The Third Era

2002-2005 (The Third Era)

 With the USWA and BFCW’s official closure, the HCW and ECW were left standing. HCW continued to struggle with getting broadcasted nationwide but the ECW was about to get a grand makeover. Benny Mouse made his presence felt in the wrestling world for the first time just weeks prior to the USWA’s self-destruction. His ambitious approach to revolutionizing the sport beyond what his brother Mickey and the pioneer Mr, Murrey had already done would become the greatest of all his attributes.

 Just as Benny experienced a bit of early success in obtaining a large portion of the free agent contracts that had resulted from the aforementioned collapse of USWA and BFCW, his newfound position as the default premier promoter would soon meet its first threat: the pioneer of it all, Jeff Murrey.

 Weeks after the ECW’s rise to prominence, Murrey announced the formation of his latest project: the UWA (Undisputed Wrestling Alliance). So the war began…again, and what a battle it turned out to be. The ECW seemed to get a bit of an edge over the UWA at first until Murrey revealed the catch of it all: Mickey and Murrey had forged an Alliance!! Murrey would run the Northern Division of the UWA, while Mickey ran the Southern. The objective was to dominate the wrestling world and give it an appropriate send off.

 Seeing the new challenge at hand, Benny would reorganize and remodel the ECW to prepare it for what was ahead, and thus the UWF (Ultimate Wrestling Federation) was born.

 The UWA Draft: Murrey and Mickey decided to shake things up by scrambling their rosters and dividing them in half. For the weeks leading up to said draft, the anticipation and the enthusiasm grew with each passing day. The result of which led to some pretty amazing trades, but the greatest outcome was that a sensational rookie who’d made an impact in his brief stint in the UWA prior to the draft and who’d been hailed as a prospective star emerged as the most interesting acquisition of the night (by Mickey): Krusader’s younger cousin, Dragonfly (a daredevil figure).

 In the HCW, John Brown introduced some younger talent and began to push and hype them in a manner that would be vindicated later on, among these top performers was the Hulk.

 Southern Division’s Opening Day: With the draft behind Mickey and Murrey, the Mouse brothers started to spar with one another on a regular basis over the internet as the opening day drew nearer. However, Mickey – as a result of these back and forth taunts – opened shop earlier than scheduled on October 29th, 2002. The show itself turned out to be a huge success, that featured Slammu’s return, apology for his actions and appointment of the Southern Division’s Gore Roster (as part of a brand extension conceived by Mickey to further shake things up), the launching of a two month long tournament to crown the first UWA Heavyweight Champion (as part of an agreement between Mickey and Murrey, the south would have the UWA Heavyweight Champion while the North had the UWA World Champion), the return of Rhyno as one of over a dozen Temporarily Contracted Stars from the HCW, and the debut of Kane Two as a permanent contracted star.

 Two nights later, the first ratings battle between Mickey and Benny transpired as UWA’s Friday Night Gore competed against UWF Chaos. Chaos would kick off a winning streak that would span the next month and a half. It was the Monday ratings war that would prove to be the more contentious battle featuring the UWF’s Xplosion squaring off against the UWA’s Monday Massacre. Massacre would take the first victory, thusly tipping off the most heated ratings war ever.

Storyline Notes in 2002

UWF: Among the talent Benny had received were Woody the Second and Metalhead, so the anticipation for a long awaited rematch became unavoidable and inevitable. Instead, the two would initially become a tag team and wouldn’t combat one another as a result. The Rock and RVD paired up and produced a legitimately effective unit that initially dominated the tag division. Undertaker would succeed in becoming the first champion of the promotion, but said reign was short lived. Upon the introduction of the first UWF event in competition with Mickey, Benny would unveil a secret that he and the spouse of a UWA superstar (Saguna) had enjoyed an affair, and thusly produced a child.

UWA: With the scheme devised by Mickey and Murrey now in motion, intra-promotional tension began to rise. Speculation of another collapse started to circulate as Murrey showed his usual knack for reckless management. The Southern Division’s Tournament proved to be a major success with Dragonfly and Rhyno emerging as the finalists, competing at the first PPV: Motivation in late December 2002. Rhyno had become the odds-on favorite to reap the victory due to his emphasis placed on his ascension by UWA writers, but it was all cleverly executed in how things would pan out as Dragonfly, who advanced through the tournament in a series of mid and undercard matches, came out with the victory in what turned out to be one of the best matches in wrestling history. Also, Mickey sought to establish a list of rules to ensure that the anarchy that led to the USWA’s demise would not be relived, among them being a prohibition on the establishment of ANY stables.

