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'RAW' Power
By: Kristen Baldwin

Inside Edition recently announced — with shocked bombast — several button-pushing statistics about the World Wrestling Federation: 50 episodes of WWF's RAW Is War on the USA Network featured 42 instances of simulated drug or alcohol use or possession; 1,658 instances of wrestlers grabbing or pointing to their crotches; and each two-hour program averaged only 36 minutes of actual wrestling! To those naysayers at Inside I say, in the words of WWF's D-Generation X posse, SUCK IT!

Sure, the WWF is a ribald, violent, and often stupid freak show, but it's also a mesmerizing blend of high camp and smirky irony. Unlike the dull and overly traditional WCW, the WWF often eschews standard fight play-by-play for feats like the Inferno Match — in which wrestlers grapple in a fire-encircled ring trying to set each other ablaze. My inner Beavis couldn't be happier.

Then there are the weekly mental workouts brought on by wonderfully convoluted story lines: Chyna defects from D-Generation X and joins the Corporation, but her Corporate partner, Kane, blasts her with a fireball intended for D-X star Triple H, so Chyna ambushes Kane and pretends to reunite with D-X, but in fact she's pulled Triple H into the Corporation. Got that? Compare this with the character development on WCW: To make Hollywood Hogan a bad guy, they dyed his beard black.

As for charges the WWF is sexist, well, yes. But at least it's an equal-opportunity objectifier: Its growing group of female wrestlers includes buxom Sable, brawny badass Chyna, and PMS: Pretty Mean Sisters. The most female participation you'll see in WCW — besides arm candy like the Lovely Miss Elizabeth — are the hot pants-sporting dancers ''Nitro Girls.'' Gee, maybe someday they can be promoted to actual cheerleaders.

Don't forget that the WCW stars put the ''old'' in ''old school.'' Its idea of a big match: relic Hogan versus the even more fossilized Ric Flair. I have nothing against America's Geritol Generation — I just don't want to see them shirtless and sweaty and body slamming each other. It's clear that the future of pro wrestling lies in the WWF's sweaty palms. And if you don't agree, well, you know what you can do.

'NITRO' Glistening
By: Mike Flaherty

For all its much-touted envelope pushing, the WWF is hardly edgy in any aesthetic sense. Broad and salacious, it's the mouth-breathing heavy metal to World Championship Wrestling's classic rock. And in this rare instance, the family-friendly franchise isn't a bland, pabulum compromise but a more inspired, nuanced alternative. Forbidden to delve (as per owner Ted Turner) into the hormone-driven excesses of Vince McMahon's fiefdom, WCW has thrown its weight into production values, character definition, and story line, and it shows.

Sure, Ric Flair and Hollywood Hogan seem pretty long in the tooth. But far from being has-beens, the nemeses (Flair as the league's ''on air'' president, Hogan as leader of the insurgent NWO gang) bring a hilarious, seasoned shtick to the proceedings. Twenty-plus years of playing ringmaster have honed their ability to maintain vein-popping intensity while ever-so-subtly winking at the audience.


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