The 40th UFWL draft pick: Hulk Hogan

The 40th UFWL draft pick and final member of our inaugural World Title division is none other than Hulk Hogan. We went round and round on this one, since Hogan has been a part of every major wrestling promotion that we can think of, but in the end his icon status made him a must have for our fantasy promotion.

We want the Hogan of the 1980's. While we firmly believe that reality based wrestling has a place, we also strongly feel that pro wrestling can be over the top and no one was more over the top than the 80's version of the Hulkster.

We want to book Hogan into a long program with Ric Flair since we feel both the WWE and WCW failed to take clear advantage of the match up most of us old school fans waited an entire decade for. Sure they had some matched but never a really long, intense feud and that is ultimately why we drafted not only Hogan but Flair as well.

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The 39th UFWL Draft Pick: Jake "the snake" Roberts

The 39th UFWL draft pick is none other than the master of promo and in ring psychology Jake "the snake" Roberts. Jake is best known for his 1980's run with the old WWF, and the inventor of the DDT. Without a doubt he is one of the best mid card wrestlers ever, and by now way is that a knock on what this guy could do in the ring or on a mike.

We drafted into the UFWL to do a lot of cool things with him. The first angle we plan to use him in is to reignite his brief WCW feud with Sting. For all of us old school wrestling fans we never thought that feud played out right, and that match at 1992 Halloween Havoc was not a great way for a feud between two great grapplers to end.

Of course Jake, like many others in his profession, often let his personal demons get the better of him. Our creative team decided that by drafting the Jake of the 1980's we hope to book him into major angles not only with Sting, but eventually we see him seeking some revenge on one Stone Cold Steve Austin. Since it was Jake that gave Austin that match at the 1996 King of the Ring that really made the career of Stone Cold.

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The 38th UFWL draft pick: Ric Flair

The 38th UFWL draft pick is Nature Boy Rick Flair. Our executive committee actually debated this one for a long, long time. There is no doubt that Rick Flair is a wrestling legend, but every other wrestling promotion in history seems to have had Flair on the roster. That made us take pause before ultimately deciding to bring Flair in.

We plan to sue Flair in a way that both WWF and WCW really failed to use him. As a heel to the other most popular wrestling Icon of the 1980's, and in a long term program. We are not drafting the Ric Flair from the 1990's WCW, or the recent TNA version. Nope, we want the Ric Flair of the 1980's when he was the NWA Champion.

We have one angle in mind for Flair, and that will be instantly known (if it is not already) when we announce the 10th and final member of our inaugural World Title division. Ric Flair was and always will be a main eventer and we sincerly hope he brings that reputation to the UFWL.

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The 37th UFWL Draft Pick: Shelton Benjamin

The WWE's decision to release Shelton Benjamin is the UFWL's gain as we make him our 37th draft pick. No member of the current generation of professional wrestlers has the moves and excitement of Shelton. He was great as a tag team wrestler, and the WWE never really gave him the chance to be anything more than a mid card champion.

Sure he had big runs with the WWE US title, and again with the IC belt, and again in ECW but he was never given the chance to shine and we here at the UFWL plan to give him a big chance to prove that he can be the man.

We expect Benjamin to be a force in our North American division and engage in meaningful feuds with our other super stars.

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The 36th UFWL draft pick: Kane

The 36th UFWL draft pick is the masked version of Kane. It is our opinion that the WWE made a huge mistake taking the mask of Kane and letting him speak. While we understand characters have to evolve, we want to bring in Kane more closely following his original story line. That means a masked Kane who rarely speaks, but kicks ass in the ring.

We think Kane is well deserving on main event status, and we expect him to bring another dimension to our World Title division. We don't expect to have him feud with his brother the Undertaker but anything could happen. Really we would like to see Kane enter into a fresh feud that wrestling fans have not seen before.

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The 35th UFWL draft pick: William Regal

The 35th UFWL draft pick is none other that William Regal. Sure Regal has never really burned up the card, and his life has been hampered by his personal demons, but a lot of us here at the UFWL always were entertained by him. On top of that he is one of those guys who can have a great match with anyone on the card.

We bring him to the UFWL to revive his blue blood gimmick that was so very entertaining back in the days of the old WCW under his WCW name Lord Steven Regal. He was a pompous ass, who often had that stereotypical WWE English "something smells" look on his face and he really was the best at it.

