By Chris Johnson
The World Wrestling Federation has been very busy. Between multiple hours on the road, trying to produce live entertainment, the WWF has also been trying to spread the word about how imporant it is to vote. That is why they have been on a Smackdown Your Vote campaign, which concluded at our own very Belknap Campus on October 29. Along to spread the word, was Olympic gold medalist and current holder of the US Championship title, Kurt Angle and Bradshaw, who makes up half of the Acolytes (the other member being Faarooq), two guys who love nothing more to kick butt and drink beer. They joked around as to why they were late (the event was suppose to have started at 12:00 but did not get around until 1:10.) but they got their message out and Kurt Angle stayed behind and signed copies of his new book, “It’s True, It’s True.”
The other reason the WWF was in town was for its televised show, Raw Is War, which is shown live at 9:00 on TNN. A packed house at Freedom Hall, the WWF continued its ongoing storyline of battling the opposition, known as the Alliance, which is made up of the World Championship Wrestling and the Extreme Championship Wrestling. Controlling these two organizations are none other than Shane and Stephanie McMahon, the children of WWF owners, Vince and Linda McMahon. However, on this night, a interesting stipulation occurred: Shane McMahon came out and said that a member of the WWF would defect over to the Alliance, thus giving them an even bigger advantage.
Vince McMahon announced TEAM WWF, five wrestlers who would defend the company for all that it is worth on November 18, at Survivor Series, the WWF’s next pay-per-view. The Undertaker, his brother Kane, The Rock, Kurt Angle, and Chris Jericho, would lead the charges. With this announcement about a member of the WWF jumping ship to the Alliance, everybody became suspcious.
I must say that the WWF did an excellent job at maintaining suspense as to who the traitor would be. Throughout the night, all of the wrestlers kept going back and forth at each other, trying to discover who it was. It all came to a head in the main event, which was a street fight between father and son, Vince versus Shane McMahon. It was a rematch from the April 1, 2001 Wrestlemania pay-per-view. As the match was coming to an end, WWF and Alliance wrestlers came out and all of the suspects were there until….KURT ANGLE took a chair and knocked his WWF “friends” out. Angle was the traitor and joined the Alliance as RAW came to an end.
After Monday, I am proud to say that I have been to over a dozen WWF shows and they just keep getting better. The WWF will always come back to Louisville because we are an enthusiastic crowd, plus we have a training ground for upcoming wrestlers called Ohio Valley Wrestling. Though the WWF has received flack for their product, millions each week still watch and attend this highly controversial show. I say treat the WWF like you would General Hospital or All My Children: it is a soap opera with stories of romance, violence, betrayals, and more. People need to realize that the stories are scripted but the injuries are real, and they do it all for the sake of entertainment.
