by Rick Scaia
OnlineOnslaught.com

As we followed along with every development, Kurt went from needing another opinion but probably OK for WM19 to needs career ending surgery to can work WM19 but then needs to get spinal fusion surgery and miss a year of action before finally discovering Option D.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  When word broke less than a month before WM19 that Angle's neck was in bad shape, fans immediately began wondering what it might mean for the Lesnar/Angle dream match.  Angle had worked through some discomfort and was fully planning on doing the same up through WM19, until a severe turn for the worse during a tour of South Africa.  That's when a doctor looked at his neck and pretty much yanked him from the WM19 line-up.  

But SD! didn't act rashly.  They stayed the course that first week, and in that time, Angle saw another expert, who basically said that Angle could work WM19 and wouldn't be at much more risk than he'd been the last few months.  Angle, willing to deal with both the pain and the risk, took that as a clean bill of health (or at least, as clean as he was gonna get).  But the fans didn't know this as SD! staged a sudden Angle/Lesnar match for free on SD! three weeks prior to WM...

As we went through all the options for replacements (Benoit was a favorite, and Hogan and Rock both had supporters), it seemed a foregone conclusion that the free SD! match was merely a formality to have Angle drop the title to Lesnar with enough time to do SOMEthing to set up a challenger to Brock.  But guess again: in a genuinely shocking swerve, Kurt Angle used his brother Eric to confound Lesnar, and he won the match in under 90 seconds, and in so doing, signaled to the world that he had every intention of working the WM19 main event as scheduled.

Even as we rejoiced at our good fortune, we still knew that as soon as Mania was past, Angle would be facing fusion surgery and over a year on the sidelines.  But right around the time of Mania, word got out that a Pittsburgh-area doctor (Dr. Jho) had contacted Kurt after reading about his injury in the newspaper.  He proposed Angle try out his new, less-invasive procedure.  If successful, Angle would miss only 2 months instead of over a year.  Angle at first thought it sounded too good to be true, but after consulting with Dr. Jho, other doctors and even Scott Hall (the only wrestler to have attempted the procedure previously), Angle opted for the experimental procedure.

By most counts, it went well.  Angle was back on TV inside of 2 months and wrestling at his old pace inside of 3.  Although late year complications arose, they are not likely related to the experimental procedure (but more related to Angle's high impact style and past neck damage), and it seems that Angle may have blazed another trail: one where guys with serious neck injuries don't have to miss out on a year's worth of paychecks....
 

