Interinactivity 12.30.2011 – Rise Above Hate (No, Really.)

Columns, Top Story

Welcome to another amazing edition of “Interinactivity”. It seems like most everyone enjoyed The Fourth Annual Swayze Awards for 2011, which was nice to see. As for those of you who didn’t, I have a question for you. Why in the world would you assume that myself, or Swayze, or anyone else really, would be angry? Do you people have cameras in our houses or something?

I can’t think of one good reason… at all… ever… for anyone, anywhere, to be angry about wrestling, let alone anything at all on a wrestling website.

Not that The Swayzies were written by me – they weren’t. And I’m not going to claim opinions that aren’t mine, even if most of them did line up with what I think, but the point I’m trying to make is that without speaking for Swayze, I would say that we have the same writing style. I don’t know what he’d say about that, but The Swayzies – much like my writing in general, for anyone who hasn’t figured it out in the year that I’ve been here – is about humor. Humor about absurdity. The absurdity of wrestling fans. The absurdity of wrestling websites. The absurdity of wrestling in general.

Wrestling is absurd for so many reasons. And I don’t say that as a bad thing, either. There’s nothing in the world like wrestling. I mean that quite literally. It’s a fake sport – the only fake sport that ever existed that I’m aware of – and it’s been around for over 100 years. It’s survived a couple of periods that the general public never thought it would. It’s produced household names like Hulk Hogan and The Rock. It’s produced a few extremely documented tragedies like Chris Benoit.

One thing that I enjoy about wrestling more than anything is the IWC.

It’s hilarious.

Come on. You have to admit that, right? People disagree with me on a ton of stuff. This is something that you really should be with me on.

 

When I was reviewing Impact and just being absolutely brutal on it (at a time when I can still honestly say that it was deserved), almost no one had a problem with it. Because TNA is almost universally reviled. I would say that right now, TNA is certainly in a better position than it was. There are still a lot of problems with the show, but that’s not my point. When I started talking about WWE, that’s when the majority of people who have some kind of a problem with me really came out of the woodwork. That’s when people really started misinterpreting my writing for anger.

Generally speaking, I think most people get it. But I seem to get a lot of people who get offended when I point out how SO many people will get behind literally WHOEVER (Miz, Henry,  Shaemus, ANYONE) WWE decides they’re pushing. WWE is pushing Shaemus? Great, then obviously he’s improving. Mark Henry main-event push? That dude has been amazing for years! The Miz as a cornerstone of the company? Sign me up! It’s hilarious to watch.

There was a writer on this website – who will remain nameless – no, it’s not Glazer – who wrote an article a few months before Money In The Bank, talking about how CM Punk had fumbled the ball multiple times, how he wasn’t built for the main-event scene, and how the writer in question had never believed the hype of CM Punk and how they had always known he could never be a real main-eventer in the big leagues. This article tossed around those moronic IWC terms like “under-sized” and “internet darling” as well. This was around the time of WrestleMania where Paul Heyman and CM Punk were joking on Twitter about how WWE used him. Let me just say that there’s nothing wrong with that opinion. I don’t agree with it, but it’s just that – an opinion.

But then, before and after Money In The Bank, what do you think that this same writer wrote? He literally wrote about how WWE should have booked Punk into the position they did years ago and how they always knew that Punk had that “X Factor” (another moronic term.) He did that because WWE decided pushed Punk. Debate the reasons why they pushed him all you want, but that’s what this writer did.

And that is BY NO MEANS a unique offense to that writer. So many people do this. IWC fucking LOVED The Miz until the end of last year. Now they don’t have anything to say about him. The last couple years have been a gold-mine for Miz-type pushes and failures. How many writers on this site got behind Jack Swagger? Go back through the archives and check it out.

WWE pushes wrestlers because they hope they’ll succeed. 90% of the time, that doesn’t happen. Especially since Cena and Orton got on top. I would say that CM Punk is the only guy to make it to face-of-the-company status since those two. And in a way, even THAT remains to be seen. Literally every other attempt to make another guy like Cena and Orton has failed, with the exception of Batista. Yet every time the WWE even minorly pushes a guy, the IWC and majority of this site cream their pants over the “reactions” they’re getting. I can’t wait for the WWE to debut this Brodus Clay loser so I can watch it happen again.

 

The point is, WWE has ALWAYS done this. They need to do it. That’s how it works. They have to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

THAT is not what I find funny.

What I find funny is that the IWC IMMEDIATELY gets behind EVERYONE that they decide to push. THAT’S the funny part.