However make no mistake about it we brought Regal to the UFWL for what he can do in the ring. He has it all from bell to bell and he has a great flair for the comedic (as evident with his run with Tajiri in the WWE). Regal is one of the hardest workers, and he should do nothing but elevate the competition in the UFWL.

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The 34th UFWL Draft Pick: Triple H

The 34th UFWL draft pick is Triple H. Our Board of Governors debated this one for a long time, as like every other member of the Kliq Triple H has maneuvered himself into a position of power within the WWE power structure. UFWL Commish Ted Dibase disproved that argument very effectively by saying Trips will not be married to any family of a UFWL official.

There is nothing that can take away from what Triple H can do bell to bell between the ropes, and ultimately that is what made this decision easy. Triple H can bring it, and we expect him to do so in our World's Title division.

Again we have to dispel a lot of the damaging rumors created by a former UFWL employee. The UFWL will not be reforming Degeneration X, even though many of the participants in DX will be members of our roster. Currently there are no plans for any UFWL factions but of course that could change.

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The 33rd UFWL Draft Pick: Scott Hall

The 33rd UFWL draft pick is none other than Scott Hall. The Board of Governors wants to clear up something now, our former Head of Talent Relations was all set to make the UFWL a gang war zone, and we will not be reuniting the nWo. Even though many former nWo members will be on our roster.

We liked Hall more in his old Razor Ramon gimmick back at in the old WWF. He can have a great match with anyone and his Ladder Match with Shawn Michaels made him a star and may still be one of the best matches ever.

Scott's personal problems never allowed him to rise above mid car status, but he did have an excellent run in the WCW as a tag team guy. We want to return him to being a singles wrestler and plan to place him in the North American division.

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The 32nd UFWL Draft Pick: The Ultimate Warrior

The 32nd UFWL Draft pick is none other that the Ultimate Warrior. The UFWL Board of Governors debated this one for a long time, and he may be the only wrestle we draft that is severely lacking in actual wrestling skill. However his character was large enough for us to go ahead and bring him in.

Given the fact that he beat Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 6 we feel confident that we can place the Warrior in our main event, World Title division, but we will have to pair him with guys who can get the most out of him.

Thankfully this is fantasy wrestling so we will not have to deal with the personality of the man behind the Warrior. Hulk Hogan told us that he took direction well in their buildup to Six and we are hoping our roster can get teh best out of him in the ring.

Of course this creates a unique challenge for our creative department, as they will have to do a lot of extra stuff with him, as we can not always depend on him to give it to our fans bell to bell. The first idea that we had was to put him into a feud with the Undertaker.

This is a booking designed from a long ago angle in the WWF where 'Taker assaulted Warrior and locked him in a coffin. Warrior never got his revenge on 'Taker and we think that The Undertaker can help guide Warrior through a successful program.

We are not going to lie, this is a huge gamble but we hope there are enough wrestling fans out there that remember the impact Warrior made on his initial WWF debut.

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The 31st UFWL Draft Pick: Madusa

Madusa is almost the perfect UFWL draft pick. She quit the business because the WWE was turning women's wrestling into just bar and panties matches and that is a sentiment we share here at teh UFWL. We wanted a women's division chopped full of women who were not only attractive, but could handle themselves in the ring.

Madusa, or her less famous Alundra Blaze WWF moniker, fits the bill on every level. She is attractive, she can wrestle, and we love her in her monster truck. Madusa is exactly the kind of talent we need to round out our women's division.

It's kind of hard to determine where she might fit, since two major wrestling promotions have failed to adequate story line for her, but we see here as a heel. We see her as an arrogant heel that should do well with our top baby face women.

Of course should she win the UFWL championship we will have her pay a bond to have our belt since we don't want to see anyone throw it in the garbage on national TV.

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The 30th UFWL draft pick: Harlem Heat

The 30th UFWL Draft pick is none other than the tag team of Harlem Heat. Booker T and Stevie Ray who were the ten time WCW tag champions. One of the best tag teams ever, and certainly one of the better tag teams to ever compete in WCW.

Of course Booker would go on to singles success with the WWF/WWE starting as a member of the invading alliance, but Stevie Ray was out of wrestling after losing a retirement match to Scott Steiner in 2000.

Since we drafted a few tag tams that had guys who could also compete in our singles divisions, we really wanted to draft the last team who was more of a cohesive unit. Even though Booker would go on to achieve a lot on his own, Harlem Heat were far better together than they were apart. We look for them to be a force in our tag team division.