 With the return of Blaster, Mickey would seek to create a loophole to that rule. Initially, with the expected tension resuming between Blaster and Mickey, Mickey sustained some brutal injuries after getting hit with a vehicle. Howard Knuckles assumed Mickey’s responsibilities as the boss recovered and Blaster engaged an old foe (Soultaker) in a new feud. Soultaker would recruit a few followers (contrary to the regulations on such activity) and once more target Blaster. It became apparent that this was all a part of a grand scheme conjured up by Mickey to torment Blaster as he justified the exceptional stable by calling it his “Ministry of Enforcement” (Acronym: ME) and even tricking Blaster into signing a binding contract that literally bound the two together until the UWA came to meet its demise. This part of the storyline would also see an interesting development involving Maniac and the introduction of his imaginary friend; “FRED”, who would supposedly instruct Maniac to commit evil acts, including snapping Crash Holly’s left ankle so badly that the bone punctured the skin! Furthermore, two temporarily contracted stars (brothers Brandon Lee and Sean Olson) would take the UWA by storm as they – and their incredible teamwork – would capture the tag gold and dominate the division.

2003:

 UWF: The Woody/Metalhead story culminated with a revisit to their epic encounter at the USWA’s 1998 King of the Ring, Metalhead would come out as the ultimate victor and give the feud a proper ending, while also catapulting himself to an unprecedentedly long World Title reign that spanned (with short intervals) the remainder of UWF’s existence. The Giant Gonzales made his return at the first UWF Massacre Six PPV, giving the UWF monstrous ratings, but as Gonzales’ health deteriorated, his in-ring participation diminished, resulting in a phasing out of his career by year’s end.

 Teo and Attitude became a great tag team, but their team was in trouble from the get go. Teo’s overbearing arrogance played a key role in their eventual split, especially as it conflicted with Attitude’s dedication to success. Throughout the rest of their careers in the UWF, a potential match between the two was often hyped, but never delivered, serving as a true disappointment at the time, but a cliffhanger for the expectations of what would come of it years down the line.

 Benny’s Marriage to Molly would prove to be interesting with a hilarious sequence involving Molly’s water breaking, spilling said liquids all over Benny’s henchmen: the Establishment in addition to Molly’s father experiencing a horrible heart attack. At some point in the year, it was brought to light that Benny had had a relationship with a “woman” named Lilo, who turned out to be a tranny.

 RVD and Scott Steiner would get into a heated feud that would lead to the near ending of both of their careers as a result of a death defying drop for both in a rafter match.

 UWA: Krusader took his younger cousin under his wing to show him the ropes in asserting himself as a force to be reckoned with. With Dragonfly becoming the Heavyweight Champion just the previous December, the crossing of the paths as opponents would soon become inevitable, and so it happened in one of the most anticipated matches ever, at Oblivion in March 2003. Unfortunately, Dragonfly would make the most despicable and heartbreaking heel turn in recent memory, joining Mickey’s ME at the expense of Krusader.

 Jeff Murrey would go on to sell the ND-UWA to Benny Mouse after mediocre success, claiming that his involvement in the industry had run its course. With Benny owning a part of Mickey’s company, the rivalry took a turn for the worse. Mickey would retaliate later in 2003, securing a highly controversial deal with Vinnie Mouse, who ran a developmental subsidiary of the UWF, the NWA, wherein he acquired the contract of HBP for 20 Million Dollars that summer. From there, the war only got more personal.

 Furthermore, Brandon Lee and Sean Olson would part ways for good, sparking yet another deeply heated feud, leading to an epic first ever Aerial Assault Match (wherein the objective is to score a fall following a move from a wide and tall ladder that towered over the crowd), and the M.E. would dominate the ranks. Maniac’s obsession with blaming every fault on his “friend” would eventually become too much for his co-members of the M.E. to tolerate. Mickey would attempt to coerce Maniac to seek help to no avail as Maniac insisted that FRED was real, suddenly a familiar voice that had been heard over the course of several months leading up to this point  saying “You’re all going to die down here” (something that had previously and regularly been dismissed as a technical glitch) sounded as the entire arena went dark and then…with Slipknot’s “My Plague” blaring over the sound system, a monstrous creature would appear (resembling the Hulk, but mutilated) as Maniac yelped: “FRED!!” FRED then unleashed hell on all who stood in his path, and thus the infamous career of F.R.E.D. (representing Fear Real Evil and Dead) was born!

 The very night that FRED debuted, Rhyno would capture the Heavyweight Gold in a jeopardy four man cell match that resulted from Dragonfly sustaining an injury that forced Slammu to step in and capture the gold from two M.E. members who were charged with the duty of ensuring that Dragonfly kept the gold. In due time, FRED would ascend to the top of the ranks and go face to face with Rhyno. Mickey realized the full depth of the threat FRED posed to his power, so he initially attempted to destroy the monster, but eventually he would successfully recruit the beast, at the expense of Maniac and everyone who dared to question Mickey.

