By "Net.cop" Scott Keith

Wow, you take a couple of months off and people think you're dead or something.

Having been busy with the Thunder report and making my webpage all spiffy and stuff, I haven't really bothered to do a Netcop Rant in a while, but damn if my section isn't still up on Wrestlemaniacs.com, and I appreciate the loyalty. Plus I'm the first guy in the list. So let's go all stream of consciousness, shall we?

- First of all, I find it perversely ironic that Sting, who spent 18 months *not* talking, would mess up his personal life by blabbing EVERYTHING to his wife. It's always the quiet ones.

- Speaking of Sting, does anyone really give a damn anymore? Oooh, what's the facepaint going to be this week? Red? White? Red and white? I swear to god that WCW's booking committee had to be retarded to get someone over as huge as Sting was in 1997 and then piss it all away in 1998 so Hogan could get another title reign.

- Speaking of Hogan, do we REALLY need to see Hogan v. Flair AGAIN? I know that WCW is compulsively inclined to repeat the WWF does ad nauseum, but Rocky v. Mankind on four different PPVs worked because they did four different matches, instead of sticking a cage on top of the ring and pretending that it's a new twist.

- Still speaking of Hogan, I assume that everyone cheering for this guy wasn't around in 1995 when we already saw the nostalgia thing the first time and got sick of it about two weeks later. Trust me, no good can ever come of Hogan being a babyface. Last time the price to pay was Hogan and Savage beating 8 guys in a Doomsday Cage Match, lord knows what we'll have to endure this time around. Hogan is EVIL, people, how many times do I have to tell you this before you stop reacting to him?

- For a guy who doesn't care about the ratings, Eric Bischoff's hair is sure going grey fast, isn't it?

- Okay, the nWo B-Team is really dumb. We GET IT, ALREADY!

- Okay, Meng is a monster. WE GET IT, ALREADY!

- Okay, Ric Flair is drunk with power. WE GET IT, ALREADY!

- Okay, I'm curious: Are the nWo faces or heels or what? Hogan is getting cheered, but he schemes like a heel. The B-Team are booed but they act like sympathetic babyfaces. They paid off David Flair to electrocute his own father in exchange for sex, but Ric Flair is supposed to be the bad guy? It all comes down to the Netcop nWo Conspiracy Theory, which states that the nWo must always get the face pop, regardless of logic. So if people are actually starting to dislike the nWo, then you have to turn the rest of WCW heel to make the nWo seem virtuous by comparison.

- As a corollary to the nWo Conspiracy Theory, let's take a look at all the guys who WCW is currently screwing the pooch with, de-pushing them because they're over without the aid of the nWo:

- Norman Smiley. Gets great reactions from the fans by being something truly different, yet is depushed in hypocritical manner for violating the sacred "G-Rated" rule, despite the continued existance of Scott Steiner and his risque act.

- Wrath. Wrestled a series of minute long squashes to get hugely over with the fans, then was squashed in turn by Kevin Nash and never recovered.

- Raven, Kanyon and Saturn. All three men became hugely over as a result of the Flock angle of late 1998, and yet none of them are serious contenders today. Why? Saturn was getting the biggest babyface reactions in all of WCW, yet hasn't held a title since the TV title in 1997. Why?

- Chris Benoit. Do I even need to get into this one?

On the other hand, let's take a look at people who are not over, but continually get a push for political reasons:

- The Disciple. Gets no reaction, is an awful wrestler who exposes the business with every match, and was effectively retired from wrestling in 1990 by a boating accident. Yet he's still wrestling in the upper midcard because of friendship with Hulk Hogan.

- Horace Hogan. Sure, he's okay. Big deal. There's 1000 other guys in the indy circuit who are just as competent as this guy, and none of them are related to Hulk Hogan, which is probably why Horace still has a job.

- Van Hammer. Gets no reaction, but is an okay wrestler. Again, WCW does not need "okay" wrestlers clogging up their midcard, but that's exactly what they have, in spades. But hey, Hammer is a friend of booker DDP, so let's push him.

- Ernest Miller. Good personality, horrible wrestler. Any promotion with half a brain would have fired this guy ages ago until he learned to wrestle, but this is WCW, and Miller is a friend of Eric Bischoff, so he's still around and still wins.

I mean, it goes on and on. WCW has more dead weight than any other promotion in HISTORY, folks. You could literally do away with 40% of WCW's talent roster and still put on a killer show every week. But they don't. And even more astonishingly, they continually hire NEW talent. WHY? Name any wrestler on the indy circuit recently signed and I can name you someone in WCW that the bookers have probably forgotten they even have! It's insane, and then the people in WCW's head office scratch their heads as to why they're losing by three points every Monday.

I mean, who are we supposed to be cheering for at this point? Who makes us, as fans, care enough to watch? Everyone in WCW wants to be a "fan favorite" at this point, and the only guy who's really good at it, Ric Flair, wants to be a heel. It's ludicrous. I keep hoping for Bill Watts to storm in and kick the asses of everyone involved, but it never happens. And the ratings keep dropping farther and farther until no one can even remember the last time WCW won a night.

Okay, here's one for you: WCW goes to Toronto for the first time, and you'd think it would be a no-brainer to showcase Bret Hart and Chris Jericho all night, but instead Hart gets put in a great angle that lasts 5 minutes and Jericho wrestles a 5 minute squash. Wow, way to showcase the Canadian talent there, WCW. I mean, is anyone even paying attention in the head office? Didn't they notice that it was Canada and Goldberg wasn't exactly popular with the fans? Did they think that pumping in the fake chant would make everyone think it was Georgia or something? Hello, time to change the drugs that get put in the coffee in the mornings.

I'm almost afraid to ask what the strategy behind hyping Nitro as starting an hour in the broadcast is. I mean, I just bet there's a WCW bean counter who's got stats from the 32-39 demographic that indicates what the people REALLY want is Gonnad's video for an hour with Kevin Nash skits interspersed.

Hey, back to Eric Bischoff. Remember when Nitro debuted and started beating RAW (by less than a ratings point...remember THOSE days?) and Bischoff started preaching about competition making a better product, and the end justifying the means and all that? And now he's crying about the WWF's smutty product being unfair? Hey, here's a cliche for you, Eric, what goes around comes around.

The WWF is worrying me more every day, however. A certain amount of bad press is okay, but once the religious fanatics and right wing lunatics get ahold of a cause, it's all downhill from there. I could give a shit if the WWF warps the minds of youngsters everywhere, but if RAW gets tanked by a fundamentalist wacko housewife with nothing better to do then I'll be pissed.

I mean, how can these people honestly sit there and say with a straight face that the WWF is the root of all evil? No one uses guns on WWF TV, and if the most violent resolution to a conflict is a Corporate Elbow, then the youth of America should be okay. Sure, the kids might try to imitate the more dangerous moves shown, but that's how future wrestlers are born. Vince needs all the talent he can get, what with stupid ideas like the Brawl For All injuring all his top guys. And if someone is stupid enough to try a piledriver without realizing that death might result, then I say "Bravo!" The human gene pool probably needs some weeding, anyway. Darwin's law applies: Survival of the fittest.

Anyway, I think I've gotten enough off my chest for another month or so. I'll let you know if anything else is bothering me.