadcasting. However, even though throughout the 80s the WWF paid better and didn't offer guarantees, the workrate and motivation level of the Crockett performers of that era blew away that of the WWF. It was because for the most part, those at the top for Crockett, were hard workers, and that motivated the rest of the crew to follow suit. The guys at the top in WWF weren't hard workers, they were guys marketed well, and the undercard performers knew it was in their best interest not to outwork the top guys, so it created an environment where hard in-ring work wasn't as important.

Quite frankly, as far as getting the most out of ones ability, the talent crew in ECW is equal to, some would even say superior to that of WWF. WWF wrestlers overall are far more talented performers, but from a pure work standpoint, the best ECW shows as far as the effort standpoint goes, are as good as any WWF shows. They fall short in most other categories but effort isn't one of them. ECW wrestlers were not paid based on the house. If the buy rate was up, they didn't share in the growth. If tickets didn't sell well, they still made the same, at least contractually although not in practice always because of late pay and the like. Nobody got paid more for being in the main event unless Heyman gave them a raise, which was the same as Bischoff. But ECW wrestlers were aware that hard work mattered, and that wrestlers got more over with the audience and would get a better push if they had good matches. The FBI, just as an example, are two guys so tiny that they could never even get jobs as wrestlers in WWF most likely, and one of them in WCW was used as a manager. But through hard work and having a great series of matches, Heyman recognized their talents, and made them tag team champions, and everyone saw Kid Kash and Spike Dudley, not to mention all their predecessors, and others labeled too small have their stock go up through hard work and it inspired everyone to work hard. If that same motivation and encouragement had been part of the WCW product, nobody would even have to talk about the evils of guaranteed contracts creating lazy performers. Did they create them in ECW? Did those wrestlers blow off their promotional work or create excuses to miss house shows or try and change the advertised line-ups so they could get away with an easier match?

The quality of work ultimately is going to be based on numerous factors, and if you look at the world of wrestling over the past 20 years, and compare guaranteed contracts vs. percentage contracts, you'll find that is not one of the factors. The factors are the motivation level from management where wrestlers are rewarded with raises and upward mobility based on their work, and maybe even more than that, the examples set in and out of the ring by the top guys in the company. There is a huge difference between the Hogan-led WWF and the Austin-led WWF when it comes to in-ring product even though both led WWF to strong boom periods. The Hogan-led WWF saw constant no-shows, bad work at house shows, but the promotional mechanism and Hogan's star power offset it. Austin's star power may have offset it as well, but in the last several years, virtually every WWF event I've been to has been an entertaining show. It's been years since I felt it was a bad show. I can't say the same, or even close to the same, for WCW. And even though business was huge under Hogan, it's three or four times as big today under Austin and Rock.

To point out two more examples, let's look at Japan. In 1983 and most of 1984, All Japan was the No. 2 promotion in the country. It actually had a damn good work rate on top, but New Japan was stronger both in the ring and at the box office. When Riki Choshu, Dynamite Kid, and the Choshu army jumped at the end of 1984, it was this influx of more modern style workers that led All Japan to being No. 1. Everyone was making guaranteed money in 1983 as they were in 1985. But when the new guys came in and stepped up the pace, wrestlers like Genichiro Tenryu, who were main eventers, suddenly had to work both harder and better to keep up with the competition, and they did. It took Jumbo Tsuruta, who had developed his groove so to speak, to catch on, but he eventually did, and once he did, had the best matches of his career. Even after many of those wrestlers jumped back to New Japan, they had elevated All Japan to where it was far stronger in the ring, and created the next generation of Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi, because they "grew up" in wrestling seeing the work ethic of those main eventers and learned to emulate it.

Let's look at New Japan this past year. Again, everyone is under a guaranteed contract. New Japan was something of a dull promotion for much of the year. Certainly nothing like WCW, as most of the crew had good matches and things like no-shows and screw-job finishes were virtually non-existent. But for the first nine months of the year, WWF was more entertaining in the ring than New Japan. Suddenly, Kawada came, and he set a standard. If you watch virtually any New Japan TV show since mid-October, you'll see the best ring work to be found anywhere, at least among heavyweights. No contracts had changed, it's just that seeing just how good Kawada was, made so many wrestlers up their game to not be left farther behind.

