OK, so everyone is talking about Bischoff's "big announcement" at the Great American Bash. Or more accurately, everyone is talking about how his big announcement is going to be a disappointment. People have also been saying that he has started back-pedaling so that it wouldn't be over-hyped. Well, as of last night on Thunder, that back-pedaling ended. So what on earth could his surprise be? Let me put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and ponder this for a bit.

Now, the number one attention-grabbing bit of this announcement is Bischoff's claim that there's "nothing that Vince McMahon can do about it." That's some pretty heavy shit right there. Now, Bischoff is no Vince Russo. I have to agree with the comments from Thunder last night that when he says something is big, it probably is pretty big. And to make this announcement seem even bigger, last night he said that this is the single biggest move he has ever made during his entire career in pro wrestling. Well damn, let's look at some of the things he has done. He brought WCW into direct competition with the WWF with Nitro. He stole Hulk Hogan away from Vince McMahon and brought him into WCW. He even managed to turn the eternal hero Hogan into a huge heel and have him lead North America's first company invasion angle. All of these things were pretty damn big.

Considering all that, let's start getting rid of some of the possibilities that people have talked about. First and foremost, we are going to drop all these ideas of heel turns. Specifically, I am talking about Goldberg. Not only would this be a very bad move for business, seeing as how Goldberg is WCW's number one babyface draw, but why on earth would Vince McMahon care about Goldberg? Has Goldberg ever even been in the WWF? No. The same goes with those other theories of Scott Steiner or Scott Hall turning heel and going up against Kevin Nash. Turning them heel alone will not be enough to warrant this kind of announcement.

Let's get back to Kevin Nash for a moment. The main reason why people started saying Bischoff was back-pedaling was because PPV advertisements were starting to say the announcement would change the career of Nash forever. After last night's Thunder, I have come to believe that when they brought Nash into this, they weren't trying to lessen the expectations; instead, they were revealing a piece of the puzzle. Now that his name has been brought into it, I would have to believe that this announcement is not only an earth-shattering announcement for all of professional wrestling, but it especially will affect Big Sexy.

So, back to eliminating possibilities. I have heard a lot of talk for a long time about a Fight Club being formed. Now, I can see how people were looking at this as a possibility. It would permanently change pro wrestling. Personally, I can't remember ever seeing as successful shootfighting gimmick in North America. I say "successful" because I do remember the ill-fated Brawl For All. The BFA could be were Vince McMahon's name comes into this. While I still cannot believe that the BFA was not worked in at least some aspects, this was McMahon's idea of a shootfighting group. If Bischoff could pull off a better version of the BFA using Mark Coleman and Tank Abbott and friends, it would be a minor victory, but that's it. Now, if he had pulled this off a couple of years ago when the BFA was still going on, it might be a bit more important. That's one reason why I can't see this as his big announcement. In addition to that, Meng, one of WCW's biggest badasses, was recently released from his WCW contract. If WCW was indeed going to form this Fight Club, don't you think Meng would be involved? Plus, how exactly does this affect Nash? I just can't see Big Sluggish in a shootfight. It might actually be funny, though.

Another possibility that has been tossed around quite a bit has been some sort of alliance between WCW and another wrestling promotion. Now, this definitely would be big, and it definitely would be something that would bother Vince McMahon. The most common alliance that people have been talking about is a WCW-ECW alliance. This would especially bother McMahon because ECW works with WWF developmental talent, and if WCW wrestlers got in the ring with ECW wrestlers such as Vic Grimes that is really trying to work for the WWF, bad things could happen. This, coupled with the fact that almost all ECW employees are denying this alliance up and down, makes me believe that a WCW-ECW alliance is out of the question. Looking a bit into the future, you can see that the Great Muta is going to be making a few appearances on WCW television over here in the States. Could it be that WCW has struck another deal with a wrestling promotion in Japan? It could be. But then again, Muta, as well as Jyushin Liger and Masa Chono, have wrestled for WCW independently before, and in my opinion, that is probably all that Muta is doing now. And for obvious reasons, you won't be seeing a WCW-WWF alliance.

What about change in WCW ownership? This would definitely be big news to certain people. To Vince McMahon, this could be trouble because WCW might be getting some much-needed extra support from a parent company. For WCW, this could be the breath of fresh air they need to start rejuvenating their product. To the everyday common fan, however, this probably wouldn't be that much of a news item seeing as how it shouldn't affect Nitro or Thunder by leaps and bounds. Then again, WCW has a history of making a big deal out of what only a few people (Internet smarts, usually) would understand. Could TV rights for Nitro and/or Thunder be shifting hands? A lot of people have been saying that USA might have picked WCW up, but as far as USA is concerned, the WWF belongs to them. And it will be theirs for many more years unless a judge tells them otherwise on June 12. Picking up WCW this early would definitely look bad on their part, and even though it could be seen as a safety precaution, it could blow up in their face big time. Too much risk there. There has also been talk that SFX might have bought WCW from Turner Sports. After discovering that WCW is projected to lose $60 million this year, I find it hard to believe that some company would just outright buy them from Turner. It wouldn't exactly be the greatest thing for SFX, financially. In addition to that, top SFX execs have denied this possibility. And again, you have to look back at the pointing out of Kevin Nash and wonder how on earth this would affect him. In my opinion, WCW television is not leaving Turner just yet.

