Exams over, I am on vacation and BACK on [slash] wrestling, folks!!! I had intended to make this a return to a commentary-based column, but events in the good ol' U of K have made that almost impossible. For those of you who don't know, there have been some EXTREMELY strange and interesting developments regarding the WWF here in Blighty.

THE BEGINNING

On Friday morning at the airport, I was leafing through the newly-published satellite and cable listings magazines. Upon thumbing through to January 23rd, I was puzzled to see that there was NO mention of the Royal Rumble in that day's schedules for Sky Sports 1. Even worse, it did not appear that it was going to be screened on delay either. Initially I was a little concerned, but put it down to one of three reasons:

1. As Sky Sports 1 are screening both AFC and NFC Championship games that evening, I figured that they were simply in the process of figuring out where the best place to screen the event would be, given that there could be a scheduling conflict if either game went into O/T.
2. Sky had finally decided to move PPVs onto their digital television service, with the intention to advance the take-up of digital subscriptions. OR
3. After the success of "Rebellion" and with the contract for PPVs up for renewal, Sky and WWFE had decided to offer PPVs on a Pay-per-View basis in the UK, on Sky Box Office

Upon watching that evening's episode of "Raw", which I thought was BRILLIANT, by the way, the mystery was deepened, as the trails for the Rumble merely said "check local listings for availability", a message repeated by JR throughout his UK overdubs.

In order to find out more, I logged onto the excellent wrasslin.com, and instead of finding out what was going about the Rumble, I was faced with even BETTER news. From Saturday January 8th, "WWF Smackdown!" will commence in the UK on Saturday January 8th at 11am on Sky One, with a (hopefully unedited) repeat on Sky Sports 1 at 10pm.

I went to bed, oblivious to the developments which were set to unfold on Saturday December 18, a day which may be forever etched in the minds of UK wrestling fans...

THE STRANGEST SATURDAY

Upon waking up for my weekly fix of Smackdown! highlights courtesy of WWF "Livewire" and "Metal", I was still hopeful that the mystery of the Rumble would be swiftly cleared up by the time these shows were through. This was not to be, as Jonathan Coachman's 'UK Updates' still pedalled the "local listings" mantra, as did the Rumble commercials. I quickly logged onto the 'net, but must confess was in no way prepared for the headline which was staring me in the face.

"SKY TV Shocker: We're not going to show the Rumble!"

My heart immediately sank: it was August 96 all over again. (For those of you who haven't read my earliest columns, Sky debuted the "new WWF fall season" which saw us go one week behind the U.S. transmission pattern, and lose our live PPV coverage until mid March 97, when everything was restored to normal. Sky had signed what I thought to be a FOUR-year contract to screen the 'monthly specials' as they refer to the PPVs, which would safeguard coverage until 2001. Even better, they had been successful in adding IYH events to the package as well...)

Immediate speculation was that Sky Sports (who in their earliest press releases referred to a mysterious 'executive decision') had taken the action in response to the 'Miss Kitty incident' at Armageddon on Sunday night/Monday morning. I knew this was not the case, for not only did they air the "chocolate pudding" match from Raw, but they also aired Tori getting the X-Factor from X-Pac on Smackdown! on "Livewire". More importantly, the listings supplied to the magazines would have to have been supplied far in advance of "Armageddon" in order to accommodate the 'lead' times in publication. To suggest that Sky decided to drop the PPVs after Kitty's actions on Monday morning, issue revised listings to magazines, who were then able to publish these listings and have a magazine on newsstands by Thursday is ludicrous. Anyway, Sky are the company who had authorised Jacqueline to have her shirt ripped off at "Capital Carnage" and had agreed to Sable losing her shirt at "No Mercy" (if Sable had not objected) and allowed Vince to say "fuck" at Rebellion....

The Campaign: John Feltham and Robert Jones at wrasslin.com (who deserve this namecheck for the sterling efforts they made to force all parties concerned to divulge their respective positions) immediately begun the "Why, Sky, Why?" campaign. They intimated that BSkyB had already been inundated by calls, faxes and e-mails in the course of the morning from concerned and confused fans as a result of the "local listings" messages, and urged UK fans to increase the pressure. I did my bit and e-mailed Sky at THREE different addresses, and went off to watch "Armageddon" for the second time. Whilst I was offline, I had no comprehension what was going on. I logged back on in the evening, and there had been some AMAZING developments...

The Confession: Apparently, the sheer volume of calls, e-mails and faxes which had inundated Sky most of the day had completely caught them by surprise. Eventually, someone cracked under the strain, or was simply fed up and chose to 'fess up: "The Royal Rumble will not be shown by Sky as we don't have the rights-someone else has them." was the tersely worded statement from the Sky spokesperson. SOMEONE ELSE HAS THEM. Those four words were truly a revelation: who could they be? Kudos to the aforementioned guys for picking up what was to be the next sensational development in this most unusual day.

