by Moses Gates  
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

Sorry folks, but I'm going to have to change the format this time around. No time to talk  about Spike's new shirt, Hurricane's new hair, Albert's shaved back, Angle's Angina  PSA, or the various announcers' new fashion senses (have you taken a look at Cole's  sweaters? Hideous). Because we have hit the Trifecta here at the Little Things, and  that's all I want to talk about. The Trifecta is, of course:

A whole new look for one show, including a new set, new music, new opening video  montage, new pre-match promo graphics, new everything. Damn.

A new WWF CD and the entrance music on the show that goes with it.

A new WWF Title Belt! This is one I'm most exited about personally.

Sorry for taking so long since the last column (especially since I talked poop about others  who haven't written in a while), but I wanted to have plenty of time to let the new stuff  sink in. Three weeks worth should be enough.

Before I get to that though, there are of course corrections from last week. Actually, I  didn't screw anything up real bad except for using the word "dearth" to mean "a lot of"  instead of "a lack of." Pretty bone-headed for an edumacated college grad like myself. 

Five other small things: Hogan apparently does not come out to "Voodoo Chile," he  comes out to a different Hendrix song called "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." As I said  last column, it's been a while since I've smoked pot in a dorm room. 

After further inspection, it appears that the screen behind the ramp plays either a standard  graphic or an abridged version of the wrestler's entrance video. I got fooled because in a  lot of cases the beginning of the full entrance video and the beginning of the abridged  entrance video are the same. I still don't understand why they just don't show the  regular entrance video on that screen. 

Austin's skull ring was for sale on ShopZone a few years back and was worn by Austin  before he married Debra. So it's not his wedding ring. Good for Austin. 

The patch on Hall's chest from about a month back couldn't have been Antabuse, as the  dosage for Antabuse is too large to be administered by the patch. Don't blame me for  these last two, as they were just some speculative theories by people I don't know. Like  any responsible Internet wrestling writer, I of course put them in my column. 

Lastly, Scotty II Hotty's music has apparently always has little quotes spliced into it.  I've got to say, the hardest part of writing this column is trying to remember if you've  seen or heard something before. The one I'm not sure about currently is the "breaking  glass" effect they have on the graphic showing the entrance video of the wrestler when  they come out (lower left hand corner of the screen). I think it's only been going on for  a month or so, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, back to the Trifecta. Let's get the bad out of the way first – the tweaked  entrance themes. I've got to give a big "Hate It" to pretty much every one. I might add  I didn't buy the new album, so I'm only going by the stuff I hear when the "Forcible  Entry" graphic shows up on the TV screen (love the graphic) - which in many cases, is  pretty much the only clue that what I'm listening to is a new entrance theme. I mean,  most of them sound the damn same as the previous theme except for an extra guitar lick  or something. And jeez, who thought it was a good idea to invite Journey out of  retirement to rework Kane's theme? 

Now the "Forcible Entry" album, and the songs on it, might be great – as an album and as  songs. But that's for Rolling Stone to review. As entrance music they're pretty un- noteworthy at best. Although some of the new videos that go with them are great. Yes,  I'm thinking of Stacy Kiebler's. Aren't you? Also Molly Holly's. Got to give a big  "Love it" to Molly's new look (and character) by the way. But come on woman, don't  hide that booty like you're doing now. Show that bad boy off like it should be shown!  Those jeans you wore on Fear Factor would do the trick nicely.

On to #2, the rework of RAW. Overall, I've got to say "Love it" (if for no other reason  than that the old look was getting pretty stale), but I've also got to break it down a bit  more. 

First, the opening montage & music. Love it. You can (kind of) understand the words  now, and new clips are always fun to try and keep track of.

Second, the new Pyro. Love it. I've always liked fire-based pyros better than sparkly- based pyros - Booker T's pyro is my favorite - so I'm digging the new one. Plus, now  it's not the EXACT same as the Dudleys' pyro.