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The 29th UFWL Draft Pick: Kurt Angel

No UFWL draft pick was debated more by the Board than the 29th draft pick, one Kurt Angle. Most of our staff were not big fans of Mr. Angle in the WWE, or his current run in TNA. However, our Commish Ted Dibase made a convincing case that Angle would be a perfect UFWL heel, and that he could offer our fans match ups they had yet to see.

The plan right now is to book him into a feud with Bret Hart, as both wrestlers have a similar style and since this promotion will begin life as a Mid West territorial promotion having a strong USA versus Canada feud may be a way to attract a lot of fans.

Of course we might also have him face Edge, and continue a storyline from the WWE with Angel being upset at the You Suck chants that Edge created, and that plagued Angel during his final years with the WWE.

Without a doubt Angles is a very talented wrestler, and a perfect heel. We look for him to bring a little something to our World Title division and feud with our top stars.

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The 28th UFWL Draft Pick: Big Van Vader

Its Vader time in the UFWL, but we hope Leon White leaves that ridiculous Darth Vader like black helmet at home. In fact we had to write that into his contract. No stupid Star Wars inspired helmets. Alas a final homage to teh Shock Master who made the worst wrestling debut ever.

Anyway back to the man they call Vader. Never have we seen a big man be able to pull off the kind of aerial maneuvers hat Vader could. He was a mad man, and we think he will add a certain level of excitement to our Super heavyweight division.

In part we drafted Vader because he is a big man on our roster who can really more and wrestle. We tried to stay away from one dimensional guys because they put on boring matches. We see Vader being able to have a great match with any of the people on our roster.

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The 27th UFWL Draft Pick: Dean Malenko

The 26th UFWL draft pick is the man of a thousand holds, one Dean Malenko. I am not talking about the WWE version of Dean, since that promotion never really figured out how to use him. I am talking about the Dean Malenko from the old WCW, the Ice man, one of the best all time members of the Four Horsemen.

We want Dean to come in and help sell our cruiserweight division. He may have been labeled a mid carder is his real career but we think he can be an effective part of our promotion. The key will be for our creative team to craft storylines for all of our wrestlers. Yes we call them wrestlers because that is what they are going to do wrestle. By wrestling they will entertain, but wrestling is what this promotion is all about.

So we get Dean to compete in our cruiserweight division and we hope we can build a better light heavy weight division that what was featured in the old WCW.

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The 26th UFWL Draft Pick: Natayla Neidhart

Young Natalya Neidhart seems to have it all. She is hot, has a ton of wrestling skill, and of course was trained in the infamous Stu Hart Dungeon. In essence she is the perfect fit for the UFWL Women's division.

Natalya is a third generation grappler, and the daughter of Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, and Grand Daughter of Stu Hart the Canadian Wrestling Legend. She is also Bret Hart’s niece, but that is not why we drafted her.

The UFWL wanted hot women grapplers who could actually wrestle. For us the women on our roster are not window dressing. We have teh UFWL Dolls for that, our lady grapplers will not be forced into ridiculous matches or storylines, and will not have their time wasted being Divas.

No we have a strong roster of women wrestlers and they will get this own storylines, feuds, and best of all real wrestling matches. Now evening gown or panty matches for us. We think Natalya will be a perfect fit with the other women on our roster and we look forward to actually seeing her wrestle.

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The 25th UFWL Draft Pick: Kevin Nash

Ted Dibase, the UFWL commish, has decided that the drafting of Andre the Giant was not a respectable act and he is replacing Andre on the roster with one Kevin Nash. We are not talking about the broken down NWO failure of a booker WCW Kevin Nash, but the Kevin Nash for his glory days as Diesel and the second part of the outsiders.

We are drafting Kevin Nash from his prime, not the broken down, injury prone guy who came back to the WWE with the lamest version of the NWO to date in 2002. We expect Kevin to be a force in our Super Heavyweight division. He will not be involved in the booking, and in fact he is not even allowed in or near our offices.

It is not that we dislike Kevin, but we need to keep his ego in check and insure that he gains no political power within our promotion. I mean this is the guy who ran WCW out of business, that might not be fair but he was the worst booker ever.

In fact we could argue that most of his career was about gaining political power, even way back to his days as Diesel. He was a member of the Clique, and we will not have that kind of maneuvering behind the scenes here.

