For two tragic and nerve-wracking hours on the morning of September 11, the entire nation -- if not the entire world -- stood still and was forced to ponder our own mortality in the wake of terrorist attacks that decimated both towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. After all planes were grounded and the immediate threat of further attacks seemed to diminish, America slowly started to regain its equilibrium. Even as attempted anthrax attacks became public over the following weeks, nothing shook us so severely as those first few hours of uncertainty.

The recovery from those attacks did manage to tie directly into to the wrestling world's biggest story of the month. Although the National Football League wound up putting its season on hold for 12 days in the wake of the attacks, and though Major League Baseball paused for about a week, the World Wrestling Federation decided to push forward with a live broadcast of SmackDown! on September 13 (a show that had been previously scheduled to be taped on the evening of 9/11).

Amidst a mixture of praise and criticism (but also amidst a packed house in Houston, TX), the Federation put on a tastefully patriotic and angle-free program. Launched by Lillian Garcia's rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, and featuring a series of entertaining-but-meaningless matches interspersed with heartfelt monologues various superstars, the show had a decidedly unique feel. The show was notable for being the first public gathering of its size since the attacks, and for those in the audience, the experience seemingly bordered on cathartic at times. On those grounds alone, I was among the many who applauded the WWF for going forward with the telecast and for doing so in an appropriate manner.

However, those who wanted to find reasons to criticize (above and beyond the idea that it was somehow callous or disrespectful to get on with something as frivolous as wrestling so shortly after a tragedy) got some ammunition from the program, too. Although mostly tasteful and respectful, the show did include an opening monologue from Vince McMahon that bordered on self-promotional (he was only too quick to note that the WWF was the first entity to stage a public gathering of this magnitude). And a brief vignette from Stephanie McMahon was, no doubt, well-intentioned and delivered in the heat of the moment, but rubbed fans the wrong way by painting the nation's current troubles as being similar to troubles faced by her family in the early 90s. Vince's speech was replayed ad nauseum, though Steph's was edited out of future broadcasts.

The WWF slowly moved back into promoting storylines rather than patriotism the following week. They had already positioned Kurt Angle as the company's top babyface, and in the wake of the attacks, it became a lot easier for people to get behind the red-white-and-blue-wearing Olympic hero. Although Angle's babyface antics had seemed labored and out of character in prior weeks (leading to memorably-bad skits, including one on a bridge where he held Steve Austin hostage until he got a PPV title shot), he fit right in at the top in the final week leading into the Unforgiven PPV.

The pay-per-view was held in Angle's hometown of Pittsburgh, and with the convergence of so many factors, fans got a storybook ending on September 23: Angle defeated Steve Austin to win the WWF Title in front of his friends and family and amidst a sea of red, white, and blue. It certainly didn't make everything "all right"... but it was a part of the path to getting things to be better.

Toronto's SkyDome was officially announced as the home for WrestleMania X-8 at a 9/3 press conference held while the WWF was in town for back-to-back nights of TV tapings; it will be SkyDome's second 'Mania, and word is that with recent reconfigurations to the building, they should be able to eclipse the WM6 attendance record...

Kronik -- Bryan Clarke and Brian Adams -- made a surprise debut on behalf of the Alliance on 9/3, but less than 3 weeks later were off the roster again following a particularly poor showing against Undertaker and Kane at the Unforgiven PPV...

RAW "went dark" during the overrun of its 9/3 episode, losing signal for several key minutes; the result was an abysmally low rating for the night's closing segment...

SmackDown! was live on UPN on 9/4 (rather than taped on 9/6), so that the show would not compete with MTV's Video Music Awards (UPN and MTV are owned by Viacom, which did not want both shows warring for the same young male demographic)...

Dave "Gangrel" Heath and Chaz "Headbanger Mosh" Warrington were released by the WWF...

The Heartland Wrestling Association -- the host promotion for the annual Pillman Memorial -- saw its weekly TV launched in exactly one market: Dayton, OH...

Referee Billy Silverman quit the WWF following an incident that he'd later play up as serious hazing, but which many considered as gentle ribbing...

The WWF's disturbing move towards emphasizing implausible and un-amusing "Hollywood-style" vignettes prompted OO to write a huge editorial on its own perception of the proper blend of sports and entertainment; the editorial was later reprinted on the new OO website, and can be accessed HERE...

The first of Rob Van Dam's casualties was admitted for treatment, as he lacerated and broke the thumb of Steve Austin in a TV match; RVD's opponents would continue to sustain minor injuries in the coming months, a trend that was more of an issue among fans than it was in the WWF locker room...

