Diamond Dallas Page

If my boss took on a new employee, who took a drastic pay-cut to work at the garden centre, I would probably say one of the following things - a) he is a fool - b) he must be really desperate to work there.

This is exactly what Page Falkenburg, known to the world at large as DDP, did when he signed for the WWF. But many Internet hacks are now asking - did he do the right thing.

In a way, I admire Page. It took a big decision to do what he did about ten years ago. At the age of 35, having served his time first as a manager, and then as an announcer, Page decided to take the plunge and become a professional wrestling. To do this took some courage. Page could either have turned out to be a worse wrestler than Dale Wolfe, or the best thing since sliced bread.

It took some time, but Page did it. He was the PWI Rookie of the Year, and showed enough talent to be given numerous titles in WCW, including becoming a three-time world champion.

But when WCW went belly-up, and was brought by the WWF, Page could have just sat on his backside, and collected hefty weekly pay cheques from Time Warner.

But no. Page wanted one final shot. He wanted to prove himself on the big stage. He wanted to work for Vince McMahon, and he realised, that as a wrestler in his mid-forties, time was running out for him.

So he did the only thing he could. He dumped his hefty pay cheques, took a pay-cut, and joined McMahon's happy little family. And no one on the Internet saw it coming. When he appeared on Raw a while back as Sara's mystery stalker, it shocked everyone.

But since then, things haven't exactly been rosy in Page's garden. We've heard many stories. The funniest has to be what I will call "The Hugging Incident", where, instead of simply shaking Vince McMahon's hand, Page insisted on a big hug. Don't complain, this inspired some of the best moments in the Austin/McMahon segments not long ago.

But has his final chance, his WWF career, been a success. The answer has to be a simple no.

Page may have been a main event star in WCW, but that doesn't really mean that someone will automatically be a main event star in the WWF. Just ask a few former ECW World Champions.

He may also have been on the wrong end of some of the scripts. At first, he stalked Sara just because he wanted a shot at The Undertaker. That little scenario seems to have changed now.

I have to admit, seeing recent segments of Page sitting in front of the Sara "shrine" were not exactly easy viewing for me. I don't know why. I can't put my finger on it. But this whole angle seems to have run on a little too long now.

And then there were a couple of news items last week that caught the eye. The first being his meeting with the WWF about what's going wrong with the stalker angle. Instead of owning up, saying that some of the problems were down to him, and that he would try a little better, Page laid all the blame on Sara, because of her "inexperience." This I found laughable. Page has been in this business for over a decade. If Sara was having problems, surely Page could have said something to help her along.

Then we heard that the wrestling junky himself, Triple H, tried to talk some sense into him. Hunter may be the ultimate at playing the backstage politics game, but he is indeed a wise head. He knows his stuff, and for Page not to take his advice is a mistake.

And then we have the incident at the Pillman 2001 show, where Page, despite having agreed to take part in this charity event, wanted out. I'm not going to go into details here, but this was perhaps a show of some of the problems Page is having in the WWF right now.

The DDP stalker angle is perhaps the one part of the whole WCW/ECW Invasion angle that really isn't working right now. And whose fault is it? Everyone's finger seems to be pointing in one direction. Page should realise that this really is his last chance. He's not exactly in the first flush of youth, and the sooner he realises this, the better. Otherwise he could end up a no-hoper wrestling in one of the WWF's feeder promotions very soon.