XFL is punishment from God by TERRY HAIG  Vince McMahon can talk. Charms the birds right out of the trees, a regular Rex Blarney. It's prime time Saturday night on NBC and McMahon is shouting into a microphone in Las Vegas, Nevada, telling 30,000 professional football fans in the stands and millions more glued to their tubes that their dreams are about to come true. Vince is going to make good on his promise to lead the North American sporting public where it's never been before.  Opening night for the XFL. Vince has a team from New York in town to play the Outlaws. Ready in the TV booth, poised to dispense colour and wisdom of all manner is the governor of the great state of Minnesota, Jesse (the Body) Ventura. Before entering politics, Ventura was a star of McMahon's World Wrestling Federation. Big, bald and ugly, he appears the embodiment of what the XFL sees itself becoming.  McMahon's genius has been to take wrestling from a dunce-cap corner of the mind and turn it into one of the hottest properties in all of television. Now he wants more.  Vince knows Show Biz. Vince knows pizzazz, knows the importance of good light shows, knows his pyrotechnics, knows how to cast the good guys and the bad guys. Most of all, Vince knows Show Biz's cardinal rule: Big-Breasted Babes will always draw you a crowd. Underneath the Celtic pallor beats the heart of a carnie barker.  A couple of years ago, Vince pitched NBC into going partners with him on a football league. The suits bit, we're here in Vegas, and Bob's your uncle.  "We welcome you to our game!" McMahon shouts. "Thank you for the privilege of competing before you tonight."  Privilege? Vince hasn't ponied up a dime in salaries since the players reported to training camp in November. Tonight's the first time they get paid.  The crowd--its roar boosted by the sounds of a recorded crowd noise taped somewhere else--eats it up. McMahon had wanted the wrestling crowd. He had wanted a young crowd. He appears to have won his battle--at least on this night.  The cheerleaders go crazy. Breasts jiggle, fireworks explode!  The TV camera that's been framing Vince in close-up pans back. We get the rest of Vince. Spooning out the blarney, Vince is dressed for the occasion in a spiffy new letter jacket bearing the letters of his very own league. It's one of those letter jackets with the shiny leather sleeves, the kind real athletes wear while strolling college campuses, homecoming queens on their arms.  And here's middle-aged Vince--dressed to the nines in his spiffy letter and leather jacket--at the centre of it all. Fast times at Hamburger U, Vince is king, the focus of a giant pep rally, Big Man on Campus at last.  Now comes the tough part. If Vince's show is to have legs, he and his NBC benefactors will have to be nimble of mind. Mixing apples and oranges isn't easy and that's what Vince wants to do.  Vince's problem is that football isn't wrestling, a slapstick show played with a giant wink directed to an audience geared to melodrama. Like most other schools of theatre, wrestling works when everybody--from the actors to the commentators--is well rehearsed and working from a good script, when everything's in synch.  But sporting events are by their very nature improvisational. Vince's football players are athletes not actors. Sooner or later--no matter how heavy the surrounding hype--a game is going to break out. If that game is a good one, people may stick around. If it's a stinker, they're gone pronto. Once the show starts, Vince has no more control so he better get the presentation down right.  And Vince's presentation ran into problems Saturday night. Not the least of which was Ventura, who kept trying to analyze the game on the field. Trouble was, it was a blowout. With nothing to analyze, Ventura resorted to witless bluster.  Things got no better when NBC left the Vegas stinker and switched to Orlando, where a man identified as "the King" was doing the colour. "The King" was obsessed with the Orlando cheerleaders. So obsessed that he appeared to have a problem focusing on the game, which was a good one. As the feisty Chicago quarterback fought to bring his team back for a fourth-quarter win, "the King" was blissing out on the joys of manhood.  Problems with the announcers were compounded by ridiculous camera angles designed to get us inside the game but serving only to confuse. If Vince is going to use third-rate players on the field, he better pick up the rest of his product--meaning his TV presentation--real fast or he goes down in smoke.  The good news for Vince is that he's trying all this on Saturday night. Anyone who's ever sat at home in front of a TV set on Saturday night knows the deal. Just one of God's little ways of punishing us.  Based on opening night, Vince's show will be a perfect addition. :Comments? terryhaig@hotmail.com   Comments? terryhaig@hotmail.com.