Steve Austin -- still a heel -- began incorporating "What?" into his verbal repertoire; although it did not become a huge sensation, it was still a popular enough catchphrase to induce WWF.com into running a poll where the question was simply "What?" (the winning response was "What??", narrowly edging out "WHAT?")...

Because of difficulties with air travel, the WWF scuttled shows for the weekend of 9/15, and had their crews drive from 9/14's SmackDown! in Houston to the next week's TV tapings in Tennessee...

Jerry Lawler was backstage when SmackDown! tapings came to Memphis, and had positive dialogue with the WWF; the consensus was that the door was open for him to return once he got all matters pertaining to his divorce from the Kat finalized...

Molly Holly -- originally scheduled to report to OVW to join the staff there as a trainer -- was quickly called up to the WWF main roster, where she got a make-over and joined the Hurricane, replacing Ivory as his sidekick...

Rights to the trademarks "NWO" and "Nitro Girls" were re-assigned from Time Warner/AOL to the WWF in September...

In an attempt to be a "responsible programmer" in the wake of 9/11, the WWF removed the song "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" from all broadcasts, re-titled Monday's show as simply "RAW" (instead of RAW is WAR) with the show's second hour subtitled "The RAW Zone" (instead of the War Zone), and decided to change the name of its December PPV from "Armageddon" to "Vengeance"...

UFC made its return to the mainstream with a PPV event that was picked up by In Demand PPV, the premier US distributor for PPV-on-cable; Ken Shamrock nearly signed on as a last-second replacement for the show, but money issues could not be worked out...

"Tough Enough" wrapped up, with Maven and Nidia being crowned the male and female winners, respectively; they would both be rewarded with brief (but unsuccessful) SmackDown! appearances in the next few weeks before being shipped off for further training...

Tough Enough was a substantial ratings success for the WWF and MTV, so "Tough Enough 2" was announced in September...

WWF developmental wrestler Russ Haas was hospitalized with chest pain following an HWA TV taping in late September; he was forbidden from wrestling until a precise diagnosis could be made regarding his condition...

MECW took another step down the "sketch-factor continuum" when John Collins completely separated himself from the company after allegations of non-payment or slow-payment; the company was supposedly to fall under the control of former ECW owner Tod Gordon, though nothing further every really developed with MECW...

"Lay off, dammit... I get the message! Canada DOES celebrate Labor Day, you just spell it that nutty CRZ way (Labour Day). You can't blame me, though: it's only fair to be suspicious of a country that has Thanksgiving, but not on the last Thursday of November like a certain other country rightfully does. And what the hell is up with celebrating the Fourth of July on July 1?" -- OO delivers its usual holiday dose of ethno-centric Canada-bashing on the occasion of Labor Day, 09/03/01

"I knew I had some good heel shtick with my making fun of Canada and its holidays on Monday based purely on my in-box... but there was still something nice about seeing the same basic material adapted by Stephanie for her promo and to see the live Toronto crowd get really pissy about it! I know what works on you people... just call me Cerebral Assassin Jr.!" -- OO is pleased to see Steph using my exact material for use in a promo for Toronto's 9/3 edition of RAW, 09/05/01

"Perhaps the best piece of e-mail I got back from Friday's rant was from somebody who suggested that my ideas were pretty solid, and he'd agree with most of them... but for the love of god, couldn't I have said the same basic thing in a lot less space?!? Oh, the irony!" -- OO on incisive nature of feedback received to the Hollywood 4-Life column, 09/10/01

"I say "living my life as I always have" and I mean it. There are people on TV and radio suggesting that this happened because we have unprecedented personal freedom in this country. No, I refuse to accept that. This happened because some nutjob lacked any conception of how rational humans behave and took a potshot at us. As Americans we choose to live this way, to be (relatively-speaking) free. And even after this tragedy, I CONTINUE to choose that way of life." -- OO gets all patriotic following the 9/11 attacks, 09/12/01

"Now, it didn't fix anything. Nobody was "healed" by a momentary distraction. But for me, it was nice to go 2 hours in front of a TV without seeing footage of a plane crashing into a building." -- OO finds another reason to defend the WWF's decision to hold SmackDown on 9/13, 09/14/01

"I want to bring the hammer down, and hard. But I want it brought down in the most meaningful manner possible: against the right people and with the full support of the global community. I don't believe "revenge" is a bad word, as long as you're wielding it responsibly!" -- OO's other quote-worthy display of patriotic sentiment, 09/14/01

