Roundup rambles on WWF politics

Good booking: Triple H admitted he was the Svengali behind running "Stone Cold" Steve Austin over, persuading Rikishi to do his bidding. He seemingly came out to save Austin from a beating by Rikishi and WWF world champion Kurt Angle, only to turn against him.

Triple H had been gaining popularity in recent months, as he was in a hot feud with Angle and his sham marriage to Stephanie McMahon was hanging by a thread. But Triple H is much more effective and watchable when the fans are booing him. His best fights are where he is losing for most of the match, only to eke out a victory by cheating. Any wrestler can play the scumbag, but he does it with style.

Positioning Triple H as the mystery man makes a lot of sense in terms of continuity. He had a lot to gain by shelving Austin, as his rise to the world championship occurred around last year's "Survivor Series," when "Stone Cold" was hit. Triple H is also a manipulative powermonger, so asking someone to run over the WWF's marquee star is not out of line.

Chris Ledermuller

Plus, Vince McMahon probably knew that if he took responsibility as the mystery man, fans would roll their eyes. One more time as Austin's archenemy would have been too trite.

Fortunately, WWF avoided turning Rock. He and Austin are massively popular, and when the two are fighting right now, fans cheer for both. Neither would have made a good heel because of their popularity.

Triple H is thereby the most logical choice, but there is one problem. What happens to his feud with Kurt Angle? The WWF should not drop this feud, as this has been very interesting to watch. Hopefully, the angle with Angle continues along with an Austin feud.
interesting to watch. Hopefully, the angle with Angle continues along with an Austin feud.

WWF versus WWF: No, the federation is not splitting into two factions. In fact, this battle is not even taking place within a ring.

WWF, the wrestling federation, is fighting the WWF, the World Wildlife Fund in a London courtroom, according to Time magazine. The dispute is over Internet names.

The wrestling federation uses wwf.com while the wildlife fund uses wwf.org, two very similar names. The two groups agreed in 1994 to have names that would not sound similar.

This is the peril when two widely recognized groups share the same name, or in this case, initials. But really, most of the public should not be confused.

Any person with rudimentary knowledge of the World Wide Web should know the difference between a dot-com and a dot-org. People should know that the World Wildlife Fund is a nonprofit organization, so the address would most likely be wwf.org. Wrestling fans know the wwf.com address very well, and know that the World Wrestling Federation does not yet operate a charitable foundation.

Search engines like Yahoo and Excite do not easily discern between the federation and the fund, so a user could type in "WWF" and links for both sites would appear.

Also, the two groups are not aiming for each other's markets, so it is not like porn Web sites, which buy up domain names in hopes of unsuspecting users stumbling on their sites by mistyping an address.

If the two groups still cannot settle it, here is a bit of free advice from two California transit agencies. One serves Modesto, the other serves El Segundo. The agencies are hundreds of miles apart, but both are bus systems that use the acronym MAX. In fact, their Web sites are very similar, maxbus.com and maxbus.org. To clear up any confusion, both the El Segundo and Modesto systems provide links to each other's Web sites in case users find the wrong system.

The World Wrestling Federation and World Wildlife Fund should also link to each other's sites in the same manner. Sure beats litigation.

Congressman Bob Backlund?: In 1996 Bob Backlund made a tongue-in-cheek run to be the President of the United States, acting like a total yahoo that year. That was for comic relief.

This year Backlund, a Republican, ran for the House of Representatives in Connecticut against incumbent Democrat John Larson. This time, Backlund was serious.

The most famous professional wrestler in politics is Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. If Backlund won, he would be in a higher but less visible office than Ventura.

The winner of the contest and still Representative of Connecticut's First District, John Larson. CNN.com showed Larson walloping Backlund 70 percent to 30 percent.

After the polls closed, Backlund conceded defeat. He then reached out to shake Larson's hand, only to apply the dreaded cross-face chicken wing on him.

Until next week, fans, keep watching.

Chris Ledermuller is a print journalism major at Cal State Long Beach