This leaves the possibility of a big jump from the WWF into the ranks of WCW. There are oh-so-many possibilities, and in my opinion, this is the one thing that could work as Bischoff's big announcement. For simplicity's sake, let's just assume only one person is making the jump. Who could be making a jump from the WWF that would cause as much commotion as Bischoff is leading us to expect? Without a doubt, this would have to be someone at the top of the card. One of the WWF's main eventers would be best. With that said, we can immediately get rid of the rumors of Ken Shamrock jumping. Unless, maybe Shamrock is jumping to WCW to participate in their new Fight Club gimmick! Interesting, but not very likely. How about Sable? It would probably piss McMahon off if Bischoff somehow got her on WCW television legally, but it really wouldn't make that much of a difference to the fans, especially since she could not go by the name of Sable. Maybe The Rock, Kane, Stone Cold, or the Undertaker? Yeah, right. What on earth would these guys have to gain by jumping ship? McMahon is giving them everything they want, including the change to expand into Hollywood. There's too much bad blood between Austin and Bischoff for him to be jumping, and the Undertaker and Kane would have to drop their extremely successful gimmicks to jump to WCW. And The Rock would have the most to lose of them all. Not only has he just signed a five-year extension, but also he is being pushed by the WWF as the greatest wrestling draw of all time. What about the WWF champion, Triple H? This would be damn cool if Bischoff could pull it off. McMahon stole the WCW champion a few months ago, and if Bischoff could steal the WWF champion, it would mean even more. And seeing as how Hunter is part of Kevin Nash's Clique, it would make a lot of sense to say it would affect him. What about all of these wrestlers' contracts, ChonoFan? To that, I say, look at the case of Mike Awesome. With that one episode, Bischoff and Russo proved that contracts mean nothing anymore. They are not the ironclad pieces of paper we once thought them to be. If Awesome can just leave his ECW contract like that, anyone else can do the same. Granted, it would take a lot more work for Bischoff to do this to McMahon, but it could happen. So, Triple H is one possibility, but just like the others, he would have almost everything to lose and not much to gain.

I have just two more possibilities that I think could work. I'll start off with the least likely of the pair. This is something that pretty much popped into my head as I was writing this column, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized not only how cool it would be, but how much sense it would make. If you go back a bit in this column, you'll see that I wrote off a Scott Hall heel turn as not important enough to be Bischoff's announcement. Even though this seems pretty obvious, quite a few people, maybe out of cynicism, still think this is what is going to happen. I can see Scott Hall being part of the announcement, though, but only if he is dripping with gold and oozing with machismo. That's right, I'm referring to our old pal, Razor Ramon. Now, as far as I know, there is still a lawsuit filed by the WWF against WCW still pending because of WCW's attempt to make the nWo angle look like a WWF invasion of Razor Ramon and Diesel, Kevin Nash's WWF persona. But, if somehow Bischoff was able to circumvent whatever litigation is pending to bring back Razor Ramon, it would definitely be the ultimate slap in the face to Vince McMahon and the WWF. And I dare any of you to say it wouldn't affect Kevin Nash. But, while this would definitely be a very big announcement, I would not go as far as saying this is the greatest move Eric Bischoff has ever made. In fact, if Bischoff does consider something like this his biggest move, then I think he is focusing on the wrong thing. As a leader in WCW, he should be focused on making his company's product better, not ridiculing the leader of the competition.

Now, lastly, I have one more possibility that I thought up that would just blow the roof off of any house. I don't know how possible it is, but I'll be damned if it wouldn't be the coolest thing I've ever seen on TV. This goes back to WWF talent jumping ship. You see, the biggest problem with getting a major WWF superstar to become a WCW wrestler is the lack of incentive. I would have to say that most, if not all, of the wrestlers at the top of the card in the WWF would have much more to lose than they would have to gain by moving to WCW. Sure, they could quite possibly make much more money, but I don't think money is that much of a problem for guys like The Rock, Triple H, and the Undertaker. You're going to have to promise these guys a significant role, a lot of creative control of their characters, or maybe even both. For a wrestler to jump ship, he would have to believe that he either has nothing more to accomplish in the WWF (Russo) or will be able to accomplish more in WCW (Jarrett). This guy that I am talking about fits into the first mold, and he goes by the name of Shawn Michaels.

Think about it. Very recently, he was on WWF television. Now this guy is quite possibly the greatest wrestler of our time. He definitely gives Ric Flair a run for his money in showmanship. But when he came back to RAW, it was like no one even gave a damn about him. I mean, even after McMahon played him up, the crowd still didn't care. He has dropped the title of commissioner and has taken the much less active position of spokesperson (even though in real life another man holds that position; his name escapes me at the moment). Plus, even though he made a very crucial decision at the end of the Rock/Triple H match to cost Rocky his title, he seems to have dropped out of that storyline, and he has already been forgotten by the announcers. What role is there for a main eventer that has been forgotten by the fans and kicked out of the top storylines? As many of you know, he is running his own promotion, the TWA, out of Texas, and some may think he is sticking with the WWF to get his guys some exposure. Well, I say that isn't necessary. He has already struck deals with ECW here in the States and FMW overseas. That should get his wrestlers plenty of experience and exposure. And of Shawn was to think selfishly, I think WCW would be much more fun for him. With Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, two of Shawn's closest friends in real life, always at the top of the card in WCW, Shawn would be almost guaranteed to be in the spotlight for his entire stay in WCW. As for his name, "Shawn Michaels" is most likely copyrighted by the WWF, but Shawn is his real middle name, and if that isn't good enough, he could go with the HBK moniker, although probably not the "Heartbreak Kid."

I'm sure all the avenues for communication have been open for a long time. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are probably constantly in contact with Michaels, and Shawn's wife's claim to fame was once Whysper, the object of CRZ's affection (or was that Hyatt? hehe, sorry guys) and popular member of the Nitro Girls. And I'll be damned if that wouldn't be the second biggest coup in WCW's history (the first being the signing of Hulk Hogan). If Bischoff somehow manages to pull this off, I think I'll go find him in Atlanta and marry him. Anyways, I'm burned out. Email me and tell me what you think.