WWF comes to town with ratings in free fall

The World Wrestling Federation will come stomping into Kansas City tonight for a live broadcast of "Raw," the WWF's signature cable TV show. A full house is expected at Kemper Arena for the two-hour program, which airs at 8 p.m. on TNN - but who besides diehard fans will be watching? Nielsen ratings for "Raw" were in a free fall before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Since then, the WWF's tightly scripted brawls have paled next to the real-life fireworks on the news channels. Even those still watching "Raw" (and related programs like UPN's "Smackdown") are grumbling. "The WWF shows aren't must-see TV anymore," complained Wade Keller in his column last week for "Pro Wrestling Torch," a fan newsletter. It wasn't supposed to be this way. After acquiring his two main rivals - World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling - earlier this year, WWF head honcho Vince McMahon seemed to have built himself a tag team for the ages. With the elimination of WCW's "Nitro" - a show that competed against "Raw" on Mondays - the WWF promised to "propel the sports entertainment genre to new heights." (And you thought pro wrestling was just a muscle-bound soap opera. That's "sports entertainment genre" to you, mister.) Instead of climbing to new heights, however, "Raw" has fallen out of the virtual ring (ratings down 20 percent since Aug. 20), crashed through the proverbial folding table (last week's broadcast was the lowest-rated of the year) and onto the figurative floor (dish maker DirecTV canceled its pay-per-view deal with WWF). Fans say that the WWF's vaunted "story lines" - which determine not only the winners and losers but also direct all the shenanigans between bouts - have gotten tired and predictable. That McMahon's obsession with TV showmanship has been fed at the expense of quality matches. The WWF counters that this is just a phase pro wrestling goes through every few years. "There's no rhyme or reason to these big ratings swings," said a spokesman for WWF Entertainment, who added that "Raw" is still the highest-rated entertainment series on cable. Tonight's show is the first since Sunday night's pay-per-view telecast from St. Louis. The WWF spokesman last week promised several "intriguing" story lines during the pay-per-view that would carry over to tonight's telecast. The popular kids' show "Blue's Clues" is adding a member to its family of two-dimensional cutout characters. At 7 tonight on Nickelodeon, Steve, Blue and the gang welcome home Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper and their new baby. No, we do not know the baby's seasoning. Lisa Kudrow supplies the voice of the obstetrician. (That's a big word, isn't it, boys and girls?) Those of you lucky enough to get the new National Geographic Channel on satellite TV can watch the timely premiere of "Frontline Diaries," a series with first-hand accounts of journalists about their adventures in foreign lands. Tonight at 8, Sebastian Junger (who wrote The Perfect Storm) records his travels through Afghanistan with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the recently assassinated head of that country's rebel Northern Alliance. (For those of you without a dish, Time Warner Cable plans to add the channel later this year.) I don't usually like to shill for "The E! True Hollywood Story," or as I like to call it, "Biography for Dummies." But that was before CBS dumbed down its Sunday-night movie showcase with that "True Hollywood Story" wannabe about "Gilligan's Island." So I might as well mention two new "True Hollywood Story" episodes this week on E! The first, airing at 7 p.m. Wednesday, looks at the attempted murder trial of aristocrat Claus Von Bulow. It's a bit of a stretch to call this a "Hollywood story," though Von Bulow's mistress once appeared on the ABC soaper "Dark Shadows" and Jeremy Irons won an Oscar playing a creepy Von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune." At 7 p.m. Sunday, E! takes a long, loving look at "L.A. Law." The two-hour special is done as only E! can do it - with so many teases, recaps and commercial breaks it makes the 10 o'clock news seem like a model of restraint. - To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:Rob Van Dam prepares to splash down on Tazz. The World Wrestling Federation comes to town tonight. @ART:Photo (color) @ART CREDIT:WWF @ART CAPTION:Stork doc and Blue in the baby hospital @ART:Graphic (color illustration)