To be fair, even though HHH's backstage maneuvering had been a hot topic of debate, I'm sure no fans wished him ill to this extent. In fact, sentiment began swinging around the other way almost instantly. HHH was a star at the top of his game, who would now be forced to miss upwards of half-a-year of his prime. On top of that, HHH was lauded immensely for being able to finish the match that night; he was even put into the Walls of Jericho, a move that had to be absolutely excruciating for a man with a torn quad.

Was there, perhaps, sympathy for HHH? Maybe...

HHH's absence from TV came at a time when things were just looking up. And from the start, we knew it was going to be a long absence: initial reports the day after the injury were that HHH would miss "3 to 5 months." Within a week, he'd undergone surgery with Dr. James Andrews, and the prognosis was shifted to a SIX month lay-off. This meant, among other things, that HHH would miss the entirety of the looming "Invasion" angle, and that -- in the shorter term -- a planned HHH/Benoit feud would have to be scrapped, leaving Benoit with nothing on his plate.

But from these lemons, the WWF crafted one dame fine pitcher of lemonade in May. Starting with the RAW that included HHH's injury, the Fed turned out just some of the best consecutive shows of the entire year. The 5/21 RAW included the stellar Benoit/Jericho tag title win over Austin/HHH (which was voted as Match of the Year in many places, and which made my Top Three). Benoit and Jericho followed that up with a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs title defense over the Hardys, Dudleys, and Edge/Christian on that week's SmackDown!.

At that point, the WWF also decided to include Benoit into the main event mix (which was originally slated to be a singles feud between Austin and Jericho)... the next week, TV tapings in Canada were headlined by Benoit's "coming out" as a possible main eventer. Both RAW and SmackDown! featured superlative Benoit/Austin singles matches that not only saw Benoit look like a legitimate contender, but also saw Austin re-prove his ability to wrestle technical match to fans who saw him as deteriorated. The month of May wound up being just about the year's best in terms of pure wrestling.

Those last two weeks of WWF TV were notable for another reason, too: the WCW "invasion" angle had its roots in those weeks of TV. Shane McMahon returned to TV to establish himself as a babyface feuding with Kurt Angle as a way of introducing "his" WCW... that happened on the 5/21 RAW, but was only a prelude to the month's real shocker.

On May 28, 2001 (Memorial Day), Lance Storm ran in during a match on RAW, superkicking Perry Saturn in the middle of a Saturn/Terri vs. Steve Blackman/Trish Stratus match. He had never been seen on WWF TV before, and during his appearance, a WCW logo flashed on the TitanTron, emphasizing the fact that he was clearly Invading. Though the Storm run-in was likely just a convenient decision made by the WWF to get a pop out of the crowd for a home-town WCW invader, the actual date of the first invasion carried much historical significance: it had been exactly five years ago -- on Memorial Day '96 -- when Scott Hall popped up out of nowhere on Nitro to invade WCW. Like Storm, Hall interrupted a fairly meaningless match. Unlike Storm, Hall's invasion would still be considered historically significant more than one week after it took place.

Still, forgetting how it may have turned out, May will forever be known as the genesis of the WWF vs. WCW war.

The state of Ohio eliminated a proposed athletic commission tax on pro wrestling events after first including it in a preliminary budget; they reasoned (quite correctly, most likely) that they would simply lose the dozen or more annual events held in Ohio rather then collecting additional revenue...

The Rock took a break from filming "The Scorpion King," but not to return to the WWF; instead, he did the publicity rounds for "The Mummy Returns," in which he had a bit part; the movie opened to a record non-holiday-weekend audience, ensuring that the buzz would be strong for the Rock-powered sequel in 2002...

Final cable industry numbers pegged WrestleMania X-7 at over 900,000 buys, making it the most watched wrestling PPV, ever...

Word leaked out to cable industry sources that the WWF is changing the title of July's pay-per-view event from "Fully Loaded" to "Invasion," sparking speculation that the WCW cross-overs would begin soon...

Claims from Jim Ross and Linda McMahon placed the start date of WCW cross-overs at anywhere from "2-3 weeks" to "two months," with Linda's shorter-term deadline gaining credence as May wore on...

WWFE, Inc. officially announced that the XFL would be retired after just one season; after word that NBC wanted no part of airing XFL games in prime time and similar plans under consideration at both UPN and TNN, the Fed just cut its losses (estimated to be about $35 million) by announcing the shut down...

Perry Saturn got frustrated with a jobber at Jakked/Metal tapings, and worked very stiff with him; Saturn was not present at the next night's tapings, and rumors circulated that the WWF was "punishing" him with the stupid mop-related gimmick later in the year, though they were never substantiated...

Kevin Nash confirmed, on his website, that his plan was to sit out until January 1, 2002, collecting free money from Time Warner; he also revealed that at that time, he had big plans to return to action, and was working hard during his vacation to get into good shape...

Footage of a "Stalker" videotaping the Undertaker's wife Sara began airing on WWF TV; though initially dismissed as a silly angle, fans eventually became hooked on the idea of trying to puzzle out who the mysterious Stalker was... audio analysis showed that the distorted voice on the tapes belonged to Vince McMahon, though no one really thought he'd end up as the Stalker...

Bret Hart, Rob Van Dam, Jerry Lawler, Jimmy Snuka, and others all agreed to allow their likenesses to be part of a new "Legends of Wrestling" videogame being developed by Acclaim to replace the lost ECW franchise...