 Also, in the summer of 03’, Mickey would reveal the darkest secret he’d ever kept, that he had murdered his father almost a decade ago!! He was subsequently arrested, tried and convicted for said murder, but somehow found a way to weasel himself out of serving any prison time.

 Around the same time that FRED was rising towards the gold, Dragonfly and Krusader resumed their feud and continued such throughout the year, and as FRED encounter Rhyno, who entered their title match at Dead Bodies Everywhere at under 60% health, a plummet to hell (top rope powerslam into a sidewalk slam) through the set would seal the deal, and crown FRED as the champion.

 Sunfire would also make a return to action, bringing with him a clumsy talent agent named Don Sparking. Sparking would often cause Sunfire to sustain many injuries and victories as he attempted on numerous occasions to assist his client. Eventually, Sunfire got fed up with Sparking’s incompetence and hired on a new agent to help him; Catherine. However, a new twist would come with this bright and clever new addition to the UWA; Catherine would – by the end of the year – reveal herself to be the illegitimate daughter of Mickey from a brief sexual affair he had in San Francisco back in the 80s.

 With the events of the year coming to a close, Mickey announced the introduction of a new match, called the Total Anarchy Match, with stipulations combining seven matches into one (Cell, Iron Man, Falls Count Anywhere, Bone Break Rules or Bruised and Bloody [Bone Break is where you merely have to break an opponents ligaments to win and a Bruised and Bloody is where laceration and fractured are required], Barbwire, Fatal Four Way and First Blood; with First earning the first to draw blood two points and bone fracture or blood and fracture resulting in five points and all other falls resulting in single points) at Motivation 2 that would pit Frank Shamrock, Brandon Lee, Soultaker and FRED against one another. FRED would barely survive.

 That night, Agramon would make his identity known, transitioning from his cover alias = Kane Two after betraying Hulk Hogan as a tag partner and winning a tournament to become the first ever Immunity Champion (a championship fought under No DQ rules, and cloaking the possessor thereof with immunity from any form of reprimand whatsoever).

 Closing joint-promotional ceremonies included the first WOW Award Show that featured a challenge from Dragonfly to Metalhead and a variety of additional interesting developments; including Jeff Murrey’s announcement of a return to promoting with a company called the Last Wrestling Federation, a joint Monday Show and a Joint PPV called “the Epicenter of Mayhem”. At the conclusion of the latter, Mickey would piss on Benny’s ring and the two monsters from opposing sides (FRED of the UWA and Armageddon of the UWF) would engage in a staredown.

2004:

 Without a doubt the most tumultuous of any year in wrestling up to that date, the LWF would prove true to Murrey’s word as a tremendous success, dominating Monday Ratings wars for 9 consecutive weeks against Massacre (being that Benny had briefly abandoned Mondays to focus on Fridays the previous year) and won well over 50% of their remaining head-to-head confrontations with both the UWA and UWF on Mondays. His attempts at dominating Fridays would be futile as he eventually abandoned that idea. The LWF’s crazy style and unstable management (throughout its short tenure, it had roughly 5-7 different owners) would contribute to its eventual plight. Murrey would jump ship to the UWA, leaving his promotion to Eric Bischoff, who ran it into the ground.

 During this time, the LWF gave rise to a number of key superstars of the current era; Sean Olson (making him the ONLY superstar to be employed by three different promotions at once; HCW, UWA and LWF), Christian (who would become LWF Champion and jump ship to the UWA, create the Peep Show = a show designed to torment guests for up to two minutes to test their “potential”), Stamboli (a man initially hailed as the next big thing by Murrey, but later derided for his failure to quickly rise through the ranks as Murrey wanted. This Hatred would spill over into the UWA when both would end up working with each other again. Murrey eventually took over for Mickey, who was on hiatus as a result of a life threatening injury, and would capitalize on that opportunity to torment Stamboli, forcing him into pseudo-slavery) and Mr. Perfect (who pioneered the double axe handle as a finisher and conned his way into capturing the LWF European Championship, jumped ship with said title, renamed it the Perfect Championship and continued to con his way to success). The instability and collapse could be somewhat attributed to Murrey and Bischoff’s collective failure to achieve a PPV victory over the juggernaut that Mickey once was (always highly revered for the outstanding delivery of every PPV, and always on top when the month in buy rates would come in).

 UWF: Metalhead’s dominant reign would run into its most obstacles during this year, when a certain turn of events with send the world title scene into an uproar and subsequent tournament. The end result being Attitude’s acquisition of the gold, much to the dismay of Benny. This only added to the expectation of an encounter between Teo and Attitude, but, by year’s end; the fans would receive no such encounter and Metalhead would reclaim his prize. The entirety of the year for the promotion was a rocky one, experiencing a litany of legal issues, among others; Benny oversaw a company on the verge of collapse. The NWA closed shop, after only having one really intriguing storyline pitting the incompetent Duct Tape Men against the Masked Phenom, and by year’s end, Benny would announce the demise of the UWF, followed by a promise to return, but as the ND-UWA he had purchased from Murrey almost two years prior.