"I'm not sure if they didn't finally go over the edge with the Hurricane (the whole joke is that he DOESN'T have superpowers, and now they go and do the silly whooshing wind thing when he enters a room?), but his bits were pretty funny, too, I guess. And it only took them a damn YEAR to steal my 99.44% pure joke in regards to Ivory!" -- OO uses the Hurricane as an excuse to gloat over beating the WWF to the punch on yet another Ivory-related occurance, 09/19/01

"I'm one of the few people who thought this was only BARELY funny when Norman Smiley did the same thing to Pepe (Chavo's "horse") on Nitro a few years back... but at least Pepe was SORT OF over." -- OO doesn't shed a goddamn tear for "Moppy," 09/19/01

"I think I did a good job with some sketchy notes that I can turn into narrative... but if detail slacks off as this recap goes on, blame the Nutter Center's highly enlightened policy of selling hard liquor as well as beer! If it doesn't slack off, blame the Nutter Center's fascist policy of charging $4 for a shitty pour of bourbon on the rocks." -- OO on the possibly-declining quality of a first-hand spoiler report for 9/27's SmackDown!, 09/26/01

"I cannot explain it, and I'm almost ashamed of my hometown, but Billy Gunn got a giant, absolutely inexplicably loud pop for his intro, and fans were into him the whole match. " -- OO cannot comprehend his fellow Daytonian's response to Billy Gunn, 09/26/01

"Angle decides that he can't figure out the whole pastry thing, and tells the Rock what he REALLY likes is milk. Big jugs of milk. Angle goes off to grab the first two big jugs he sees while the Rock is left chuckling. And speaking of big jugs.... Steph then enters the arena to a big heel pop, and sits herself down at the commentary table for the next match.... and don't give me any trouble about the 'big jugs' segue, either. It was so easy, I bet half the (literate) SmackDown! recaps on the web this Friday come up with the same joke! Hey, speaking of being 'so easy'... oh, nevermind. I'll stop while I'm ahead." -- OO is the master of half-clever segues, even when doing event recaps, 09/26/01

"Did somebody book this show just for The Rick, or what? Three-quarters of the way through SD!, and no 20 minute promos? And now, our second Ivory appearance of the night? In an actual wrestling match? Nothing really earth-shattering, here, but very solid, all things considered, and all without resorting to cheap T&A tactics. [Well, mostly... Ivory did get the biggest pop of the match for smacking her own ass, which I guess I'll just HAVE to grudgingly deal with!]" -- OO on the deliciously personalized nature of the booking for 9/25 SD! tapings, 09/26/01

"With Hall and Nash under consideration to join the WWF/WCW war in the new year, having the NWO name is just a nice thing for WWFE to have in its pocket..." -- OO puts openly speculates about the possible interconnection between two seemingly independent news bites, 09/26/01

"Congrats and best of luck to both Maven and Nidia... when they both make it big and I'm answering 'The Rick Says' questions about both, I'm sure I'll be kicking myself for not watching the genesis of their careers when I had the chance, but for now, the whole 'Tough Enough' concept is just something that doesn't work for me." -- OO registers complete apathy with regards to the announcement of Tough Enough winners, 09/28/01

WWF Unforgiven (09/23/01) -- Kurt Angle won the WWF Title in front of his hometown crowd, defeating Steve Austin in the main event at Unforgiven. The night's next best match saw Rob Van Dam continue his streak of strong PPV performances by retaining the Hardcore Title with a win over Chris Jericho. Other match results: the Dudleys survived an elimination-style match to retain the WWF Tag Team Titles, fending off the Hardys, Hurricane/Lance Storm, and Big Show/Spike Dudley... Perry Saturn defeated Raven... Christian defeated Edge to win the WWF IC Title... Undertaker and Kane retained the WCW Tag Team Titles with a win over Kronik... the Rock managed to defeat Booker T and Shane McMahon in a handicap match, retaining his WCW Title in the process.

Tajiri beat Chris Kanyon to win the WCW US Title (9/10)... The Dudley Boyz beat Undertaker and Kane to win the WWF Tag Team Titles (9/17)... The Rock beat Booker T to win the WCW Title (9/18)... Kurt Angle beat Steve Austin to win the WWF Title (9/23)... Christian beat Edge to win the WWF IC Title (9/23)... Rhyno beat Tajiri to win the WCW US Title (9/23)... Booker T and Test beat Undertaker and Kane to win the WCW Tag Team Titles (9/25).