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The 24th UFWL draft pick: The Hardy Boys

The Hardy Boys may be villainous characters in the heel stable of Immortal in TNA right now, but in the fantasy world we are going to draft them into the UFWL. Without a doubt, had outside forces not taken their toll on the tow Hardy Brothers, they would have been one of the most celebrated tag teams in the history of professional wrestling.

Much like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, our Commish Ted Dibase, had to write a clause into their contract to insure no shanigans will go out between them, Edge or Lita. Having all of those personal problems on our roster may be a mistake, but the plus to having them all far outweighs any negative.

Think about it like this the Hardy's hail from the golden age of tag teams in the WWE. They battled Edge and Christian, the Dudley’s, and all of the other top tag teams of their day. They were also masters of table matches, ladder matches, and TLC matches.

While they are a great tag team, the UFWL financial situation forced our hand to draft the Hardy boys. We need good tag teams, but we also need guys to occasionally wrestle in our singles divisions. The Hardy's along with Edge and Christian and exactly that.

Their main goal will be to compete in the tag division, but with injuries and departures sometimes we will see all four of these men as singles competitors.

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UFWL Draft pick #23: HBK Shawn Michaels

The 23rd UFWL draft is none other than the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels. The UFWL Board of Governors went back and forth on this one, not wanting to deal with HBK's attitude and to be perfectly honest had he not changed his act in the later part of his real career, we would not have wanted him to be a part of our fantasy wrestling promotion.

There is no doubt Shawn is a tremendous talent, but our Commish was not a big fan of his DX days, and his drafting likely means the UFWL will pass on Vince's son in law Triple H. We drafted Shawn because he is a good worker. He can compete in many different kinds of matches, and he can be a legit threat for the UFWL World Title.

We are not looking for him to renew his feud with Brett Hart; in fact he was drafted with the understanding that there will be no shanigans in our locker room. Ted Dibase had a clause written into Michaels contract with the UFWL that if there are any confrontations with Hart that both men will be fired immediately.

Just because we placed Michaels in the World Title division, and Hart in the North American division is not a judgment on either career, we simply had to keep these two men separate. There was so much bad blood between them, we saw no way for them to compete against one another. Frankly we thought their very real feud hurt their wrestling company in the late 1990's and we have no desire to bring that kind of unrest to our promotion.

Michaels may be one of the only wrestlers we draft to our fantasy promotion and plan to use him as we saw him past his prime. No doubt the late 1990's Michaels was the WWE Champion and a force to be reckoned with, but it our estimation once he came back in the early part of the 2000's his attitude was so much better that it really made his character a lot more fun to watch.

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UFWL Draft pick #22 Brock Lesnar

Before we get to the announcement of the draft pick, we have some UFWL news to get through. We have let Navy, our head of talent relations go, he got consumed with a feud with a talent from another wrestling promotion and could not get back to his duties here at the UFWL. Our Commissioner Ted Dibase will now conduct the rest of our talent draft, and we are looking to launch the promotion on St. Patrick's Day.

Now the 22nd UFWL draft pick is no other than Brock Lesnar. Brock is one of those guys who turned to wrestling to make money, luckily for us we don't have to deal with that in the world of fantasy wrestling. We can draft Brock to compete in our Super Heavy Weight division, and get him to battle the other big guys on our roster.

Brock has a great look for wrestling, and he is somewhat limited in what he can do in the ring, but we plan to have him compete against other big guys, so his flaws will not be as noticeable. With that being said Lesnar is very good at what he can do, and we expect him to be a force in the UFWL.

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UFWL draft pick #21 Rey Mysterio

The 21st UFWL Draft pick in none other that n the master of the 619, Mr. West Coast Pop himself Rey Mysterio. We need a guy like Rey to add some excitement to our matches, and we fully expect him to be a force in our Cruiser Weight division.

Sure Rey may have moved on from his Light Heavy Weight days into a main event status with the WWE, but we view that as a promotion out of need. The WWE is lacking legit talent these days and while Rey is a great talent I do not credibly think he could beat guys like the Undertaker or Kane. He is small and fast and has a unique offensive attack but in all reality that would not make up teh difference in size and strength when fighting the bigger men of professional wrestling.

That is not a knock on Rey, Rey is amazing and he will be a central figure in the UFWL, but pro wrestling is all about the suspension of disbelief and I don’t see that suspension coming in a match up between Rey and say the Big Show.

We see Rey has being able to hold his own against Chris Jericho, the Ultimo Dragon, and the other competitors of the cruiserweight division quite well, and look forward to him dominating said division.

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