My intention was to write a year end review column, with a concentration on my favorite five matches of the year. However, I wanted to also write it with my friend Joe, who is getting ready to move away, our last big talk about wrestling before he left. But since I have been sick, I haven't been able to see him, except for Saturday night at the video store, where he took one look at me and told me that if I didn't go home on my own, he would carry me to the car himself. So I am hoping that I will be able to get over to see him sometime this week, at least before Sunday when we are going to watch Guilty as Charged together, and if CRZ is kind enough, I might be able to put up another column, if I can get it written, with mine and Joe's picks for the best of 1999.

With all of that bullshit out of the way, I am just going to wing it, so here it goes...

Monday, Dec. 27, I was lucky enough to go to the last RAW of the Millennium, and I have to say it kicked total ass. I couldn't get off of work early, so my friend Heather went on ahead and got us tickets, she also got to meet about a million wrestlers...I won't step on her toes, by telling her stories, but I saw the pictures and they were awesome. She told me everyone was really cool, except for xpuke, who once again proved what a total loser he really is.

Unfortunately, the guy at the ticket office lied to her and told her that no better tickets would be released at all during the day (total bullshit), so she settled for pretty shitty seats. The thing is, the seating chart they gave her was not for the venue we were at, because where they told her we were sitting and where we were actually sitting were two totally different things. So I finally get there after hitting the most unbelievably annoying traffic jam ever, and I'm so ready to see someone get their ass kicked. When I get to the highest level in the coliseum, and I see our seats are basically behind the freakin titantron, I am about to kick someone's ass myself. My friend Heather promises that if she knew the seats were here, she wouldn't have taken them. My big question was, if these are the $24 seats where the hell are the $16 seats, I mean you couldn't get worse than where we were supposed to be sitting. Well, I refused to got to my seat, because I didn't want to get depressed, and I thought, well, lets take a walk, and scope the place out...Needless to say, I spoke to this nice lady who worked at the coliseum, and she told me to talk to guest services. Guest Services were the nicest people ever, and they gave us 3 lower level seats near the ramp, about 9 rows up. I was ecstatic. Not only could we see the ring perfectly, but we could also see everyone come out on the ramp. They were really great seats, and I want to thank that wonderful woman at guest services for making my night. So people this proves that if you got screwed, sometimes there is a way out... Needless to say, I thought RAW kicked ass...But first in the dark matches we got to see Papi Chulo, this guy was amazingly impressive. He looked like he belonged in the ECW rather than the WWF. The WWF need to get this guy a valet, and let him loose on the world. It doesn't matter that he can't speak English, either can Tajiri or Super Crazy, and they don't have problems getting crowd reaction.

I just want to say, the crowd in Greensboro was awesome...in fact I thought a riot was about to break out a couple of times, esp. when Stephanie came out, people were calling her slut and bitch big time. The best match of the night was definitely the X-Pac/Jeff Hardy match, with the main event being a close runner up. The crowd was going beserk for the Big show which was amazing. Al Snow and Jericho had potential, because Al Snow isn't going to complain about Jericho's wrestling "style", so he was able to go all out, but interference from Chyna cut this match way to short...

So anyway, as far as I could tell the two big things that went down on Raw were:

1. the firing of Mick Foley or Mankind and
2. the continuing destruction of Kane as a credible character

The Foley thing got me very emotional, not because I thought it was real, but because I know in a few months it will be for real, and I know to say goodbye to Mick is going to be devastating. Simply stated, he is the man! When he walked to the ring, and got in there by himself against four men, that was a definite sign of testiculur fortitude. Also, you gotta love what he said about xpuke, he's right nobody does give a damn about him...well almost nobody. His interview on last week's Smackdown was also awesome, and I truly hope the WWF do give him his dream of headlining Wrestlemania 2000 and have him go out as the champ. The Rock has the rest of the year to be champ, it should be Mick's chance, his last hurrah...they gave it to Moolah, and continue to give it to her for some bizarre reason, so give it to Mick. I can't imagine, they would have him mention this in the interview if it wasn't going to happen in some capacity in the future. I say, give the man whatever he wants, he earned it, he deserves it, and doggone it, we love him!!!!!

Ok, onto the next topic...yes it is another Rebecca loves Kane and Kane is once again being misused diatribe. Maybe I will just start a weekly section called The Kane Rant.

I cannot express how upsetting this new Tori angle is going...the woman makes me want to vomit. They have her come back from her weekend of "pampering" (vomit) by xpuke and she is in a wonderfully chipper mood. Test puts his arm around her, and asks how her weekend was, and suddenly he violated her. And now of course poor Kane falls for this complete crap. Are they purposely trying to make him seem like a complete moron. Didn't he see the confrontation on the monitor? I guess not...On Smackdown Tori continues to act like a complete psycho as Stephanie and HHH go on about how the Rock likes to violate women, and how he's been looking at Tori...first off, why would anyone want to look at Tori, she is nasty, and esp. the Rock...he only goes for high class women. So of course Kane has to go out and get beaten by the Rock. Once again putting someone over at his expense. I wouldn't mind this at all, I know and understand that that is what wrestling is all about, but I wish it wasn't always Kane putting someone else over. Also this story line just makes him seem like a complete moron. Everyone else can see that Tori is out to scam Kane....I mean, her whole running down the hallway after one look from the Rock thing was totally pathetic.... Someone needs to let Kane in on the joke, and free him from this woman. My friend Joe has tried to calm me down, by saying, well won't it be worth a few weeks of Kane looking like a moron, if then he is free from Tori and back to his old kick ass self, and this settled my nerves a little, but it is still hard to watch while my favorite wrestler, gets used and abused over and over...so I hope Joe is right, and after a few weeks, Kane will see what a phony Tori is, and go back to his old destructive ways, until he gets to the top of the WWF at least for a short time in the year 2000. Of course I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that he was taking on Angle on RAW this week, because I knew that meant yet another defeat, (will the jobbing ever cease?) but I was impressed with his ring work, and at least it was a loss due to outside interference.

