Interinactivity Summer Bash 2013: Day 3 – Mid-Card Titles, Hall Of Fame, Older Wrestlers & Racism

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Welcome to the Interinactivity Summer Bash 2013! It’s going to be a fun week. I had WAY more responses to Interinactivity than I was counting on, so much that it had to be split into different parts to really be readable. So I’ve grouped them all into 5 articles, one for each day this week. They’re also separated somewhat by subject, for your convenience.

Monday: The Hardys, TNA, ROH & Chikara (responses to Scott Keith, Matt Harrak, CB, Zork & J-Train)
Tuesday: Shaemus, Mark Henry & The Miz (responses to CB, Swayze, Chris Sanders, Jonah Kue, Rhett Davis & PUSSBOT 3000)
Wednesday: Mid-Card Titles, Hall Of Fame, Older Wrestlers & Racism (responses to HH, IS, SS & W)
Thursday: CM Punk, The Shield & Reinvigorating Wrestling (responses to Mike Gojira, Steven Gepp, Jonah Kue, James Sawyer, Zork, Caleb Hamilton, & Wrestling Facts)
Friday: BD, Pulse History, Swayze & Commenters (responses to Martin Shaw, CB, James Sawyer, Chris Sanders, Bob Loblaw & Cynical Bastard)

(If you don’t see your entire comment one day, chances are I split it up to give the articles some flow so the rest of it will appear on a different day.) I won’t waste anyone’s time with a long intro, as there’s a lot of reading here as it is. Enjoy!

 

“HH”: Well let me tell you something, brother…?I remember this one time I called up north, jack, and I said “Vince, brother, how about the Hulkamania runs wild one more time, dude?” & do you know what that senile, rich, demented bastard did, brother? He put me in a lucha mask and said “spic it up, holmes”.?I was furious, dude, Hulk Hogan doesn’t run around pretending to be Mexican like that jabroni Jeff Jarrett, brother, or all those midgets in the 2000’s, jack.?I’m shaking at this point, brother, so I took a deep breath and some vitamins, then I said “Vince, brother, dude…” Seriously, Hulkamaniacs, I said “Jack, I’m a real American, brother, I fight for the rights of every man, brother. I fight for what’s right!”?At this point, Vinny dude stopped strolling around the office and put his pants back on. Hunner said you could tell from the look on his face, dude, the one that looks like he’s just went boom boom in the back while one of the rookies gives him the old Brutus manoeuvre Tijuana style. The point, brother, is that the shit was about to hit the fan and Hulkamania was gonna have to run wild…?I said “Vince, jack, Hulk does not job to Mexico. The Hulkster didn’t do the job for Piper and Orndorf, he didn’t do the job for Bundy, dude, and in front of seventeen trillion screaming, vitamin eating, prayer saying, milk drinking Hulkamaniacs at the Dome, brother, I did not do the job to Andre the 43539877609768736627846 pound giant! I slammed that cheese eating, frog munching piece of shit so hard that he died, dude, and you do not want the Hulkamania to run wild on you!”.?We worked out some financial details right then, brother, not that it matters now, dude, not with the wife leaving me for some pencil-dicked eleventeen year old jabroni and taking everything by my bus pass with her, but we worked the green dude, and that’s how Mr. America was born.?My question for you, brother, is if you think racism is still a problem in modern sports entertainment, across all medias??My other question, dude, and i’m only asking because you’re a die hard Hulkamaniac… Can you spare the Immortal One $5 for a cup of joe, jack?

BD: CEC032513D8151AEF2C999AA2BD0B73B7DACF94BEE498_1280_720

I remember when this guy I know – you don’t know him, but his name is Martin Shaw – first brought this up. The notion received a lot of criticism, for some reason. But the fact can’t really be debated if you look at how anyone who isn’t white is treated, especially in comparison to the people that ARE white.