Don't get me wrong. WCW, for financial reasons, does have to restructure its contracts or run terribly in the red. Most likely, even with the restructuring, they are in for a long period in the red as every wrestler could agree to work free right now and because there are no significant revenue streams, the company would still lose a lot of money. But if anyone thinks changing the structure to incentive based is the answer to any of its problems, they have studied very little about pro wrestling. The answer to the problems of lazy workers is to push hard workers in the top positions and reward hard workers with career elevation and eliminate the lazy workers from the top, or preferably, from the entire system. Whether it was the tag match at Sin, the ladder match at Starrcade 2000 or Juvi vs. Blitzkrieg in 1999, when guys have ****+ matches on PPV and they get no praise on television the next day, and are still portrayed to the fans as the same jobbers they were the week before, there is eventually going to be talent that wises up and no longer has any, or at the very least far less, motivation for having those matches. If those guys after those matches were talked up on TV the next day the way the Dudleys, E&C and Hardys were after some of their ****+ matches on PPV, the fans would probably react better to their performances today, and they would have far more incentive to give performances again like them the next time they are on PPV. It's been said before, but everyone should go back and look at the PPV shows after Juvi and Blitzkrieg had that match. Juvi wasn't back on a PPV for months, despite having the best match in the company all year. Blitzkrieg wasn't on again for months either, and by the end of the year, had been fired. They tore the house down that night better than all the headliners on that same show, but ultimately, the powers that be recognized that they couldn't get over. I wonder if, looking back, they understand why Jeff Hardy, who can't cut a promo, is where he's at, and a better worker (Juvi) and an even more spectacular flier (Blitzkrieg) never improved their standing. There are many reasons, none of which had to do with the structure of the contracts.

