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Jerry Root

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THE MAT POTATO II
French Fries

What a week, so far. Yes, here is where I dip into my personal life for a bit and give you a peek behind the curtain. As I told Kim (Bitchfactor), it's cheaper than therapy.

As I cruised the articles on my favorite sites, (this one is always my first stop, but I do get other opinions too, no matter if I agree with them or not), I hit upon several great nuggets this week.

If you didn't see it last week, check out Sean Shannon's ECW on TNN Recap for 10 Jan. It has one of the greatest riffs going. Yeah, I'm a week late in "discovering" it, but hell. There is one paragraph that is just laugh out loud funny. 0 breasts, 0 dead bodies, Video Store-fu, Joe Bob says check it out. (A nod to Michealangelo here. I'd never directly rip off his gimmick, but hell, I hope he doesn't mind if I make a few vague references of my own. Especially if I acknowledge the fact that it's his and I'm blatantly using it. :))

Kim asked a rather interesting question in her last column. Can't I just enjoy it anymore? Can't I just sit back and have fun and not care about what's going on where I'm not looking? ("Marcus Said..." 1-20-00).

Unfortunately, the answer to this one is, no. Much like finding out that Santa Claus is really mom and dad, or after that "first taste of sin", it's never the same. It's like those cute puzzles where on first glance they appear to be just a jumble of pieces, but then when you concentrate you see that it actually spells something out. After that, the puzzle is never just a jumble of pieces again, regardless of how hard you may try. Once innocence is lost, it can never be recovered. It's the price we pay for peeking behind the curtain in the emerald city.

Scott Rees has the absolute correct idea. Let those in WCW who want to go, go. Give them their walking papers, as he so eloquently put it. Let WCW start over with a core of players who want to be there. Build the firm foundation, find your head, and then go from there. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and build up on what's left.

Hey, it worked for the WWF. Remember when the death knell was sounded for the WWF when the n.W.o. was running rampant in WCW, and WCW was creaming the WWF in the ratings every week? (Thus leading to one of the greatest prophesies of doom I've ever read. Bischoff's "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" line). WWF let go those who were unhappy, took stock of what they had left, and built from there. (And don't tell me it was Russo who saved the company, either. I think that history has already dispelled that myth).

The same thing can happen with the WCW. Yes, there are still problems, perhaps Nash and Sullivan shouldn't have the book. If that's the case, that will be borne out soon enough. Then the real "powers that be", will make whatever changes are necessary, and move along. I'm not exactly thrilled about the thought of Nash and Sullivan's booking style either, but let's see if more wrestling is involved, or if we're back to the "book-on-the-fly" style that drove the company down last time. (Or as ScoopThis.Com advertised, the WCW magic 8-ball of booking).

Only time will tell whether this was a good move on their part or not. That's the great thing about life, you just never know, regardless of how many times you peek behind the curtain.

Jerry Root
[slash] wrestling

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