I will say this – in the last few years, WWE has come a bit farther in terms of how they showcase hispanics. A BIT farther – they still are pretty stereotypical. They still have a LONG way to go. And the only progress they’ve made is because they smartly wanted to play up the hispanic markets, especially with a dramatically increasing hispanic population in a few areas in the US.

But like… otherwise? When was the last time you saw an Asian person in a prominent position within WWE? The last guy *I* remember being there was Kenzo Suzuki, who was not only horrible to begin with, but who was also portrayed as THE BIGGEST ASIAN STEREOTYPE IMAGINABLE. The fucking CLAN couldn’t have made that shit more racist than it was. Tajiri didn’t fare well, and that guy was awesome. Certainly not a lot of black people have made it to prominent positions, either. The only exception to the rule, really, are Samoans – and that’s because they have a long, established history in the world of wrestling, although to be honest, most of them are portrayed pretty stereotypically as well. Have you even SEEN the Uso’s?

Even to go outside traditional races, non-North Americans have just not traditionally done anywhere near as well as Americans have. They’re a North American company, so fair play to them, I suppose – but there’s just no way you can objectively look at history and say otherwise.

Here’s $10. Now get out of those filthy clothes, you poor. poor man, and we’ll do whatever we can about the smell.

 

IS: Ahm not so good. Mah knees hurt, bubba, mah toes and ankles hurt, bubba. I try to walk and the pain, she even humble me, buba. i’m like jabroni the Kamala, but the Kamala can’t walk because he was fat, he was out of shape, he eat the mcdonalds and your fast food, he no swing the Persian clubs or work out. He was the piece of shit and he got the diabeetus.?I was real shooter, Olympic, the AAU, the Minnesota, the Vern Gagne, the Kennedy McMahon… I put body on line every time, bubba. But now, the medicine she’s not working, i am in chair. I wan let chu know that the pulse wrestling, number one place to find the wrestling column, but fack the matt harrak. He is not the intelligent man, he not reason people follow pulse twitter, he is jabroni mother fucker, but he not worse than the Hulk Hogan. The match of the week, she is the good idea.?But bubba, if you have the heart, if you have the balls, i you want see Iron Sheik walk again, Suplex the Harrak, put him in the Cammel Clutch, make him humble in old county way, you help support mah documentary on the indiegogogo -http://www.indiegogo.com/proje…?The Blair A. Douglas, number one intelligent man on the pulse wrestling, ah want ask chu: The WWE Hall of the Fame, does she actually mean anything other than the 500 dollar and the plastic photo frame?

BD: Don’t forget the ring – and fuck, does HOF only pay $500?

Anyway, as long as the WWE is the only REAL game in town, and they basically own the entire history of the business, then the Hall Of Fame IS a big deal, at least in my eyes. That may be more because I enjoy the Hall Of Fame shows – the speeches, the highlight videos, etc. And this may be a “fanboy” thing to say, but there’s something very satisfying to me about seeing a wrestler you’ve followed for years get inducted.

Yes, I realize that, like wrestling in general, it’s an entirely arbitrary process. I suppose it’s the idea that once a wrestler you like is in the Hall Of Fame, it’s something that – unlike title reigns or a career – lasts forever and can’t be taken away. (Even though, if they wanted to, they totally could. Yes, I realize that.)

I just wanna say that if the man behind your IndieGoGo project is the same guy who had the idea to put yourself, Honkey Tonk Man, and New Jack in the same room, give them beer to boot, AND film the whole thing… I’m happy to finance this entire project.

 

SS: GIMME THE FUCKIN’ KEYBOARD!

Everybody knows, wants to know where you’ve been. You do this reunion tour and talk about covering TNA, but then you pull out and never mention it again because you and your buddies would rather sit on your FAT ASSES than work. See, work has a whole different meaning to you. When it’s time to eat three timbits, you eat four. When it’s time to eat a hamburger, you eat a hamburger with extra cheese, extra ketchup, extra
mayo and a side of putine. Well you don’t get my simpy, you don’t get my simpy at all!