Terrestrial network Channel 4 confirmed that *they* were currently in negotiation with WWFE for the rights to WWF PPVs, and wait for it, "Sunday Night HeAt" also!!!! I nearly fell off my chair at this point: I had the feeling all day that something really BIG and weird was going down, but never did I consider that it was this. To further substantiate the story, it appears that several folks had been e-mailed about this very thing a couple of weeks ago. However, due to its 'out-there' nature, it had been dismissed out of hand as a "prank" e-mail.

The webmaster at Channel4.co.uk was indeed confirming the rumour to the many people who were posting to their newsboard, but that nothing could be confirmed at present, owing to the fact that negotiations were still ongoing.

Channel 4 also pledged to give UK fans the decision before the "end of the4 week" which I would take to be on or before Wednesday or Christmas Eve, given that it is the holiday weekend.

However, the strange twists were not yet complete. In a move which smacked of "damage control" Sky suddenly made their "Week 6" schedule available to the public, which stated that on Sunday February 6th at 1am, "WWF No Way Out" would air LIVE on Sky Sports 1, presented by Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. 'Kay...except that "No Way Out" actually takes place on Sunday February 27th: have Sky gotten hold of a time machine, or something??

THE FALLOUT

In this whole intriguing saga, Channel 4 deserve a huge amount of credit for being so refreshingly open with the fans, whilst Sky have suffered badly in their handling of the affair. Clearly, they knew that after "Raw" this week that the story was going to break, and cynically timed their announcement about "WWF Smackdown!" to deflect the criticism which was headed their way. IF, and I really don't want to pre-empt any announcement, or 'jinx' the negotiations, the deal is successfully concluded (and wrasslin.com has reportedly gotten word that it is a 'done deal' despite C4's more neutral public stance) there are several important implications which merit discussion.

1. Will the coverage be LIVE or delayed?
2. Are Sky going to remain on same-week transmission patterns, so that when C4 screen "HeAt" and PPVs, the necessary episodes of "Raw" and "Smackdown!" have already been aired? To answer my own question, I would think it incredible for the WWF, after choosing to split its programming over network and cable tv, would not ensure the requisite synergy and continuity of the two.
3. Are Sky and the WWF going to be able to put this behind them in order to continue to co-promote WWF UK only PPVs? Is the Earl's Court event (already advertised as a Sky Box Office PPV) going to be a PPV (and will C4 accept it if it is?) Indeed, will Sky Box Office PPVs be shown delayed on C4 by a couple of months as part of any deal?
4. If successful, the deal will undoubtedly make WCW's agreement with Channel 5 to screen "Worldwide" look absolutely insignificant in comparison. WCW quite rightly boasted about being back on free-to-air terrestrial (network) TV in the United Kingdom, something the WWF has NEVER enjoyed over here. "Worldwide" can do numbers of over 800, 000, impressive as C5 is only available to 70% of the population. C4 is by far a larger network, and with the larger fanbase of the WWF, I feel that LIVE PPV coverage could match those figures or perhaps even top 1 million. "HeAt", depending upon when it's scheduled, could easily draw 1.5 to 2 million viewers
5. Whilst Channel 4 is an extremely risque channel (for example, of its top rated shows are "The Sopranos" and "Sex in the City" from the HBO stable, and features copious amounts of profanity, nudity and violence, even in prime-time, I cannot help but feel that, with access more readily available to children, the WWF would be more heavily policed in its new home. The facility to place "parental locks" on satellite and cable channels is not available in the case of C4, so I wonder what the ITC (Indepedent Television Commission) will think?
6. Channel 4 is a FREE-to-air network. You cannot restrict access the channel, thereby precluding the notion of charging viewers to watch the events. Therefore, how will the WWF be able to justify this to its US fans, who have to shell out around $360 a year to follow these events, whilst we stand to get these for the price of a television license fee (£101) that we would be paying anyway.

All of these issues will become a factor if and when the deal is confirmed. Should the deal fail, it is refreshing to see that the WWF are clearly not about to deny PPVs a home in the UK. If Channel 4 doesn't reach agreement, then I am sure that the WWF would reopen negotiations with BSkyB (who I hope aren't too bitter about this, for I belive that the content of "Raw" and "Smackdown" belongs on pay-tv, and I would hate to see them lose these shows in a year's time, due to the bad feelings arising from these developments.)

Anyway, CRZ must be killing me for getting him to convert this into HTML, so I will conclude this monster column for now, and I will update as soon as any newsworthy developments emerge...