UWA: Surviving what at one point could have easily turned into another promotional civil war (involving an organized unit who called themselves the Protesters, as they rebelled against the lack of a pay check for an extensive period of time, that would disintegrate by the Spring of 2004), and enjoying monumental success with the Second Oblivion which featured high profile matches including: a Buried Alive Match with Agramon and Soultaker, a match between Blaster and Steve Austin, a submission match between Dragonfly and Krusader (after which, Dragonfly’s resentment of Krusader’s victory led him to put Krusader out of commission) and a Heavyweight Title encounter pitting Maniac against FRED, wherein Maniac won after unveiling to FRED that he (Maniac) was his father.

 As the competition dwindled, the UWA picked up the pace, as usual. In an unexpected turn of events, Bugs Bunny the Second, an adopted son of Mickey S.R.’s would shine light upon a little overlooked fact about the missing will: he was in it, and now Mickey owed him half of what was his. This infuriated Mickey, who’d already given a quarter of his promotion to his daughter, thusly resulting in him only owning as much as his daughter. Catherine would capitalize on this as on opportunity to expand the involvement and influence of women in the industry, and though attained by questionable means, she would eventually succeed in giving rise to the first and only woman to ever hold a World Championship; Amazon!!

 Following a competitive feud with the Arabian Knight (protégé of Egyptian Batman), Dragonfly would reclaim his position at the top of the ranks and thusly the Championship itself. Catherine would unveil to her father that she was pregnant with Blaster’s child, prompting a near stroke for Mickey.

 With a vicious encounter between Metalhead and Dragonfly at the next award show bringing the year to a close, the last full year of professional wrestling had drawn to a close.

2005:

 Benny would never follow through with his promise to re-launch at all, and Murrey would depart from the UWA to run a joint venture with Mickey called the WWO (World Wrestling Organization), holding only two events and crowning one champion; Ted Dibiase.

 A scandal broken by the LWF/WWO’s Junior Bunny, involving drugs, illicit sex and money laundering would bring the UWA down to its knees as it involved Mickey Mouse Junior. It had only done so because as Bugs the Second terminated Mickey, he violated the Binding Contract between Blaster and Mickey and therefore purged himself. The UWA decided to hold one last, two-night spectacle christened the Third Oblivion that crowned the Crock as the last World Champion after an eight man Total Anarchy Match, six voting rounds that nominated six combatants and two battle royals the previous night that qualified the remaining two.

Footnotes on Individual Stories:

 The Love Triangle: Following his split with Molly, Saguna teamed up with the Big Show to form Little Man & Big Man. The team enjoyed some decent success, but the real kicker was what involved Lady Love, Saguna’s secret lover. As time went by, Big Show, who initially acted disgusted toward the relationship, displayed his own affection for Love. Just like that, an explosion of interest in Lady Love ensued with a whole list of superstars gunning for her, even sucking the otherwise professional UWF Broadcaster Kevin Kelly into her seductive spell. Ultimately, after winning out over everyone, Big Show would annihilate Love on their “wedding day”. Saguna no longer vied for Lady Love in part because of his defection to the UWF to feud with Benny.

 The Crock Show: In the winter of 2003, the Crock made his return to the UWA (after having been under contract to the UWF following Benny’s acquisition of the ND-UWA), and immediately hit the ground running as a hit yet again. His greatest accomplishment was the introduction of the now beloved “Crock Show”, which aired Monday nights on Monday Massacre and featured one special guest following a monologue. At Motivation 2, Crock launched his new endeavor with a contest to find a sidekick for the show, the winner of which was Mr. Moody. Throughout its successful original run (involving roughly 30 episodes), Crock often targeted specific co-workers, provoking them to retaliate. In one such case, at the Second Oblivion, Crock combated Brock Lesnar in a match wherein the stipulation was that the loser would have to succumb to the will of the winner for a month, following rumors that Crock had circulated about Brock Lesnar and a purported gay porn career he had partook in prior to wrestling. Another favorite target of the Crock was Mickey, whom he often spread rumors about (as well as the entire Mouse Family) in a segment of the monologue called “Mickey’s Family Secrets”, this even resulted in a brief reduction and temporary suspension of the Crock Show in the summer of 2004. Crock would regularly belittle his sidekick for being a “gimp” and a crazy war veteran, which were the primary reasons Crock chose him in the first place. Overall, Moody was actually the brains of the bunch.