The Steel Cage

So it was six years ago -- on the Halloween episode of SmackDown in 2002 -- that this happened. (Yes, that's me dressed as Dudley Do-Right sitting next to Cena as Stephanie's talking).

I've blogged before about my role in John Cena's first appearance as the white-boy rapper that ultimately led to his rise to superstardom. But given the day's festivities, I thought I'd retell the story -- along with some other fun backstage tidbits and thoughts inspired by recent events. Enjoy ...

Long time no speak! I've been busy drowning in a sea of Long Island presidential debate and economic stuff ... but with No Mercy in the rear-view mirror and WWE releasing a Hell in the Cell DVD retrospective, now seemed like as good a time as any to share some memories of No Mercy '02, one of my favorite shows from my time on the WWE creative team. Here's a few ...

RICHFIELD, Utah -- I'm here in a hotel room in Utah right now drinking a beer called Polygamy Porter. Their motto is, "WHy Have Just One!"

I am not kidding. Google it if you don't believe me.

Anyway, I'm enjoying having some time on my road trip to post again for the first time in a while. And in reading the comments from my RAW Roulette post, I see some interesting insights and questions that I thought I'd respond to ...

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Every time I come to Vegas, I think back to the first time I ever came here -- as a member of the WWE creative team in Oct. 2002, helping to produce the first-ever RAW Roulette.

I still remember flying in on Air McMahon the night before, seeing the lights of the strip from the plane and being absolutely mesmerized. I remember my face and the faces of several others plastered against the windows as we took in the beauty of the scene as we landed.

Anyhoo, here's some thoughts and memories from that first RAW Roulette show.

First off, I have to apologize for the infrequent posts as of late. I’ve been quite busy, as evidenced in pages A6 and A7 of your Newsday.

This may be a bit late, but I wanted to ring in about what I thought was the most intriguing moment of last Monday’s Raw. Even more intriguing – none of us saw it on television.

I’m speaking about the 12-minute dark match that took place before the show went on the air. In one corner was Lance Cade – the five-year WWE veteran who seemed poised to get a decent push as a mid-card heel after breaking up with his tag team partner Trevor Murdoch.

In the other corner was a pale, plain, light heavyweight – likely unrecognizable to the majority of the fans. Yet somehow, this relative unknown made Cade tap out.

The mystery man’s name – Bryan Danielson.

Someone passed along a question about just how much was known about Eric Bischoff's WWE debut in July 2002.

Been out of town for the past week; time to get back to posting!

Coming up this week: Answering your questions, thoughts on the Bret Hart book and both upcoming Benoit books, PPV predictions, and more.

For now, if you're interested, you can check out my appearance this past week on WrestleCrap radio ...

WWE.com reported a couple of days ago that Torrie Wilson has been given her release, apparently confirming the rumors that she's been told that she shouldn't be competing in the ring anymore.

I thought I'd mark the occasion by reminiscing a bit about one of the Wrestle-crappiest storylines I was ever a part of: the Torrie-Dawn-Al debacle.

It seemed a lot of you really enjoyed my story from last week about the night I went home from Madison Square Garden with the World Heavyweight Championship. So I thought you might also enjoy this story about Brock Lesnar and the WWE Championship belt.

So after my last post, I got to thinking a little more about the "curse" of the World Heavyweight Championship, and I have a confession to make:

I think it might be my fault.

You can trace it back to Survivor Series 2002 and one of my favorite stories from my time at WWE: The night I went home with the World Heavyweight Championship.

Been out of town the past couple of days, and came back to read the news online about Michael Hayes' suspension.

Thought I'd offer some thoughts on the situation.

I've been out of town the past couple of days, and I'm just catching up on all the Michael Hayes news postings. Later today I'll be posting my thoughts on that situation.

In the meantime, while we're on the subject of the WWE creative team, here's a blog entry I started writing late last week -- many of you have asked my opinion of Raw head writer Brian Gewirtz.

So while I've got a few minutes, now seems like as good a time as any to start answering your questions. And a great starting point seems to be one that many of you asked in regards to my post from yesterday: What was up with that Stephanie McMahon/Eric Bischoff kiss on the Halloween 2002 episode of SmackDown?

You know, I never did get a chance to publicly congratulate Mae Young on her induction into the WWE's Hall of Fame. Mae is one of my favorite on-air performers of all-time -- her drunken old lady routine is just so darn entertaining to me.

I was never a mark for getting pictures with the talent, but Mae was one who I always wanted a snapshot with, and it became a running gag with some friends backstage that I could never get a picture with her. That changed in 2002, on the night of SmackDown's Halloween party, when I got my favorite souvenir from my WWE days, a picture of me with Mae and the Fabulous Moolah -- all decked out in our Halloween costumes.

So congrats, Mae. You are awesome.

And speaking of the SmackDown Halloween party, let me take you back to that time with a little story about a guy named John Cena.

So you might recall from my post last week that the initial plan when we created split titles in 2002 was for Rob Van Dam and Brock Lesnar to be the champions and to carry the titles straight on through WrestleMania.