That’s what happened earlier this year. I wasn’t exaggerating when I talked about how surprised I was that people got behind Mark Henry and Shaemus. When that happened, I figured “well, NO ONE can get behind THIS.” But you all proved me wrong. When I wrote that article about their match, and everyone jumped up my ass, I almost fell off my fucking chair. I was legitimately surprised. Maybe that’s because I hadn’t been exposed to a lot of the WWE-IWC before that.

And you know what everyone thought? They thought I was angry. I wasn’t angry. I was amused. And people got OFFENDED that I was amused. Same thing with The Swayzies.

People get offended, or call us “the kids” or what-have-you. Yet, most of the people who do so are the types who think that EVERYONE that the WWE chooses to push is AMAZING. The guys who get behind a Jack Swagger or a Mark Henry push. Then those same people have absolutely nothing to say about The Miz after WrestleMania, after he’d completely flopped for months. I make a joke about how Mark Henry’s main-event run won’t last more than a few months without him fucking crippling himself like he always does, everyone goes nuts on me, then that’s exactly what happens… and no one has anything to say.

The other amazing thing that people like to throw around is the nutty assumptions. Like, if I don’t think Mark Henry .vs. The Big Show is awesome, then I must be one of those ROH nerds, right? I wrote something good about Alex Shelley and everyone assumed that I was some ROH nerd. ROH was great back in the day, but they’ve had a far worse year progress-wise than WWE or TNA had. The ROH iPPV from last weekend that I watched was by far the most dull I’ve seen.

 

For the record, I’m okay with being called one of “the kids”. Because all I’m doing here is having fun. And that’s what everyone should be doing. I don’t know how anyone takes anything that a stranger says on the internet seriously, but if you’re going to do it, don’t make it about PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING. Of. All. Things.

Some 5 or 6 years ago, I stumbled across TheDDT. It had articles at the time, now it’s just a message board. That’s where I hooked up with dudes like Swayze, Newbury and Kon. But all it was and is, is guys BS-ing about professional wrestling, and it’s light-hearted and funny. To me, that’s how you have to take professinoal wrestling.  These days, I think like 5-10% of professinoal wrestling has something good. You can’t talk seriously about a show that has that kind of a ratio. Which is why you have to have fun with it. DDT has awesome threads like “moves to avoid on certain wrestlers”. And someone will throw up a comment like “if Sid is going to perform a top rope move on you… fucking let him. He’ll probably cripple himself in the process.” That’s funny shit.

THAT’S the kind of style I enjoy. It’s okay if you don’t enjoy it. But for anyone who doesn’t enjoy it, I highly suggest that you just don’t read my articles, because YOU’RE the ones who seem to get angered by them. I’m not going to be offended 0r anything if you don’t read them. I kind of don’t care. And I’m not offended or angry that anyone here actually enjoys Mark Henry or Shaemus, or any of the dozen interchangable guys that WWE has that are exactly like them. So there’s no reason to be offended that I (at least attempt to) express humorously that I DON’T enjoy Shaemus or Mark Henry, or anyone like them.

Glazer once quipped that “tone comes across in writing, whether you want it to or not.” Maybe he has a point. But he neglected to point out the obvious fact that perceived “tone” has as much to do with the reader as it does with the writer. But there’s no reason to suggest that just because I approach my writing from a humorous standpoint most of the time, that I, or Swayze, or Newbury, don’t belong here. And don’t assume that we’re angry just because we don’t agree with the popular opinion. Doing THAT is what I’d consider “kid” stuff… kids.

And, let’s not pretend that I haven’t mentioned a dozen times how I REALIZE that I don’t hold the “popular” opinion. I never thought I did. What I’m stating is just that – my opinion, I’m not presuming to speak for wrestling fans in general here. But that also doesn’t mean that I’m wrong. Nor does it mean that you’re right, just because more people think what you think. After all, more people on the IWC got behind guys like Swagger and Miz than guys who didn’t…

 

Now, there’s also the issue of diminished expectations, which Swayze has brought up countless times. It’s what leads to people thinking that the reactions that guys like Shaemus get are amazing. But that’s another example of something just being my opinion. It’s also another article…

 

Keep the change, ya filthy animals. I’ll be in my trailer.

BD writes about professional wrestling on Inside Pulse until he has to stop because he's about to have a stroke. Any “errors” that are made on his part are, of course, intentional and represent an artistic choice. He acts as a kind of fly paper for the emotionally disturbed.