You know, they say all men are created equal, but you look at me and look at Blair A. Douglas, you can see that statement ain’t true. See, normally, if you go one on one with a Pulse writer, you got 50% chance of winnin’, but I’m a genetic freak and I’m not normal. And then you add FlamingWombat into the mix and your chances drastically go down. See this bullshit here in the comments, you got a 33 1/3 chance of winnin’, but I got 66 2/3 chance of winnin, cause Wombat knows he can’t beat me and he ain’t even gonna comment! So, Blair, you take your 33 1/3 chance minus my 25% chance and you got 8 1/3 chance of winnin’. Now you take my 75% chance if we was to go one on one and add my 66 2/3 ch… uh, percents, now I got a 141 2/3 chance of winnin’. See, Blair, the numbers don’t lie. You look at this face because this is the face of pain! I’m the bringer of pain! And I’m gonna destroy you! You can cry for mercy, but I don’t know the meaning of the word. The way I see it, you already got two strikes against ya. One; you’re not big
enough, or strong enough to go one on one with the genetic freak. The other thing is, you’re from that stinking country you call Canada. So watch, I think it’s your time to go back up to that cesspool, that place we call Mexico North. And I apologize to all the Mexicans out there, but you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit!

Now a few months ago, I was watching TV, and I watched a 64 year-old man on RAW who had more loose skin than a sharpé puppy come out to the ring and say he’s still the man! I see Ric Flair, the number 2 Nature Boy, come out with Miz and be the butt-in of all the jokes, cause he’s s’posed to be the limousine ridin’, lear jet flyin’, kiss stealin’, wheelin’ dealin’, stylin’ and profilin’ son of a gun, but I’m sayin’ one time, he shoulda took a cab and used that money to fix his crooked, yellow teeth! I guess he can’t because his ex-wives took it all!

So do me an egg and tell the big booty daddy why WWE keep hiring these old, geriatric fucks!

IM HUNGRY!

BD: Are you back on the juice, you fucknut? I’m not sure who you mean, here. Who have they hired in the last few years that’s “older”? If you mean The Rock, then that’s easy – they do it because Vince likes it when people drive dump trucks full of money up to his house.

I suppose it’s possible that you mean, like… Piper, Flair, or anyone else that came back to beat up Heath Slater. In which case, I can’t imagine they’re making much since they’re not really doing anything. And let’s face it, old wrestlers get in trouble when they’re not gainfully employed. Piper either almost or did actually go to jail, and Flair… well, you get the idea. So if they have to pay these guys a small bit just to NOT turn into Scott Hall or Jake Roberts, then I’d say it’s worth it even just from a PR standpoint.

Maybe you meant TNA. That would have made a lot more sense.

 

W: FROM ENERGY OF SELF AND BELIEF, I HAVE TRANSCENDED ALL LEVELS OF EVOLUTION AND BECAME THE PUREST FORM OF “BELIEF IN SELF”… IT IS OF THIS REALIZATION OF POTENTIAL THAT I AM PROVIDING A VOICE OF EXISTENCE TO CONTEMPLATE AND EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITY OF COMMITTING TO CHALLENGES NOT YET EXPERIENCED IN PRIOR LIFETIMES IN ORDER TO BECOME BETTER AND MORE COMPLETE…?AS THE GUARDIAN OF PURITY IN SELF, IT IS THE DESIGNATED GUARDIAN OF DESTRUCITYS DUTY TO ASK OF YOU ONE SIMPLE THING THAT YOU MUST ANSWER, WHETHER BY COMPASSION OR THE MERCILESS TAKING OF SOULS RECKLESS ENOUGH TO DISREGARD THE COGITATION OF ONE SUCH AS I…?RARE ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE MASTERED THE EIGHT DISCIPLINES, SUCH AS WARRIOR, THE SAFEGUARD OF ALL THAT IS TRUE TO SELF… HEIR BY BIRTHRIGHT – CHOSEN BY COMMITMENT – LIKE ALL OTHER THINGS PEACEFUL IN THEIR POWER… QUIET IN THEIR SOLITUDE… AND CONTENT OF SELF, SOMETHING HAS CAME TO CHALLENGE MY SILENCE.?THE CONSTELLATION HAS ARISEN AND GIVEN UNTO ME THE QUERY: WHAT IS THE CURRENT VALUE OF THE MID-CARD TITLES?

