Still, the public humiliation and "putting in her place" of Trish - making sure *she* understands that she isn't the one and only "Daddy's Little Girl" - is uncomfortably close to the way the situation must actually be in the WWF, which is, after all, a family-run business.

There are the workers and there are the owners, and the two are two entirely different groups of people. Don't think for a second that the McMahons will scruple to remind anyone and everyone in their organization at any time who has the real power.

If you think I'm exaggerating, ask Stacey Carter.

I'm saying all of this, not based on any personal knowledge I have of the McMahons, but based on knowledge of human nature and the nature of family owned corporations. I have worked in my career for family owned businesses - one considerably larger than the WWF - and while the owners are civil, accessible, humane people, it is a necessity at time to remind people just who is in charge. And this can be a brutal thing to behold.

This is a subject I come back to again and again, but let me try another way. Nobody in wrestling retires. Retiring is when you quit working at a predetermined age in order to begin collecting a pension. Everyone in wrestling - think about this - gets fired or quits. Everyone. Most of the time, the people quitting do so to avoid getting fired.

Unless, of course... your one of the owners.

Trish Stratus will get fired. Triple H will get fired. The Rock will get fired. Wait long enough, and any wrestler, no matter how great, will get run out of the business. And there is no pension plan in place to transition them to "inactive life", unlike, say, the NFL, or the business I work for.

Stephanie, Shane, Linda, and Vince McMahon don't have this fear. There is no one who can fire them. Now, their company could go belly-up. They do have stockholders to answer to, and have to, particularly when a financial venture they undertake fails.

So, while I think it's admirable that the McMahons take bumps and get in the ring and do TV spots and all - "just like the workers" - they're not really workers, in the sense that they depend on the good graces of their bosses to keep their jobs.

In the end, ALL of the WWF wrestlers and performers are "Daddy's Little Toys" - to be thrown away and slopped on when he's through with them.

Don't you find that troubling?