Mick Foley returned to best-seller lists with the follow-up auto-biography, "Foley is Good," which duplicated its predecessors success...

Wrestling-related eBay auctions become very common, as various personalities began auctioning off not only their memorabilia, but their actual time; fans could bid on evenings with Tammy "Sunny" Sytch, Francine, or the Sandman, among others...

Rikishi suffered a shoulder injury that would wind up keeping him on the shelf for about six months...

A live RAW in Calgary included a quick tribute to Stu Hart, who was seated at ringside with a ton of other Hart family members... other Hart family members -- including Martha and Bret -- lashed out at their relatives who decided to "bury the hatchet" with the WWF...

OO's not the only one who occasionally gets the future wrong; Jim Ross reported in May that HHH would be back "in a few weeks" in a non-wrestling role, though it was later decided to keep HHH off TV entirely till his injury was healed...

Brian "Grand Master Sexay" Lawler was detained by customs when he was apparently trying to smuggle drugs into Canada; though Sexay tried to explain away the misdeed as a mix-up involving his friend's stash, the WWF quickly released him...

"HHH didn't just make Austin evil, he helped make him the kind of CAPABLE evil that gets shit done." -- OO on how Steve Austin's affiliation with HHH helped his status as a heel, 05/04/01

"This breaking news is fresh from Milan: comparing the present day WWF to the NWO-laden 'downward spiral era' of WCW, circa '97-'98 is 'in' this season for all savvy internet smarts." -- OO on the trend of internet pundits to foolishly fall all over each other to pile on whenever a weakness -- real or imagined -- is detected, 05/04/01

"I've always said that what we do is pointless at best. Parasitic at worst. Writing about wrestling for a mass audience shouldn't exist as a position anywhere in the world; it's ludicrous and almost unimaginable that it does. But then I realize a few things: there IS an audience for this sort of thing, and somebody's going to exploit it and have his/her ego stroked in the process. So it might as well be me and my ego, right? As long as it doesn't interfere with me being a fan the same exact way I've been for 17 years, then hell, I'll join in the fracas." -- OO tries to justify its own existence in the middle of an  internet-generated debate about HHH's abuses of power, 05/04/01

"YES, Triple H is a key cog in the WWF machine (one of the handful of bona fide, established main eventers), and maybe even that YES, he has good ideas and contributes to the creative direction of his character and maybe even to other storylines. But what I don't believe is that participation in top level stories and contribution to the creative direction can be conclusively shown to cross over the line into the realm of a disproportionate TV push or political power to the detriment of the product." -- OO's final stand on the supposed abuses of power by HHH, 05/07/01

"I do believe this will be the first wrestling t-shirt I've ordered in... well, EVER, actually." -- OO's lone fashion report of the year, complimenting the new Kaientai "EVIL" T-shirt, 05/11/01

"Ding dong, the league is dead... my friends, the XFL is (in my best John Cleese voice) an eX-Football-League." -- OO tries to restrain its glee upon the announcement of the shut-down of the XFL, 05/11/01

"Maybe it's true, afterall... without competition, your own efforts seem somehow less important. Like Greg Kinnear's character in 'Mystery Men,' when he finally vanquished all of his super-villain arch nemeses..." -- OO mistakenly thinks that "Mystery Men" is a pop-culture reference that everyone will get when trying to find the right analogy to describe the decline in WWF ratings since the demise of WCW and Nitro, 05/16/01

"News item: Triple H INTENTIONALLY got himself seriously injured Monday night so that he could wring some sympathy out of the fans and position himself as a babyface hero upon his return later this year. Plus, he gets a big-ass paid vacation, just like his lazy pal Kevin Nash." -- OO can't stop itself from poking fun at smarks who might try to find a conspiracy theory hidden within HHH's serious injury, 05/23/01

"They even had to bring him back after just 8 days following the infamous 'car dropped from 50 feet' angle. Certain death only kept HHH on the shelf a week. But a torn quad? That's four months, baby." -- OO on HHH's resilience, 05/23/01

"HHH will end up having the ultimate revenge in the end when the idiots who clamored for him to disappear are BEGGING for his return by August." -- OO is right to predict an eventual 180-degree swing in fan opinion towards HHH, 05/23/01

"Q: How does YOUR elected Czar of TV Recaps like his duck? A: Lame." -- OO makes a cryptic remark about CRZ's status as WrestleLine Monday Night RAW Recapper, 05/25/01

WWF Judgment Day (05/20/01) -- Steve Austin retained the WWF Title with a win over the Undertaker, but needed help from Triple H to get the job done. Earlier in the show, the semi-main event saw failed interference from Austin cost HHH the IC Title against Kane. Other match results: William Regal defeated Rikishi... Kurt Angle beat Chris Benoit in a unique Best of Three Falls Match; Benoit won Fall One (pinfalls only), while Angle took Fall Two (submissions only; Angle won Fall Three (a ladder match with Angles gold medals suspended above the ring) thanks to interference from Edge and Christian... Rhyno beat the Big Show and Test to retain his Hardcore Title... Chyna defeated Lita to retain the Women's Title... Chris Jericho was joined by "mystery partner" Chris Benoit, who returned to action to win a 7-way elimination style match to determine #1 contenders to the tag team titles; Edge and Christian were the last team eliminated by the Canadian Chrisses.

Kane defeated Triple H to win the WWF IC Title (5/20)... Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit defeated Triple H and Steve Austin to win the WWF Tag Team Titles (5/21).