 Nitro from 1/15 in Fort Wayne, IN had both very strong and very weak points. The strong points were the work rate of the wrestlers. Everyone had their working shoes on. The guys who usually have lousy matches actually had decent to good matches. The guys you'd expect to have good bouts had closer to excellent bouts. O'Haire in particular and Palumbo to a lesser extent are starting to get over as real players and the crowd enthusiasm was strong, particularly for Steiner vs. Nash and 3 Count vs. Misterio Jr. & Kidman (who had an excellent TV match). The bad news is from a booking standpoint, the product showed no improvement or building for the future. The opening segment was just like the last Bischoff/Russo return with new sides being drawn. Instead of New Blood vs. MC, it's Flair's team against Nash's team. And all the big-time players on both teams with only two exceptions were either past 40 or closing in on it, but hopefully that will be rectified in particular with O'Haire moved up. The good guys were led by Nash, Page and Rick Steiner (with virtually no build-up as they just needed to find a slot for him after changing his angle) while the bad guys were Flair, Animal, Steiner, Bagwell, Luger and Jarrett. This was the perfect opportunity to put new faces, whether it be Awesome, Konnan (who should be apart from the FA's because they seem to be keeping the cruiserweights in their own division which is a positive), Rection or O'Haire in with the big boys instead of guys like Animal or Rick Steiner who serve no purpose and just serve as "blocks." This is a term from when New Japan was wanting to get rid of some good talent that had good matches and was closing in on 40 and I couldn't understand why and it was explained because their star power blocked the ascension of the younger guys and that's the life-blood of the business--by the way, they couldn't pull the trigger on those guys and the problems they expected kind of happened which stagnated in particular Iizuka until this year and Nogami, who is a great talent with lots of charisma although his problem is he's only working part-time, even to this day. The opening segment had all the guys mentioned come out, with the heels doing a mock funeral of Goldberg's career. Flair just showed up as a heel as if everyone had read the internet that he turned and he was the one who screwed Goldberg and it wasn't that Animal and Steiner conspired against Flair but that Flair was in on it. He did explain that much on TV, but he never explained to the actual fans why, although he did explain that it was a long-term plan. The segment lasted 30 minutes and could have taken half that time. The mic work couldn't touch WWF segments of the same length, and they're too long as well. Much of the show consisted of bumpers of Flair trying to recruit people to join the team. The problem is the last time Flair was commissioner (basic came sole, just a semantic change as CEO) and went heel in early 1999, that was the exact period the ratings and buy rates started their free-fall under Nash. Flair is great at the mechanics of being a heel because of all his experience and as an actor in that role is, when inspired, phenomenal. The only problem is, nobody wants to boo him, because he's in his 50s and everyone respects what he's done. Whenever they turn him, they just castrate his value. In 1999, he, as a face, was worth about a 500,000 viewer bump in audience every time he was a focal point of the show. As a heel, his value to the ratings was tiny, and the overall show ratings plummeted during that period. I always point to the Perro Aguayo comparison in Mexico. Aguayo was a heel most of his prime career, but when he got old and went face, even when they tried to turn him, it never worked, because he was the living legend by then so they never fought it and from his mid-40s to mid-50s was actually the biggest drawing card in the entire country most of that time. Right now he actually could go heel because he's finally got the people pissed at him over the bogus retirement deal, but this is the first time he could have effectively done that since probably the mid-80s. The biggest problem with the Flair as a heel role not working is the person who doesn't recognize it more than anyone is Flair himself, and since he can talk with management so well, he always convinces them he's ready for his next heel run because technically in that role he can put faces over better than almost anyone, which is true. It's just that it's not what people want to see. Watch next week in Winston-Salem and see how dead it is when they come to see a product where they are supposed to boo Flair. Ultimately, Steiner may end up as the leader of the group. Flair tried to recruit Crowbar, who turned him down. Guerrero pinned Crowbar with a brainbuster to keep the cruiserweight title. Guerrero came across like an undercard superstar in this match. Crowbar's punch/kick offense needs work, but he works hard and did a great Northern Lights suplex spot for a near fall as well as a splash off the apron to the floor. Daffney has got to go. Luger recruited Bigelow. Well, he does fit the age requirement. Misterio Jr. & Kidman beat 3 Count in about as good a match as you can put on in just 3:15. Incredible dives and great wrestling. Moore was the best performer on either Monday show, and Misterio Jr. did a corkscrew quebrada, the riskiest move he's done in a while, and with his knees, that was kind of scary to watch. Not only that, the crowd popped huge for the finish with Kidman using the Kid crusher on Helms. Team Canada came out for a 3-on-2 on the FA's and Konnan never showed up for the save. Storm tried to set up Awesome vs. Kidman in a hair vs. hair match for later in the show. Kidman agreed to it. After the commercial, Team Canada attacked Kidman some more. The doctor told Kidman he couldn't wrestle, so Konnan agreed to take his place. When it was noted that Konnan had no hair, he agreed to wrestle with Kidman's hair at stake. Flair tried to recruit Guerrero, talking about old-time drinking binges he used to go on with Chavo's father. He didn't make a decision. O'Haire & Palumbo beat Kronik in a tag title match. They got about as good a match out of Kronik as you can. To Kronik's credit, they worked harder knowing everyone's job is on the line. Adams even did his first high dropkick since the 80s and Clark did a rolling bodyblock off the apron. Match went 7:25, and if you consider the Misterio match went 3:15 and what makes sense for both matches, you see a problem. O'Haire looked great, in particular doing a backflip off the top rope and following it up with a crescent kick. Adams tried a super fisherman buster that was so clumsy that I was scared in the landing he was going to wind up like Sid. Jindrak & Stasiak came out and attacked Clark allowing O'Haire to give Adams a Shawnton bomb and Palumbo pinned him. O'Haire & Palumbo were ungrateful, yelling at them for getting in their spotlight and that they had the match won on their own. Konnan beat Awesome with a DDT off the top rope in the hair match. Earlier, Konnan kicked out of the frog splash. The announcers sounded pissed and shocked about that, forgetting that the stipulation had already been explained in an earlier vignette. Great heat and a really good match. Before the match started, Flair explained that if Konnan lost, Kidman would get his head shaved. The bad part is that Konnan took the scissors and started cutting a little of Awesome's hair in the back, then Team Canada saved, so Awesome really lost virtually no hair in the bargain. They still haven't understood about screwing fans on advertised stips means that stips stop drawing money. They now do stips just to jack themselves off not realizing the whole idea of stipulation matches is in some form to build to a blow-off that draws in some form, and if fans don't believe the stips will be upheld, the stips are rendered useless. Cat pinned Bigelow quickly with a crescent kick. The key positive in this one was the term quickly. Douglas pinned Rection after Guerrero hit Rection with a chain to keep the U.S. title. With Chavo as kind of the cruisers, it serves no purpose for him to work a program with Rection, but the interview seemed to indicate that was where they were going. Rection also said he didn't want to be either General Rection or Hugh Morrus anymore. The Steiner vs. Nash title match had amazing heat, but ended with the heel run-in DQ and face save involving everyone in the open of the show

