By V ( v@hempseed.com )
12th June, '99

In the past week I've asked you to tell me who you think is the main draw in the Big Two and who your favourite wrestler is. And now, here are the results-

Main draw-
WWF- 1. Steve Austin, 2. The Rock
WCW- 1. Goldberg, 2. Sting

Favorite wrestler- Steve Austin

I got a total of 460 responses. It was heart-warming to see that up and coming talents like Chris Benhoit and Hugh Morrus were among the favourites. I'll have a new poll in a few weeks!

How many times have we seen a soon-to-debut wrestler hyped like anything who makes a promising start but somewhere down the line, his career derails. It can happen to rookies, rising jobbers and even to established superstars. Here are a few famous burnouts-

Glacier- Easily the most hyped debutante in wrestling, he looked like the man who would lead WCW into the next millenium. He was undefeated for months and looked sure to reach superstardom. However, something was wrong. The crowd had stopped reacting to the super hero persona. The lasers and the body armour wasn't having any effect. A TV title reign was going waste. So he was jobbed in charecteristic WCW style. After a year of this, the Glacier gimmick was finally dropped.

Vader- WWF fans all over the world waited with great anticipation for the huge man they had seen on WWF TV segments, someone called Vader. The debut was spectacular. 24 hours after debuting, he had injured the WWF president and was suspended. Very soon, this monster was feuding for the WWF title. But in early '97, his career graph began to droop. After the Final Four match, The Mastodon never recovered, drowning into obscurity in less than 15 months time. Then he faced the ultimate humiliation of being released by the WWF.

Ahmed Johnson- This man made a stunning debut by powerslamming Yokozuna. He went on to play a huge part in the Survivor Series and then broke the Bulldog's arm in an arm-wrestling match. Ahmed's career rose to new heights as he became the IC chamion and then feuded with the NOD. However, constant injuries marred his career every time he was about to break into main event status. The final straw came when he turned heel and was scheduled to face the Undertaker for the WWF title and he injured himself. The decline was complete after months of being suppressed in mid-card matches. After refusing to job to Kurrgen and being too hard on his opponents, he was fired.

These are just three of the many wrestlers whose careers have burnt out. The long list includes names like Marty Jannetty, Scot Hall, Brian Christopher and even Sunny. In each case, so much talent has been wasted. It's a real shame. And there's no way we can fix it. The truth is more often than not it's the wrestlers themselves who doom their career. Others like Brian Christopher and Vader have simply been booked badly. The bottomline is there is nothing we can do about it.

I'm going to end with a plug for my site, PWS ( http://www.oocities.org/Colossum/Stadium/6053 ). Sorry, no random thoughts this time! Next time (probably tomorrow), random thoughts will be back and i'll try to do a column on how to revive WCW (hard work!!). Until then, send all comments (make this a point), corrections and feedback to v@hempseed.com.

PS:- The 25th People's Column will be coming out soon (my 150th column overall!). So, I want to do something special. Got any ideas?

Correction:- Four days ago, I messed up the list of title winners. A big thank you to all of you who bothered to correct me!