IN OTHER NEWS

• Barely a month into its existence, Evolution crumbled to nothingness on the first weekend of March. In a house show tag match against the Dudley Boyz, Orton broke bones in his foot while Batista tore a muscle in his arm. Original prognosis: Orton would miss up to 6 months, Batista more like 4. With HHH nursing his thigh bruise, Ric Flair (all fifty-something years of him) was basically Evolution's healthiest member, so the group pretty much had to be back-burnered for the time being...
• Only a month into his TNA run, Raven introduced the "Clockwork Orange House of Fun" gimmick match to his repertoire to blow-off his feud against fellow ECW alum, the Sandman. The two tore the house down in the wild brawl (which would go on to become Raven's signature match)...
• Limp Bizkit was announced as the WM19 "house band," contributing not only the theme song for the show, but also two separate live performances during the event. The Rick was not pleased...
• The future of Tough Enough was in serious doubt, as ratings for the third series were not up to snuff, and MTV was looking to get out of the WWE business. Ivory confirmed to fans and in interviews that TE4 was looking less and less likely...
• WWE and Viacom agreed to a new deal to keep SmackDown! on UPN for another 2 years (extending their contract to Fall, 2005). This came amidst idiot internet rumors that UPN was displeased with SD! and wanted to either removed it from their schedule or reduce it to 60 mintues. Terms of the deal included UPN assuming all 24 minutes of network advertising time in each weekly show in exchange for a $500,000 weekly fee to WWE (previously, WWE paid UPN a weekly fee for the timeslot, and sold the advertising time for all but the locally sold spots and 2 minutes worth of UPN's in-house self-promotion itself). The new terms actually stood to benefit both sides.
• WWE and Girls Gone Wild co-promoted a GGW PPV that turned out to be quite awful. With nudity and titillation more deserving of a "Girls Gone Mild" tag, and even less intriguing contributions from WWE personnel (unless you count Stacy Keibler's obvious intoxication as entertainment), nobody who mailed in to report on the show seemed to get anything resembling their money's worth. It should be noted that GGW has not, despite plans to the contrary, returned to PPV since...
• On a PPV the same week as WWE and GGW's PPV crapstravaganza, TNA actually trumped the duo with a display of toplessness on their own show. Cage dancer-cum-valet Lollipop was stripped in a catfight, taking full advantage of TNA's TV-14 rating...
• D'Lo Brown debuted for TNA mid-month, about 3 weeks after parting ways with WWE. On his first show, he basically did a quasi-shoot promo about being held down for so many years, and would spend the next few weeks being courted by various factions before settling in as a babyface rival to Vince Russo and SEX...
• Victoria, reigning Women's Champ, is diagnosed with an injured MCL (knee ligament). Most expect her to need up to 2 months off to repair the damage, Victoria opts for non-surgical rehab, and although she drops the title at WM19 and assumes a less-active role for a bit, does not miss any TV tapings as a result of the injury...
• Tommy Dreamer's one month on the RAW creative team came to an end. He chalked it up as a learning experience, and would later say that he never really intended to stick around as a full time contributor. He was just trying things out...
• A pre-emption of SD! was a brief possibility as CBS announced plans to air wall-to-wall coverage of War in Iraq over NCAA tournament basketball; although UPN, TNN, and MTV were considered as alternatives to air the multiple simultaneous hoops games, CBS eventually ended up selling TV rights to ESPN for one set of afternoon games before deciding to abandon war coverage for the tourney...
• Along similar lines, Viacom decided, once and for all, to make MTV "WWE-free." After a trial run the month before, the decision was made to move Heat permanently to TNN. The last MTV Heat was the pre-WM19 edition. Effective the following week, Heat was on TNN...
• Following a concussion at the February PPV, William Regal remained on the shelf well into March. Follow-up doctor visits revealed strange symptoms not related to a concussion, and the mystery illness absolutely ruled out any return to active competition. Regal was replaced by Chief Morley as one-half of the RAW tag champions. Eventually, doctors would pinpoint Regal's problems as stemming from heart and kidney dysfunction; although docs have electro-shocked Regal's heart back to normal functioning and used medications to rid Regal of 30-plus pounds of water weight gain, the underlying causes of the problems were never identified, and Regal remained on the sidelines for the entire rest of the year...
• Bill Goldberg reaches terms with WWE, a deal that is kept secret for all of about 2 weeks. Late in the month, word leaks from the publication world that WWE has prepped an issue of its self-titled magazine with Goldberg on the cover. A few days after that leak, a "Goldberg is coming" promo airs on the WM19 PPV to confirm the signing. The next night on RAW, Goldberg made an appearance to confront The Rock...
• RAW expanded to 2 and a half hours on March 24, the final Monday before WM19. RAW conducted its usual 2-plus hour show, but then kicked it over to what was essentially a half-hour infomercial for the SD! brand matches at WM19 (including Hogan vs. Vince). Viewers tuned out in droves, and the poorly-rated final half-hour brought RAW's overall rating for the night down to a month-low 3.4...
• In one of the most-fun mainstream appearances by WWE stars during the Road to WM19 hype, Chris Jericho's band, Fozzy, played Howard Stern's band, The Losers, in a sort of Battle of the Bands. The battle took place on Stern's show, and as such, was voted the 2-1 winner on the judge's scorecards, but reportedly, fun was clearly had by all involved...
• Also on the road to WM, Steve Austin began making cryptic statements about his future in the company. What was perceived to be a pretty much full-time return to in-ring action never panned out, and Austin talked of his neck preventing him from working matches beyond WM19. The mutual respect vibe between Rock and Austin at the PPV certainly did nothing to alleviate the concern that Austin's health was worse than previously believed and might severely limit his participation in WWE...
• Kevin Nash participated in WM19 weekend festivities (complete with jet-black hair reminiscent of his "Diesel" days), fueling speculation he was ready to return to the ring...
• After already being relieved of his backstage clout, Paul Heyman lost his on-screen role in March. After being F-5'ed by Brock Lesnar, he did not appear again in a managerial capacity; he was banned from WM19's main event by Stephanie McMahon, but his absence from the side of Team Angle was never addressed. He just sort of evaporated....
• Technical difficulties affect many fans with digital cable service who attempt to purchase the WM19 PPV. In at least two major markets, digital cable subscribers are unable to purchase the live event, and are told that the problem will not be solved until the Tuesday replay. On over-zealous cable operator estimated as many as five percent of all cable subscribers were affected, though the real number was probably significantly lower...
• UFC stand-out Tito Ortiz appeared at ringside at WM19, and even pointed out by Tazz, spurring talk that he might come to WWE. In reality, though there is a certain amount of mutual interest, Ortiz's UFC contract ties him up through mid-2004...
• OO is briefly rebranded with a red and blue color scheme that draws rave reviews... only problem is that it was a one-week joke celebrating the Dayton Flyers' NCAA tourney run. Leave it to you bastards to profess a love for a hastily conceived joke than for the design I slaved weeks over back in 2001...
   

NOTABLE quOOtables

RATINGS TRENDS
(Note: RAW's cable ratings are converted to broadcast numbers 
for our monthly comparisons)

PAY-PER-VIEW RESULTS

TITLE CHANGES

Triple X (Low-Ki and Christopher Daniels) beat America's Most Wanted to win vacant NWA Tag Team Titles on 3/12... "Chief of Staff" Sean Morley replaces William Regal (out of action due to illness) as Lance Storm's World Tag Team Title partner on 3/24... Brock Lesnar beat Kurt Angle to win the WWE World Title on 3/30... Trish Stratus beat Victoria and Jazz in a 3-way match to win the World Women's Title on 3/30... Kane/Rob Van Dam defeat Chief Morley/Lance Storm and the Dudley Boyz to win the World Tag Team Titles on 3/31...

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