Thunder taped afterwards was said to be nowhere close to as good as Nitro, with the hard workrate not carrying over. Show opens with Cat setting up a big one, Totally Buff vs. Kronik. Kwee Wee does an interview saying he's mad, and you won't like him if he's mad, because Flair hasn't recruited him and challenged anyone. Rick Steiner accepts the challenge and of course, kills him dead. Meng pinned Bigelow in a bad match to keep the hardcore title. Highlight was said to be Bigelow throwing Meng's boot at the announcers and Tenay catching it. Smiley is overjoyed backstage as getting an autographed photo of Glacier. Awesome, who had a professional trim (which doesn't mean a prostitute, it's a haircut) sets up a program with Kidman. Ron Harris beat Smiley when Don did the switch in another bad match. Totally Buff beat Kronik when Jarrett hits Clark with a guitar and Bagwell pinned him. Adams pressed Luger overhead and was supposed to give him a gutbuster but botched the spot up bad. As one report joked, if they do move the tapings to Vegas, Adams can have a new catch phrase "playing slots and blowing spots." DDP chased Jarrett away and Flair sets up a DDP vs. Jarrett main event. Flair's team is now called The WCW Elite. Awesome pinned Kidman clean with the Awesome bomb and tries to cut his hair but the FA's make a save before he can start. Said to be the best match on the Thunder show. Guerrero Jr. pinned Rection, who is now Hugh Morrus in a really long match when Sgt. Awall comes out, and of course swerves Morrus and choke slams him off the middle rope. Morrus actually kicked out and Mickey Jay, believing it was the pin, counted three. Lash Leroux helps Morrus. So double swerve. They built up that it would be Lash that would help Chavo and Awall that would stay loyal, so rather than follow it up, they did a double swerve to the fans on an angle that almost none of the fans thought or cared about to begin with. Match said to not have much heat. Finally Page beat Jarrett via DQ when the heels hit the ring. The faces make the save

Lenny Lane and Jerry Lynn were backstage at Nitro in St. Paul. Lane was still getting a check from WCW until recently. He's had some contact with the WWF, which expressed concern about his similar look as Jericho, but he said he could change the look

Hogan was on Bubba the Love Sponge on 1/11 and Hogan joked about Mark Madden getting fired, saying "he never knew what hit him," saying the firing came from a long distance and he was cryptic about it. He also tried to float the going-to-WWF rumor without actually coming out and saying it

Nitro in Australia is being moved from a planned Tuesday (it never actually aired on Tuesday) to Wednesday on Fox Sports. The station was wanting to air a block of Raw and Nitro together on Tuesday nights, but they found out their contract with Raw specifically prohibited Nitro airing within ten hours of Raw

The 1/22 Nitro is being moved to 1/23 so TNT can show a movie "Pretender-2001," not "2001: A Space Odyssey" as we had reported

There was a Chris Kanyon sighting, doing a run-in at an indie show on 1/10 in Youngstown, OH. Kanyon went home several months ago as his request because his father was very ill. Since that time, he was simply never called back, despite spending literally months building up a program with DDP

Terry Taylor contacted Michael Modest, Tony Jones and Christopher Daniels over the last week as with the new ownership, the hiring freeze is over and at least he'd have the ability to recommend them. There has also been interest from the WCW side shown in the past few days in Tajiri, Super Crazy, Kid Kash and Joey Styles

Vampiro is still under contract, but reports that he'll be back wrestling in April are premature. He's still three weeks away from being cleared to start physical therapy and it could be until the end of the year before he returns

Jimmy Hart was hospitalized with a kidney stone, which was dislodged when a female DJ gave him a low blow at the Minneapolis Nitro. He wanted to appear at the Nitro on 1/15 doing another DJ match but didn't recover in time

While the shows this weekend drew what would be considered decent or even good business considering the level the company has been at the past several months, this coming weekend looks disastrous. A house show in Columbia, SC has sold less than 600 tickets while the Nitro/Thunder taping on 1/22 in Winston-Salem has sold about 800 tickets. It isn't expected that there will be another decent house until the SuperBrawl PPV on 2/18 in Nashville

Beginning with this week in Australia, Nitro is going head-to-head with Thunder in Australia. Nitro's move to Wednesdays at 11 p.m. on the Fox Sports channel goes head-up with Thunder on C7 Sports

Nitro/Thunder tapings in Fort Wayne, IN drew 4,836 total, which was 3,555 paying $91,645.

WWF: The 12/2 Rebellion PPV in the UK drew a phenomenal 165,000 buys, making it the most-watched PPV of any kind ever in the UK, even beating the biggest boxing matches. Not sure how many homes have PPV capability in the UK, but from a pure buy rate number, I'm sure it blows away the U.S. numbers being that the UK population wise is so much smaller than U.S. and Canada

Snow was injured in an automobile accident over the weekend at his home in Lima, OH. Real name Allan Sarven, 37, he was driving his truck when a car with three teenagers swerved to the wrong side of the road and hit him head-on. His truck was totalled. He escaped with relatively minor injuries, a neck brain and a broken knuckle in the same hand that he had suffered the crack wrist in when his hand shattered with windshield