10 Early Internet Wrestling Outrages
4. The ECWCW Alliance
Both Yoda and Anakin Skywalker were sufficiently gifted with the Force to see into the future - as was, appropriately enough, user 'PowerfulJedi' back over on the Force dot net.
Cruel optimism hoodwinked several other posters into a fit of excitement following the events of the July 9, 2001 RAW Is WAR - but PowerfulJedi experienced a vision in his sleep, and sagely predicted the next 17-odd years of pro wrestling in the U.S.:
"You guys are all looking at the good short term. In the long term this will ruin wrestling. After this Invasion angle the WWF will screw crap out of every orifice. Why you might ask. It has no competition and we can't do a thing about it."
PowerfulJedi wasn't entirely alone, despite the received wisdom of this retcon acting as a mea culpa. Countless very optimistic hardcore wrestling fans cited the dormant drawing potential within Sean O'Haire and Billy Kidman as a rejection of what was an effective smoke and mirrors compromise, not that it ultimately mattered; this was a mere reenactment of war ordered by a Vince McMahon with no interest in putting over any brand that was not his own.
But O'Haire could be the next big thing! He's got the look! And Kidman is a cruiserweight, and thus automatically better than anybody larger than him because I've just learned the word 'workrate'!*
*Your writer didn't have to deep dive into an archive for that take. It was entirely his own 15 year-old doing.