Today is December 3, 1999, and I am The Gravedigger. What is up my loyal fans? Make sure to check out the Gravedigger's Final Word. I have done my official rankings of 1999. The first list is the top 50 wrestlers. I know alot of you will disagree, but that is the good part about it. Tell me what is wrong and who you think should be ranked and in what order. Enjoy the news also.

: Look for the Mean Street Posse to break away from The Bulldog and possibly capture the tag team titles. They would fight in a variety of ways where any two of the group can defend the titles. Sort of like the Outsiders used to do with Syxx.

After feuding with Kane, look for X-pac to feud with Jericho over the IC title. I say over the IC title because by that time he will win the title from Chyna.

For those of you who saw Smackdown, they showed the segment where Austin got run over and confirmed that he was getting neck surgery to relieve the nerves on his spinal cord. They did not say this, but it is suspected that this is career-threatening, so let's all hope for the best.

The word backstage is that Vince Macmahon is very happy with the wedding angle. This not only attracts viewers, but also makes HHH even more hated that he was. The only part that he was not aniticipating was the reaction to Stephanie Macmahon on Smackdown. If you saw it, they were booing Stephanie and chanting "slut" all across the arena.

The Special New Years WWF Event is suppposed to be huge. They are bringing in musical guests by the name of Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, Korn, and more. Also, many Hollywood stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger are expected. Expect it to be promoted heavily in the upcoming weeks.

The WWF is finally ready to put The Rock back into the main event scene for more than a one-night deal. Right now, plans are sketchy as to how they will bring The Rock back into the main event. All voices agree The Rock could be back into the main event scene with one interview, but all voices agree they should do it the right way, and not rush it. Many feel that WCW lost control of the ratings by rushing to many angles. As of late the WWF has been horror backstage. Everyone is stressed out over losing business, more now than ever, and everything is tense. Many are having a hard time keeping a level head, including those involved with the booking. WWF Office is said to be talking more about World Championship Wrestling’s story lines than they are there own. It’s becoming a priority for most to stay on the ball and always look for things to pick up on. The paragraph above shows an example of the WWF staying on task, and one of the reasons why it will take WCW longer to over take the WWF.

Wade Keller is reporting that on Saturday afternoon in Sacremento, CA Paul Wight injured himself at a house show. Wight main evented the event, defending his WWF World Title against the Bossman. During the match, the Bossman threw the Big Show into the steel steps hard and the Wight began to bleed profusely. On RAW and at the Smackdown Tapings, Wight was wrapped up, because he may have some bone chips

Matches for the 12/12 Armageddon PPV are as follows: a Tag Team Battle Royal, Chyna vs. Jericho for the IC title, Hollys vs. Viscera & Rakishi, Ivory vs. Barbara Bush (real name Kathy Dingman) in an evening gown match, Venis vs. Bulldog and Angle vs. Blackman. Big Boss Man vs. Big Show. The Rock & Mankind vs. New Age Outlaws.

Ken Shamrock will be cleared to return in mid-December, probably shortly after the Armageddon PPV. His injury was diagnosed as a soft tissue sprain of the cervical spine. The diagnosis is that there is a better chance than usual that down the road, due to all his injuries dating back to a neck fusion from a broken neck suffered in high school, that he will suffer neck problems. There is no word one way or the other whether he'll be able to return to fighting.

The WWF the Music Volume Four actually fell in this week's Billboard charts to No. 28 scanning 67,188 units. WCW Mayhem opened at No. 40 with 49,235 units scanned. There are problems with wrestling fans with both CD's. The WCW CD has a lot of music that wrestling fans don't care about, as Tommy Boy filled it with non-wrestling related music. The WWF CD is considered weaker than Volume Three because Volume Three consisted of songs that had a lot of television air play as entrance music before it was released where Volume Four has a lot of new music with little air play thus far.

The 11/19 "Nash Bridges" with Steve Austin finished with an 8.3 rating making it No. 50 out of about 130 prime time shows. For reasons we're not clear of, WWF didn't promote this on its television at all, and the result was that Austin meant nothing to the ratings (the first episode he did last year finished in the top 30 which was the highest finish the show has ever done in the Neilsen ratings). It's pretty clear Austin as a major ratings draw for that show was a one-time novelty. The show finished No. 55 the previous week. Austin is scheduled to film a second episode this season in January. The 11/20 "Walker: Texas Ranger" which featured Frank Shamrock and Randy Savage in guest roles did an 8.4 rating, finishing at No. 49. That was a small jump from No. 59 the previous week.

Fitness model Trish Stratus, who was backstage at the Mayhem PPV has been signed to a three-year developmental deal with the idea that she'd be an in-ring wrestler with the proviso that no nudity is involved. Stratus has been training for about six weeks in Toronto with Ron Hutchison but has been interested in doing wrestling for a lot longer than that.