BD: Rarely does a wrestling comment come my way with such high stakes. I’ll answer so that you can respond to your constellation, then.

I’m going to assume you mean the IC and US titles, and not the WHC – so, current value? Basically nothing. It’s been diminishing for years, and by now it’s down to basically nothing – I think you could even make the argument that it has a negative value in some cases, because not only do they NOT do anything for 95% of the people holding them, it’s a big heavy thing that these dudes have to carry around. Why would you want to lug something like that around if it’s not doing anything for you?

The depreciation of these belts was something anyone could have seen coming when they made the decision to have TWO World Titles and not have the titles be exclusive to different TV shows. If they’d had, say, the WHC and the IC title on one show, and the WWE Title and the US title on another, that’d be one thing. But when you mix them, one World Title (and one mid-card title in relation to the other) is inevitably going to be inferior. I’ve debated people on this as well, but again, take a look at how they’re showcased now and make a reasoned argument that they’re equal. I don’t understand the resistance to this concept.

And when they make another “main-event” title of lesser value, then of course it will push the mid-card titles into what previously would have been considered lower-card title territory. Many times, people on here have said that the WHC is the new IC title – and they’re right. So as a result, this of course pushes down the importance of the ACTUAL IC title into whatever the modern equivalent of the US title is – and this in turn makes the ACTUAL US title into the whatever the modern equivalent of the Hardcore Title would be – or no title at all, really.

The IC title and US titles are now the lower card belts. You would think that having more titles would make for lesser barriers in between different parts of the card so that guys could move up and down a little more seamlessly, but because of the way they have it structured, I actually think it has the opposite effect – this is just my perception, but I feel like there’s now much bigger gaps now between those two lower card titles (IC and US) and the upper card titles (WHC and WWE Title). The only way around it is that dumbass briefcase, and that’s an whole other can of worms. But if a dude is fighting for the WHC one day, and then he moves down to the IC or US belts? You may as well put a slug in the back of his head and find the nearest dumpster – of course this doesn’t mean that wrestler sucks, it just means the drop down the card is so dramatic now that it’s difficult for anyone to recover from.

Many moons ago, my warrior, Vince Russo once claimed that the World Title is a “prop” and people went batshit on him for it. In my opinion, he’s not totally wrong on that, but he’s not really totally right either. Over the last few years, I would say that the IC and US belts HAVE become props and not the stepping stones they used to be – not for most people, anyway. Now they’re meaningless belts that they toss a guy in the mid-card just to give them SOMETHING, so it basically IS like handing someone a prop at this point. It’s not doing anything for anyone. Quite often, when someone is coming up or going down the card, people will say stuff like “bring some importance back to the belt”. Inevitably, this never happens.

These days, I wouldn’t be surprised if guys on the card hate having those now-lower-card belts to lug around. A Google search tells me that the average WWE belt weighs more than 15 pounds – it’s one thing to lug that from town to town and through airports if it’s doing something for you. If it’s not (and right now it isn’t) they may as well just carry a 15-pound dumbbell in their luggage. At least those would be of some use.

 

Well, that’s it for Day 3. Make sure to check out Day 4.

I want to thank everyone for participating in this. I said it already, but I didn’t expect this much response, and had a ton of fun writing this.

This has been “Interinactivity”. Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow.

I’ll be in my trailer.

Yours,
BD

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.