In that post, I explained why the title was never even put on Van Dam. Now I'd like to tell you a bit about why the title was taken off of Brock so soon, including who he was originally slated to face at Madison Square Garden at Survivor Series that year, before plans were changing to the Big Show.

Like most of the others writers on the creative team, I wanted RVD to be the first World Heavyweight Champion when we created that crown in September 2002. The thinking was that he and Brock Lesnar would be the fresh-faced champions to carry the titles through the following WrestleMania, building interest and a unique identity for each of the brands.

As you probably know, it didn't work out quite that way. Besides the fact that Brock actually lost the title just three months later, RVD never even got his moment in the sun, as Triple H actually was named the first champion, and went on to hold the title for 11 of the first 12 months of its creation.

At the time, it was disheartening to see the plans change so drastically (yes, the official plan at first was for RVD to win it). Yes, it only contributed to all the buzz and rumblings I'd heard about Triple H that I'd tried to keep an open mind about when I joined the creative team.

But here we are, years later, blessed with the gift of perspective, and I gotta say -- and you will probably disagree with me -- I was totally wrong.

Putting the title on Triple H was the best thing we could have done.

When we first launched the blog last week, I wrote a post asking you guys if you had any questions for me, either about my experiences on creative, my interaction with various superstars, or just my thoughts on stuff in general.

You guys posted some great questions, and I intend to answer as much stuff as I can in the coming weeks and months ... I already have a file on my computer with about 50 topics I plan on addressing at some point.

But these questions are great, so I thought I'd open the floor to you guys again -- what the heck do you want to know? Post your comments below, let me know what you want to hear about!

And thanks to all for reading and for the great feedback. Alfonso and I are really enjoying this blog, especially interacting with all of you.

One of my favorite nights during my tenure on the creative team was Sept. 10, 2002, which was the day we taped that year's SmackDown "season premiere" (it's weird that a show that has no off-season would have a season premiere, isn't it?).

That show featured the infamous Billy & Chuck commitment ceremony, the concept of which was my idea, and which turned into a huge success for the company in terms of ratings and mainstream coverage.

After the jump, some tidbits on what you DIDN'T see that night -- two superstars we discussed making cameos but didn't, the finish we should have done, and three gigantic matches we suggested before the wedding came to be ...

By the time I joined the creative team in July 2002, they already kinda knew that having one world title that went back and forth between the two shows wasn't working. There had been some hesitation to splitting the titles, more out of tradition than anything else I think. But as we developed the Stephanie/Bischoff general manager thing and really started giving each show its own identity and feel, we debated it and finally resolved that for the longterm success of the brand extension, it was probably the best thing.

So we sought to come up with a plan as to how to create a whole new title that had the instant feel and legitimacy of a world championship.

I was on the creative team for a hair over four months -- from the last week of July to the early part of December 2002 -- but I can proudly say that I was a part of it for three of the most infamous storylines in the history of wrestling, ever -- the Billy & Chuck commitment ceremony, the whole Al Wilson saga, and the storyline I get asked about more than any other by far, the Katie Vick saga.

(And for the record, I was there for a lot of good stuff too, but the bad stuff is way more fun to talk about!)

I'll get into the Katie Vick thing more in detail as the weeks go on (key rule of building an audience -- leave 'em wanting more. Someone please call Vince and let him know. He woulda told you the whole story in the opening segment of AM RAW). But for now, I thought I'd give you the story on where the actual name "Katie Vick" comes from.

Flashback to October 2002. We're on Air McMahon (Vince's private jet, which was pretty sweet, by the way -- great roast-beef finger sandwiches) flying out to Las Vegas for the first Raw Roulette show (name of the show was Jim Ross' idea). We were coming off of Unforgiven and starting the hard sell for Triple H vs. Kane at No Mercy (another great story for down the line)!

The main event of the evening was to be the four-way Tag Team TLC Match that was voted Best Raw Match of the Century at that pitiful 10th anniversary show. The plan was that after Kane and Hurricane won that match, Triple H would come out and accuse Kane of being a murderer.

So we're on Air McMahon, finalizing the rundown for RAW (not that any rundown was ever really final), and it's time to give this "murdered girl" a name.

So the main thing that qualifies me to be writing this wrestling blog (aside from having a pulse, of course) is the fact that I actually used to work for WWE.

During the summer of 1999 and the winter of 1999-2000, I interned for WWE.com, and from May 2000 to December 2002, I was a full-time employee, first for WWE.com and WWE Magazine, and then as an actual rank-and-file member of the WWE creative team. Yes, that WWE creative team.

Among the stuff that went down during my time on the creative team: John Cena's first rap, the splitting of the WWE Title into two separate titles, the first Elimination Chamber, the only Long Island Pay-Per-View of the past 20 years, the beginnings of Evolution (and the early careers of Randy Orton and Batista), the temporary extinction of the Intercontinental Title, the creation of the SmackDown Tag Title, and Brock Lesnar's first title reign.

Also during my time there: Katie Vick, the Billy & Chuck commitment ceremony and Al Wilson.

So if you have any questions about what goes on behind the scenes or what everyone's really like, post 'em below ... I'll answer as much as I can.

I've got some stories for ya.