Or not.

I want to start this out with an open acknowledgement to Josh Hogan (no relation I hope), who wrote a brilliant open letter to Vince Russon. Put this on your must-read list if you haven't already. Josh sets forth excellent points and backs them up with well though out support. Now, I can only hope that this get to Russo.

This letter, by the way, is a perfect example of positive criticism. If you want to read the electronic equivalent of crayon scrawled hate mail, then head on over to the "I Hate CRZ" link. Gotta love the "I hate CRZ cuz he sucks" comments. Uh, ok. Is he a WWF mark? A WCW mark? A jerk? Then back up your contentions!

Personally, I applaud CRZ and his efforts. Anybody who subjects himself to Nitro on a weekly basis just to keep those of us who haven't the time/inclination/masochistic tendencies to watch it updated is OK in my book. (Plus he's a Kings fan. To a relocated Californian who still considers that area my home, well...)

However, getting back to the Russo thing. OK, so now Russo is saying that the reformation of the n.W.o. is all part of a "master plan". Uh, yeah.

Let's see, in a recent interview I got the distinct impression that Russo is full of himself. He's convinced that he's the reason that Raw did so well in the ratings, and it just plain inertia that keeps the audiences high. It's the people in Standards and Practices fault that he isn't getting his particular brand of crap over.

I think I've used this analogy once before, but let's revisit it, shall we? Once upon a time, Coca Cola was the number 1 soft drink in the nation. Pepsi was a distant second, but the one day Pepsi came up with some great advertising, introduced a whole new generation to it's soft drink and started kicking Coke's ass. So, what do the creative geniuses at Coke do? Do they counter with their own advertising blitz, touting their strengths? Do they stick by their product, that has remained unchanged for a hundred years?

Hell no!

Hey, people drink Pepsi because it tastes different, so we have to make Coke taste like Pepsi and we'll capture the Pepsi crowd, then we'll be number 1 again.

Except it didn't work. People drank Pepsi because they liked the taste. People drank Coke for the same reason. However Coke abandoned them, causing a huge surge of public reaction demanding the return of the "classic taste of Coke".

Thus the geniuses at Coke decided to split the difference. Thus was born "New Coke" and "Coca Cola Classic". That way everybody would be happy, right?

Almost. Those who missed the old Coke got theirs, however there was still the thorny problem of Pepsi v. New Coke.

So, here we have the current situation in the WCW. We have the n.W.o. reforming (read "Coca Cola Classic" here), and we still have the "Crash T.V." segments (part of the "New Coke" business). Will this work? If the recent ratings are any indication, no.

Who will Russo blame this time? Bischoff? Turner? John Rocker? After all, Vince is a genius. Don't believe me? Ask him yourself. He'll tell you.

Hey, Vince. What color is the sun in your world?