Slayer's Sports and Stuff: The Final Column

SLAYER’S SPORTS AND STUFF!

Hi everybody! Welcome to the very last edition of Slaye’s Sports and Stuff! Nah, nothing to get melodramatic about. Slaye’s Wrestling and Stuff debuted a couple weeks ago so I’ll just be a couple blocks down the road. Actually, I had no intention of doing a final Slaye’s Sports and Stuff for the sole reason that last columns usually suck. I mean they’re just self-inflated diatribes that nobody really cares about. I mean basically a last column goes like this”¦

This will be my last column blah blah blah blah I had some good times and bad times blah blah blah I worked hard blah blah blah thanks for reading blah blah blah life has too many responsibilities now blah blah blah blah maybe I’ll be back in some capacity one day blah blah blah”¦.

Whatever!!!!!!! Borrrrrrrrrrrrrring! Well this one will be different by golly! Though it’s the last column, it will not become some self-indulgent silliness.

So first, I just want to say that over the past three years I had some good times and bad times, Just kidding,,hahahahahaha.

Listen, this is how we’re gonna do it. We’ll do the self-indulgent diatribe in one long run-on sentence. A few years ago I was hired as a sportswriter for 411 black and for a few months had the time of my life writing about sports, dominatrixes, and Grant Theft Auto then the split happened where somehow if only by default I found myself the co-editor of IP Sports then as the months passed I found myself if again only by default the head cheese of IP Sports then life handed me too many responsibilities so I had to step down as editor and then life even handed me more crap to deal with so I really had to only become a part-time writer and then about a month a half ago, I legally died and went into a coma and when I came too and began to put my life back together after being extremely traumatized I then decided what to do with IP so I decided I would just do a laid back wrestling column and bow out entirely out of sports.

Why?

Because writing about sports is hard. Really! Hunter S. Thompson called sports the most challenging of the journalistic disciplines. And I just don’t have the time or energy to engage in such an endeavor.

However, other people do. Here are a few examples.

The Bootleg Guy
a.k.a. Aaron Cameron. His specials on IP Sports were always thought-provoking and intelligent plus he has the unique talent of being controversial without being a shock jock about it. Always the pro, he currently is working diligently in making the new hip-hop zone the best it can be but if I know anything about the guy, he won’t stay away from sports too long. He can’t as it’s obviously his first love. He’ll be back”¦he’ll always be back.

Eugene Tierney
He has been a pro at this site for some time now providing thoughts and statistics on the never ending drama knows as major league baseball. Plus he’s from St. Louis so that already gives him an edge when it comes to being a baseball writer.

Mike Hulse
Hey, Mike’s back! How about that. One of the originals going all the way back. Good to see him back on the roster now that he’s recovered from his poker addiction “¦though I’m glad he’s not calling his column NY Sports Rant anymore”¦I’ve been meaning to tell him that Albany is not NY. It’s New York State. :P

Eric S
Though you will only see one column, he’s contributed to the sports scene on a behind-the-scenes basis for some time providing invaluable advice and insight. He’s The Man”¦we can all just try to get as close as we can.

Will Cooling
The guy who talks about real football. Now granted being ignorant to soccer, half the time I never knew what he was talking about. But, he was entertaining and I knew that other soccer fans respected his views. By the way, as an editor, I gotta say..you know how difficult it is for an American to edit someone who is British”¦it’s impossible!

Nick Pomazak
I got one thing to say: Best Football Column in the entire world wide web. Bar None! And he just does it again and again and again.

Steve Price
A guy I got to know over the last couple of years, he just may be the most talented writer on this website, yes Lucard, that includes you too. He’s also gotta knack for the talk radio thing. A few years from now, we’re gonna be seeing this guy writing for Sports Illustrated or running a syndicated radio talk show. Just remember Steve when you win all your awards in the future, who got you the start”¦.please? Pretty please?

And finally”¦”¦.here we go guys, you ready? You knew this was coming.

Patrick N
I’m gonna lay off the controversy. I actually had no idea it was such a big deal. I was sort of in a coma when the whole thing went down.

I said one line about it in my wrestling column and it got yanked. In the staff forums I said something to the like of “I hope one day things can work out between both parties” and for that I basically got my head chewed off. Well, out of respect to ME, a guy who has been a semi-decent (if not flakey) writer for a few years, as well as a guy who never caused anyone an ounce of trouble or drama, this following paragraph better still be there when this column gets published. Hey Top Brass”¦you don’t have to read this if you don’t want”¦it’s got nothing to do with you, so please”¦.just”¦..just don’t, ok?

Listen, Patrick N despite whatever sins he inflicted, deserves a proper sendoff and this is it. I just want to get two points across.

First of all, IP Sports or Tailgate Crashers or any of the like wouldn’t exist without him. I may be wrong, but I think I’m pretty sure of that. There was a time where there was no one running the ship. Not me, not Daniels, not MM, no one. We only had a handful of writers and the zone had almost become completely pathetic. But the zone survived and was able to progress from there. Why? Because of three people: Nick, Steve, and Patrick. And I don’t think Nick or Steve will mind me saying that it was Patrick most of all. His writing was not only some of the most original, unique, and funniest on the site, he became a locker-room leader. Then of course came the radio show. He essentially helped the sports zone and the website as a whole catch up to modern times.

And like the locker-room leader he was, everyone was invited to join the party. He galvanized the troops and made the sports zone into a little family. He made sure to forge relationships with everyone and was always willing to even be bad cop when the situation called for it, and he did it without being a punk or making enemies”¦well, with the writers anyway.

See, this brings me to my second point. Patrick will kill me for saying this because it breaks kayfabe. He’s a really good guy. Yup, he is. Despite the fact that he plays an asshole on the internet, he’s a stand-up great guy. He also made for a good buddy and he even bought me a microphone once. He’s good people. And you know what I really like about the brother? He cares. He cares about his work and he cared about Inside Pulse. However, Shakespearian irony struck again and it was the fact that he cared too much that eventually led to the incident as he was shown the door.

Siggggggggggggghhhhhhh

Ok, now I get selfish again and just do random thank-yous.

First off of course is Gloomchen who essentially was my psychiatrist when doing my sports run. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to hack it.

Widro because he’s Widro. Not only is he fun to talk to about Super Milk-Chan at 3:00 AM , but despite having no love for sports he still bankrolled it, something he didn’t have to do.

Matthew Michaels for taking over the reigns of the sports zone which allowed me to move on without feeling like a jerk. (and also for letting me go to Wrestling without any fuss or muss.)

And finally, Tom Daniels for five things.
1) Hiring Me
2) Being my first pal when I was new and everyone hated me
3) Starting the whole Sports Zone in the first place
4) Telling another big-wig here (who will remain nameless) to go Fuck Off everytime he tried to interfere with the zone or me.
5) And finally, for providing some dam good beer recommendations.

I’m glad he’s writing again. It’s good for him”¦all that tech shit”¦could drive a man bloody insane I tell you.

So that’s it”¦folks”¦we’ve come to the end of the road. So of course, we leave off with”¦

THE BEST OF
SLAYER’S SPORTS AND STUFF!

We had some fun times, didn’t we?

God Bless