New promo graphics. Torn. Pretty cool, but a little too Buck Rogers for me. It fits  right in with "Planet Stasiak" though. Love the hair by the way. 

And finally, the new set. Torn. The big new thing is, of course, the parallelogram- shaped TitanTron (it took me 10 minutes of thinking back to 9th-grade geometry to come  up with that name just now). That I'm digging. But again, the whole "futuristic" motif  that the rest of the set seems to be based on is a little too much for me. Still, an  improvement on the last set if you ask me.

Now, on to the new belt. Love it. As you'll recall, the first "Little Things" column was  about the two championship belts and speculation on their future. Now we have an  answer to the "what's going to happen with the two belts" question. I'm personally glad  that they combined them into one belt. If you're going to go with the "multiple belts"  thing, you need to go Puroresu or Boxing style, and have the top guy hold, like, 27  different belts at a time (or at least 3). Having two is just the worst of both worlds. It  devalues each individual belt, because one belt is no longer the symbol of the absolute  culmination of the top of the profession, but it isn't enough belts to get make the top guy  seem more kick-ass than if he just had one belt. Now Keiji Mutoh (or a super- bantamweight boxing champ) who's got eight belts wrapped around him, now that says  "I'm the Man." The only positive I can think of for the two belts is that it sometimes lets  a wrestler strike a more symmetrical entrance or turnbuckle pose. 

As for the belt itself, the WWF did a great job keeping the best parts of both belts, and  also adding some new cool stuff. The best decision, of course, was to keep the  nameplate. This was the coolest thing about the old WCW belt. My only complaint is  that I liked the gold engraved plate on the old belt more than the black-on-gold plate on  the new belt. On the plus side, it is a lot easier to see what it says. 

While we're on the topic, I'm pretty sure HHH's plate on the old WCW belt said "HHH"  when he first won it. Sometime between now and then, it got changed to "Triple H." I  don't get it. Triple H is not the character's name. His name is Hunter Hearst Helmsley.  Since that name is somewhat sissified for his current character, he goes by the initials  H.H.H. That gets pronounced as "Triple H." But that's just a pronunciation. It's like  writing "Triple A" when referring to the American Automobile Association, or even like  writing "JayAre" when you're referring to Jim Ross. Although, after a quick jump over  to WWF, it looks like the WWF hasn't really made up its mind on how to write it. It's  "HHH" sometimes and "Triple H" others. Regardless, I'd put "Hunter Hearst Helmsley"  on the belt, or maybe just "Helmsley" if that's too long. 

Next, the color. Love it. Good choice in going with the Black and Gold exclusively. I  always hated the blue in the old WWF belt. Colors are for the Boxing belts and the Euro  belt. The championship belt should strictly have gold, black, silver, and various other  sparkly colors. While the heavy amounts of black make it look pretty dark, I actually  kind of like that. Although maybe it's just because it fits HHH's character so well, the  same way the late-eighties WCW belt fit Ric Flair's character so well.

The shape. Torn. Better than the shape of the old WWF belt – I always thought a  perfect circle looked kind of weird - but not a good as the shape of the old WCW belt. I  dig the weird shape of the side plates also.

The design. Love it. I dug the eagle with the "WWF" logo above it on the old WWF  belt, and they kept that. In fact, they kept a lot of the design of the old WWF. Also, this  belt (like the old WCW belt) looks like it has some "depth" to it. The old WWF belt  looked totally flat, almost like a picture had been drawn on a leather strap.

My only real complaint is that the announcers have been referring to it as "15 pounds of  gold." That's kind of light. Wasn't the old WCW title "33 pounds of gold?" Or am I  getting that mixed up with the Rock's "33 pound head" crack he made a couple years  ago? 

Well, it will be back to normal next column (barring any unforeseen additional drastic  production changes) for the Little Things. Until then, keep mourning the demise of  Ivory's "rear window" pants.

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