End of Kane Rant.

Ok, what now...So I watched Eve of Destruction, and I loved it.... I esp. loved hearing the Hardy's and Edge and Christian talk about their unbelievably great ladder match, and their love of wrestling. These guys encompass what it is all about, and I am glad they are getting the recognition they deserve. I'll tell you one thing, I could watch those highlights over and over and never get sick of them, it truly was the match of the year...spotfest or not. So where the hell were Edge and Christian on Smackdown or on Raw? At least I got to see them on Sunday Night Heat, which by the way was excellent this week...esp. their match against D'Lo and Val Venis....once again Christian and Edge's exciting style got the crowd heavily into the match...so why were they not on my TV screen, esp. on RAW which for the first of the year was definitely missing something.

Where was Vince and Shane? Shamrock? Tazz? big Fat Undertaker? The WWF could have definitely pulled out at least one surprise to start off the New Year. Its not that RAW was bad, it just wasn't very exciting, until the end. The Rock vs. DX was a great match, and I knew Mick was coming out the whole night, and I was still excited when I saw him. The Big Show vs. HHH was good, except everyone knew HHH was going to win, and I just don't buy him winning the Big Show, who was able to take on 4 men at once, basically cleanly. I mean he is a heel after all, the best heel around, and since when do heels win cleanly...they cheat, that's what they do... plus I understand why they did it in the middle of the show, but it was still weird.

Besides that and maybe the Jeff Hardy/Al Snow match (does Jeff Hardy ever fail to amaze?), there wasn't anything that exciting on RAW, and for being the first of the year, it should have been more memorable.

So hopefully they will be serving up a lot more on Smackdown this Thursday, and maybe give us a few surprises...come on man, throw us a freakin bone here...

First off, I just want to take the time to tell the guys in ECW that they absolutely rock. Their in-ring work cannot be matched by any of the other American Federations. There is not man as good as Lance Storm or Jerry Lynn in either WCW or WWF, and yes that includes Chris Benoit...of course this is just my opinion, so before the hate mail comes flooding in, I have nothing against Benoit, I think he is a major major talent, I just think these other two guys are better. Everyone on the ECW roster gives 115 percent in everything they do...the personification of this is the epic wars between Masato Tanaka and Mike Awesome. Every time these two get together in a ring, they do shit, that I didn't was humanly possible to do. I mean there are times during their matchups when I am wondering if they are still breathing. Their contest on Friday night was no exception...no I did not watch it on New Years Eve, I was to busy being completely sick in my hotel on the Beach (and not from alcohol either), but I taped it...and damn what a contest. So now once again Awesome is the champ, and he will be taking on a very pissed off Spike Dudley at the PPV. Now I have seen what Spike can do, and I know he will be super pissed after Awesome gave his girlfriend a super stiff shove on TNN, so I am hoping that he can pull of a great match against Awesome. T he thing is he has some pretty large shoes to fill. In a way, I wish Awesome was taking on Tanaka again, how many times can we watch these two go at it...I'll tell you I certainly never get sick of it, the same as I don't get sick of watching Tajiri and Super Crazy go at it for the 2000th time.

Speaking of, I wonder what they are going to do with this tag team match, will it be Jerry Lynn and Tajiri vs. Guido and Super Crazy or something like that...that simply cannot be bad, and as usual, any match with Jerry Lynn, Tajiri and Super Crazy has my undivided interest.

RVD vs. Sabu: Man oh man, his is going to be an all out war, and once RVD's 20 minutes of showboating are over, I cannot imagine what these two sometimes partners, sometimes bitter enemies are going to pull out for us. I just hope it doesn't end with one of them injured, and the other thing, I hope it ends with Sabu as the new TV Champ. If RVD is going to drop it to anyone, I think its Sabu, although it should be Jerry Lynn, who in my humble opinion has beyond earned it.

And of course another match which I am looking forward to, is the Impact players vs. Raven and Dreamer for the title. This once should be interesting, as it seems that Francine is more and more aligning herself with "Scotty" over Tommy (can you blame her)...this cannot bode well for the champs. That's fine with me, because, I love a good love triangle story, and I also want to see gold around Lance Storm's truly deserving waist.

Well, that's all for me today, I am about picking my head off the keyboard at this point. Hopefully I will be feeling better soon, and able to collaborate with my friend Joe about our best of 99 column. If not this week, then definitely next...thanks for reading...See ya.