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While a 4.0 in the Nielsens is no big whoop for most network shows, it packs the equivalent whallop of an ECA stack for Monday Night Raw, which has been riding the low 3.0 range for the past few months during the writer’s strike.

Now that the strike is over, people seem to be coming back to TV again, and that includes wrestling. While WWE Raw is by no means riding high with a 4.0, considering they were drawing almost three times that number at their peak about a decade ago, it’s still an impressive number.

Of course, this is pre-WrestleMania season and interest in the Fed always seems to take a leap up at this time of year, no matter what else is going on. Let’s hope the new viewers like what they are seeing and tell a few friends just how good Cena, Orton and Hardy can be, when they set their minds to it.

Boy, take some time off and the wrestling landscape sure can change.

For the past 10 days or so, my entries have been few and far between because my PC died, I had to buy another one, and then had to get the new PC up to speed. Long story short, I was not at my usual keyboard when No Way Out aired.

In retrospect, it was a bit of a ho-hum, paint-by-numbers PPV. Having Chavo Guerrero defeat CM Punk as the openinig match was further evidence that WWE doesn’t know what to do with ECW now that Heyman’s long gone and his influence is no longer anywhere to be seen.

The introduction of the Big Show-Floyd Merriweather tilt at WrestleMania was strong enough to get some real-world sports media buzz outside of traditional wrestling circles, though the match promises to be tough on both men’s posture correction. And Raw’s ratings are back up in the 4.0 range last week, a good sign for the biz.

I thought the Cena-Orton nonfinish was ho-hum, while the Elimination Chamber all-too-predictably put Triple H over the top. With all the new blood in the Raw picture, going with the “safe” WrestleMania booking of Triple H - Orton or Triple H - Cena, or a triple threat between all three is just too predictable and boring. But, like McCain vs. Obama, it now seems inevitable.

But the best news remains this: I’m not sitting behind a 3GB RAM, 4400+ Intel Core2 Duo, 500GB HD, Acer Aspire; I’m ready for the next big thing, and I don’t mean Brock Lesnar.

Longtime WWE toy licensee Jakks Pacific has been ousted from their spot as the WWE licensee, according to media reports. While their current deal runs through 2009, in 2010, the new WWE toy licensee will be Mattel, Inc. Now isn’t that a dose of hoodia?

There has been bad blood between WWE and Jakks Pacific for a while; a while back, WWE alleged that Jakks attempted bribery to win a licensing deal and sued the company, but the case was tossed from court by a federal judge. The change of partners should come as no surprise.

There are no immediate details as to how the switch from Jakks Pacific to Mattel will affect the WWE’s videogame licensing. Currently, and for about a decade now, the license has rested with THQ, who has partnered with Jakks Pacific in making the game. Now that Mattel will take over the WWE toys license, it is unclear whether the videogame license is a separate contract, or whether Mattel is free to choose a new videogame partner. Mattel has an in-house label for videogames, Mattel Interactive, but they are mainly known for making educational software.

Time will tell.

The rating for this week’s Raw was 3.4, down 0.2 from last week despite two clean finishes and a hot main event between Jeff Hardy and Shawn Michaels, that Hardy won. Mortgage lenders aren’t betting the future on Raw ratings, that’s for sure.

Despite common sense that if everything is in reruns due to the writers’ strike, which was recently resolved, that original programming like WWE broadcasts would go up; but that hasn’t proved to be the case. Instead, it seems that when viewership goes down in general, show does ratings for everything else on the air, new or rerun.

In a performance management move, The CW network has confirmed that WWE SmackDown no longer fits in with their network concept. Of course, this move has been a long time in coming, seeming inevitable ever since UPN merged with The WB.

Word on the street has it that The CW wants to gear its programming more toward a female demographic, which of course SmackDown doesn’t fit into. The WWE is said to be actively marketing the SmackDown program to other networks, including MyNetworks as well as NBC/Universal, with an eye toward forging a home for the show on USA or SciFi, both of which already play host to WWE programming.

In other WWE-related TV news, USA Network just signed an extension with WWE to keep Raw on their network until 2010; no word on whether ECW will be renewed on SciFi, moved to a new media partner, or combined with SmackDown.

Of course, none of this is cause for panic; WWE’s contracts were up and change was inevitable. It will be interesting to see if WWE continues the three-brand approach or retracts. It could easily be argued that the main reason for WWE SmackDown being removed from the CW’s schedule is not only falling ratings, but the fact that the show lacks any significant star power, while Raw is overflowing with it.

Prediction: For SmackDown to survive, WWE will have to shake things up significantly on their roster, balancing the shows far more evenly than they currently do. While MyNetworks is a good underdog destination for the show, we expect USA to stand pat with Raw, while SmackDown will go away as a brand, and ECW will be expanded to two hours while staying on SciFi. To protect their brands, expect an ECW Invades SmackDown storyline this summer, coinciding with the One Night Stand PPV, that creates the new product, which we think will be called ECW SmackDown. Yes, that’ means no WWE on broadcast network TV, though NBC may agree to increase the number of Saturday Night Main Events to as many as six broadcasts per year, coinciding with the bigger PPV events, as alternate programming to Saturday Night Live reruns. And finally, yes, by eliminating SmackDown and expanding ECW, some wrestlers will lose their spots in the company; but a leaner, two-brand approach is just what WWE needs to regain a foothold on viewership.

Despite a lot of story elements necessary to build hype for the last PPV event before Wrestlemania, namely No Way Out, if anyone had a checking account, this was not a week to bank on Raw ratings as the show offered up few matches that lasted longer than three minutes.

A lot of squashes and in-ring segments filled much of the broadcast, and while the Hornswaggle-McMahon ass-kissing/biting segment was entertaining in a juvenile way typical of the Fed, much of the night was wasted time that did nothing to promote the in-ring abilities of most of the performers.

A notable exception was the six-man tag match that served as the show’s denouement, involving Jeff Hardy, Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels against Snitsky, JBL and Umaga. That match went 16 minutes, highlighted everyone, and was genuinely entertaining.

The rest of the show? Well, let’s just say it left a lot of its game on the bench this week.

It was an overdue comic moment.

It has become almost an annual event for WWE Chairman Vince McMahon to insert himself into the WWE storyline and, in a raw display of Raw power, insist someone he’s looking to mess over join “the club.” In this case, of course, the club in question is the Vince McMahon Kiss My Ass Club, in which Vinnie Mac drops trou on national TV and invites some WWE superstar to literally kiss his bare behind.

Past victims have included Shawn Michaels, William Regal and others. This year, the victim is Hornswaggle, the midget wrestler who was chosen to be revealed as Vince’s “bastard child” in a storyline from late last summer. It has become tradition for McMahon to find new ways every week to make Hornswaggle’s life difficult, and for Hornswaggle to somehow survive each encounter with his “father’s wrath.”

So far, Regal is the only superstar to willingly kiss McMahon’s rear, though an unconscious Shawn Michaels did the dead last year. In this week’s Raw, Hornswaggle found a new twist on the situation. McMahon offered up his rump, and Hornswaggle didn’t kiss it … he bit it, and didn’t let go for several seconds.

It was a hilarious low-brow comedic moment and a better payoff of the gag-inducing gag than has been offered up previously. The only question now is, does Vince have a Medicare advantage after being bitten by a midget, or will he spend his own fortune on the medical bills and rabies shots to follow? Heh.