First, for those die-hard slash readers who care, it is I who, referred to as Ed, was able to guess Miss Birkett's mystery referee. I credit CRZ and his meticulous recaps last week in being able to figure it out. At least one person now rightfully acknowledges I rule, and soon so shall you all...

Now, I would like to actual perform some predictions for Sunday's King of the Ring Pay-Per-View.

These predictions only hold assuming the brackets do not change. Even if the brackets are supposedly off the official website, the matches are still listed, so that should not affect my second guessing now.

Dudleys vs. X-Pac/Road Dogg/Tori in a Dumpster-Table Match

Last year, the day before King of the Ring, X-Pac made a local appearance at my local flea market, and I asked him if he was going to win. He paused for a second, and said, "I expect to at least make the finals." And he did. This year, he sucks. What is up with that lasso motion and galloping he's been doing before the bronco buster? When the WWF changed turned Kama into a pimp, it all started with the hat. For weeks, he would wear his little black hat, and no one noticed. Then, he added a cigar. Then, in the 1998 KotR qualifying matches, he was listed as The Godfather, and finally, after the DX parody of the nation that June, he became the fun-loving pimp we all know and love. My point is, when the WWF wants to tweak a character, they start subtly. Look at Val Venis. First, they take away the towel. Then, they change his music, but leave the Hello Ladies. Now that's gone. Subtle. Anyway, my point is that if X-Pac is losing the crotch chop, then X-Pac will probably soon lose any reason to do a crotch chop, and that would be Degeneration X. Add to this the current Raw magazine article on Road Dogg, which spent 80% of a top five list telling Road Dogg to get out of DX, and it seems to me that these two men seem headed to singles competition. Which, actually, is a welcome change, since lately they have been nothing more than lackeys for the McMahon-Helmsley regime. The only difference between them and Bull Buchanan is that they get to hang out in the nice dressing room, instead of wherever it is that Bull hangs out. Anyway, in the match with the Dudleys, given that for the last two months, DX has gotten the upper hand with the Dudleys in any situation, I say that, regardless of the stipulations, the Dudleys will do whatever they need to win the match, and I wouldn't be surprised if this ushered in the breakup of DX. However, I think that will come with time. For now, the Dudleys will go over, and some issue between X-Pac and Road Dogg will develop. (Perhaps Tori costs them the match, leading to Dogg having a beef with Tori, and indirectly X-Pac...)

Patterson vs. Brisco in an Evening Gown Hardcore Title Match (!?!?!!)

Assuming I read Micasa right, then this is one of the fine matches we will be served up at the PPV. Personally, I hope not. I have no clue, nor do I care, who wins this match if it goes down as it is. But perhaps there lies a glimmer of hope within all of this. With a match like this, and a hardcore title that is defended 24-7, this match is a prime opportunity to have anyone come out from the back with a referee to attempt to claim the hardcore title from the Stooges. My pick would be for Crash Holly to come down, and perhaps due to his interference in this match, if he is to wrestle again later, his involvement here could lead to his loss in the tournament. Perhaps he'll beat Bull Buchanan, and then, after interfering in this, become injured, and unable to compete in the next round, thus giving his opponent (Angle or Jericho) a bye. However, the other person who, depending on his injury status, could viably come down and claim the Hardcore title for his own, is Tazz. This could be just the tool he needs to finally be given a chance to kick some ass, and build a reputation in the WWF, which he hasn't really been able to do yet. Hopefully, whoever the next Hardcore champion is, they will be smart enough to rescind the 24-7 gimmick. Its served its purpose, its gotten old, and its now demeaning the title. A good reign with Tazz as champ should add some much needed credibility.