The UPN special on 11/30 was originally to be hosted by Foley & Miss Kitty, but UPN officials, after seeing the byplay on the Las Vegas sketch with Foley and Snow, asked for Snow to be involved.

The WWF Theme Restaurant at Times Square is now scheduled to open on 1/19, so they didn't make their Christmas or New Years Eve hoped for opening date. WWF is planning on opening two more theme restaurants, one in Miami and the other in Las Vegas.

Adam Copeland will be doing a movie "Highlander" filmed on location in Romania from 12/1 to 12/8 so he'll be off the house shows this week including MSG 12/4 which is already sold out.

On the Billboard sports video charts, the Rock's video remains No. 1 followed by the latest Austin release and Best of Raw Volume 1. Major League Baseball's All Century team moved up to No. 4, followed by two more Austin videos at No. 5 and No. 6. WWF has eight of the top ten and 14 of the top 20. No WCW videos are in the top 20 but Wrestling with Shadows remains in the listings for the 21st straight week at No. 16.

According to WWF Sr. Vice President Jim Byrne, Walmart is the only chain that has pulled the Al Snow dolls from its shelves and that reports that have been circulating here and elsewhere regarding Target, Toys R Us and K-Mart also pulling the dolls are incorrect. In an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story on 11/30, it still listed all four chains as having pulled the figure. KRON-TV in San Francisco in doing a story on 11/30, went to Toys R Us specifically requesting the Snow doll and was told that it had been pulled from the shelves.

Inside Edition on 11/30 did a feature on the Stephanie wedding as if the entire thing was a shoot.

From sources who were right there and not affiliated with either person or either company, the entire D-Lo Brown, Mike Graham deal was blown out of proportion, but despite other reports that nothing happened, that wouldn't be true either although the reports were that nothing happened that should have even been reported as anything newsworthy. The two were talking, and Brown made a joke saying something like "you old guys will do anything for a paycheck," (he was joking around with others that night as well) but it was clearly not meant seriously. Graham didn't take it as a joke and came back with a line to the effect of having wrestled for 25 years and never crippled anyone which is of course a sensitive topic because of the incident with Darren Drozdov. Arn Anderson pulled Graham away and talked with him, and Graham came back and the two shook hands and from that point on acted like nothing that happened. This entire situation was said to have taken five minutes tops. Scott Hall's involvement in said situation was said to be limited to being there and staggering around looking for people to go with him to a local strip club. News from The Wrestling Observer Newsletter

News on WCW Scrapping the TV Title: Posted by Xing Wang on 12/01/99: Over the past month or so you all have heard numerous stories about how Vince Russo, Ed Ferrara, Bill Banks, and the rest of WCW's booking squad have helped to change the organization. Not only have they brought the ratings up, but the morale and angles are rising to the delight of the fans. One more notable change was made last night live on Monday Nitro. Through the skit of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash discussing how Hall held both the US and TV titles, the booking team eliminated a belt from the roster of World Championship Wrestling. This title being the Television Championship. For those of you who did not see the show, Hall and Nash proceded to play a short game of basketball with the belt as Nash dunked it into a trash can as he called it "garbage". The WWF did also recently retire the European Championship, however after an absense of only a few months, they brought it back. We shall see if the same applies for WCW.

Matches for WCW Monday Nitro, More on DDP to WWF + More Advertisers Call a Quits on WWF *Nitro Matches Announced for 12/06

- World Heavyweight Title Match Bret Hart vs. Lex Luger

- Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Nash

- Vampiro & Jerry Only vs. Dr Death & Oklahoma

- Dustin Rhodes vs. Meng

- Mona vs. Madusa vs. Evan Karagias The woman that gets the win gets the Cruiserweight Tile shot at Starrcade. If Evan wins, no title match on the PPV.

*Keller said there has been a lot of talk that Diamond Dallas Page is trying to get his release from WCW so he can go to the WWF. Keller said that Page may want to bring Eric Bischoff with him. He said most of the people in WCW who have heard the rumor think it is a publicity stunt by Page and that he's not serious.

*Dave Meltzer reported that Wendys, Ford and the Coast Guard have also pulled their advertising from WWF Smackdown as the list continues to grow of advertisers quitting the show. This thing is snowballing from something that didn't appear to be that big of a deal into a very big deal. The WWF needs the sponsors to hold on to that space on UPN. This is getting very ugly very quickly.

Shawn Michaels, Glen Kluka, Taka, Recklas Youth, Hak Myers, Too Cold Scorpio, Dusty Rhoads, and Terry Funk.