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Matt Talbot

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THE OUTSIDER'S EDGE
I'm back

Hello, everybody. Yes, I know that I did not write a column for a couple of weeks. I was home on vacation and lazy. Oh, so lazy. Well at least ZIGGYPOP8 Rocks the Casbah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In my prolonged columnist absence, there are many things that have changed in wrestling. WCW considered giving Tank Abbot the Title. WWF fired Foley (Those bastards!). ECW gave us a New Year's Eve Treat with a masterpiece of a match and early MOTY between Awesome and Tanaka. There were a lot of changes, yet many things stayed the same. WWF continued to blast WCW out of the water. ECW remained the best North American fed, IMO. WCW... well nothing is the same. They have so many areas that have been affected in the last month since I wrote it is hard to stay silent.

Ed Ferrarra. At first, I did not really care about the Oklahoma gimmick. I felt it got the job done and was not that offensive. Then, after Dr. Death left, Ed vanished from WCW TV. I was indifferent to that, but his next move angers me. Cruiser champion. NO. The day that Ed Ferrarra and Oklahoma become Cruiserweight champion is the day I give up WCW. I have been a staunch WCW supporter during its lean times and what do they repay us loyal customers with? Medusa vs. Oklahoma for a belt once held by such greats as Benoit, Kidman, Jericho, Malenko, Juvi, Rey Jr., Ultimo Dragon. The list goes on and on and neither Madusa or Oklahoma should find themselves anywhere close to it. But they are and that is emotionally stressing me out. When the main events of WCW sucked for all those years, there were still the bright spots in the lower card. When we had Hogan-Piper 3252, we also had Rey-Kidman to enjoy. Now, they have ruined that and they have lost my interest.

nWo. This was good. I did not see it coming at all, frankly. They really swerved me. I think a lot of Internet people got mad at WCW because WCW actually swerved them and they were not used to being on the short end of that stick. I saw people slamming WCW for what they called an obvious move with the nWo and the Scott Steiner thing next week, but I found it hard to predict that. I thought the Steiner thing was exceptionally well-done. Since the nWo did nothing when they came out during Scott's retirement speech, I felt they were just moving on. They really did not foreshadow a turn and that was what made it good, IMO. The fact that they tried to make then real heels instead of Nash cool heels (even though Nash strove against that) improved the nWo in my eyes. They had reasons for all of the turns which was better than the DX reunion. Then the Terry Funk thing was good, too. I think Flair would have been a better choice, but Scherer says that Flair whined and turned it down. So, you have to work with what you have. Funk is a Icon and a good, albeit random, choice. Too bad all those injuries decimated the PPV and the roster.

Some of the shorter matches got on my nerves. Originally, the shorter matches were not that bad, because they were longer then what everyone perceived. Now, we are really having 2 3 minutes matches between good wrestlers like the Revolution and FAs. Saturn's dive was cool, however. With a new regime coming into place it looks like the longer match might be back into vogue. We will see how that turns out.

I know this column was short and there has not been one for a while. I am just getting back into the swing of things with school and am a little out of the wrestling scene. Not unlike, the new WCW regime only time will tell how it works out at school and how that affects TOE.

Anyway, if you have any comments, concerns, complaints, questions, or just wanna chat about how much of a flake I seem to be email me at talboito@uclink4.berkeley.edu.

Matt Talbot
freelance

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