The Main Event: HHH, Vince, and Shane vs. The Rock, Kane, and The Undertaker

The wonderful thing about this year's booking is that now, the tournament and the main event are inextricably linked in a fashion unlike before. Not only do we now have Rock, Undertaker, and Kane all gunning for Triple H's belt, but so too are Jericho, Angle, Rikishi, Benoit, Crash, Bull, Val, and Eddy. And really, I have no clue how all of this is going to happen, unless I can see the order on the card. Assuming the main event happens after the finals in the tournament, then whoever wins the tournament will have a vested interest in Helmsley retaining the title. Enter outside interference. Add to this the fact that it is inevitable that Rock, Kane, and UT will come to blows over who gets to make the pin, and I really don't understand why Helmsley was so upset about Vince putting the title on the line in the match. Sure, Vince and Shane are going to get their ass-kicked. Sure, HHH is going to carry the heel team. But HHH will also walk out of KotR carrying the gold. Which means he will be facing the winner of the tournament at the July PPV. And this leaves the Rock to feud with either the Undertaker or Kane, if not both. Now, assuming that the WWF decides to put the tourney finals on after the main event, then going into the main event, we have two men who might get the opportunity to face Triple H in July. That's two men who might want to interfere. One will probably be a face, the other a heel, and if the heel is any heel of merit, he has probably helped the Faction to some capacity in recent weeks. In which case, said heel could walk out, and help HHH retain, for the purpose of aiding the faction, and also his own self-serving goal of getting a title-shot. But, if the finals occur after that, you then have a pissed off Rock, UT, and Kane, ready to interfere in the match, and make sure said heel does not get his title shot. Depending how this all plays out, we would now have three top matches set for July, with HHH taking on the King of the Ring, and some combination of Rock, Undertaker, Kane, and the heel battling it out over who cost who the title. I would like to assign the roles of heel and face to Angle and Jericho respectively, but they meet in the first round, which brings us to...

The King of the Ring Tournament

For starters, I'm not gonna try calling each match, because with double dq's, time limit draws, count outs, etc., it seems that someone is gonna get a bye, or at least a relatively easy match (think how Kane and Big Show effectively took each other out of last years tourney to allow Billy Gunn to advance) Looking at the brackets, unless they change (which is something I would not be adverse to... except for the fact that they shouldn't have been released if they were going to be changed to begin with...), the only match of any importance to me is the Kurt Angle/Chris Jericho match, and whoever wins that match is going to win the tournament. And although it looks to me like the field was set up to have Kurt Angle win (Rikishi over Benoit, Val over Eddy - this leads to Rikishi vs. Val, which has been hyped. Rikishi wins, and gets to face Angle, since those two had a feud brewing earlier in the month. Angle probably gets some kind of buy over Bull/Crash, possibly as described above in the Hardcore match), it could just as easily turn around to be set for Jericho (Jericho scrapes past Angle, Bull brutalizes Holly, Jericho scrapes past brutish Bull, Benoit avenges his Smackdown loss to Rikishi, Eddy over Val thanks to Chyna, and we get Radical vs. Radical, Benoit wins, and now Benoit's unstoppable while Jericho's faced some grueling competition, rematch from the other ppv, and Jericho walks out on top), and I have to say that Jericho will claim the day, and go on to face Triple H on PPV.

But what about Kurt Angle and Stephanie?

You people are falling for the WWF hype, which is good, because when that match happens, you people will BURN for it. But its not ready to happen yet. One of the two has to turn face, and there is plenty of heel mileage left within them. Second, Jericho's already had a few title shots against HHH on Raw. Now it steps it up to the big time. And given that just as Jericho was HHH's mystery opponent, Angle was Rock's, I would not be surprised if we saw Jericho/HHH and Angle/Rock at the next PPV, although Kane or UT will probably face the Great One. The Jericho/HHH feud will step up to the top of the federation, giving everyone some much needed relief from HHH/Rock, and the Angle/HHH feud will still slowly simmer. Remember, it was almost a year from when Paul Bearer first started blackmailing the Undertaker, and Kane faced Taker at Wrestlemania. Kurt Angle and Stephanie only really go back to January. Things will build slowly to them, and Raw will have a killer show where HHH will find out about Angle and Stephanie (although we'll suspect things for a while before that) and he will blow up, and Angle will be a dead man. The question is: who turns face?

Really. All you people who were hoping that Angle would be HHH's mystery opponent after he hugged Stephanie need more patience. I'm surprised you people don't like Russo's hot-shotted angles more, where everything is condensed so that the swerves occur one week after people team up.

And also, how could you people not think Matt Hardy v. Benoit was better than Jeff Hardy v. Benoit? Jeff can bump, but Matt had the psychology! My only beef is that he should have realized his finisher left him exposed to the crossface.

Its late. I'm done. Have fun, everybody.