A Wrestling News Report 11.02.01

Archive

I went to my grandfather’s funeral today. My older brother Brian gave a great eulogy. He and my grandfather formed a very tight bond over the years. I’m actually jealous.

No Dr. Love today. I’ll get to the letters I got last week next week. There will, however, be the start of a new contest. I’m in a particularly foul mood at the moment, and someone did not make this difficult time any easier on me. I’m trying to focus on this instead of the death of my grandfather. It makes it easier somehow, and besides that I’m pissed. It’s at the bottom, it’s long, and it explains this week’s A Wrestling Tale. It’s long and I’m biased and it has nothing to do with wrestling, but do me a favor and humor me. Maybe you can have some fun with this. But before that

News!

JUNK NEWS. Huzzah.

Let’s get the wrestling stuff out of the way. Thursday is never a busy news day. My living room is filled with people who bring fruit and talk about business.

Kanyon will miss six months because of his knee. Well, seven if you include the past month where he did absolutely nothing. www.1wrestling.com

Mike Awesome is not due for a push because of his poor reputation backstage. Many blame the Undertaker for this, and by many, I mean Scott Keith. www.pwtorch.com

Wrestlemania tickets go on sale this Saturday. For 600 bucks Canadian you can get your own Wrestlemania X-8 chair!X-8? That’s kinda stupid. Anyway, what’s 600 bucks Canadian, 45 American? www.pwtorch.com

Taylor said the WWF hasn’t been in touch with her since Tough Enough. Slut! www.pwtorch.com

Junk news. Huzzah.

OVW TAPINGS CRAP

Mark Henry and D-Lo have a problem. Bull Buchanan won a match. Jindrak is apparently chilling out there. David Flair is losing to people, and my ex-girlfriend is sleeping with all of them. I forget and don’t care where I got this. Let’s say, www.wrestlingobserver.com

MY WEEKLY SMACKDOWN OPINION

I didn’t watch most of it. The mourning and all. It was good, what I saw.

HALL AND NASH GET EWERYTING FO FIVE DOLLAR

People in the WWF are nervous that the price the WWF is prepared to offer Nash and Hall is not enough to get them to come over from lofty deals in Japan. Also, the house show schedule sucks. Yeah, Kevin Nash would rather wrestle in Japan then America. A guy who prides himself on being lazy in the ring is going to be a big hit in Japan. Pull it out of your ass! Pull it hard! I’m bored. I’m not bored with wrestling all together like Hyatte got, but I’m bored with wrestling today. www.pwtorch.com

I’ll copy and paste Lance Storm’s commentary cause it’s good. Also, the ratings for the WWF suck. As if you didn’t know.

COPY AND PASTE PICK O THE WEEK

I’ve been asked many times as to the origin and reason behind my name, Lance Storm. I thought I would take a look at wrestling names this week, and why I don’t think mine was a very good choice.

It’s no secret that I’ve never cared for my work name. I’ve always thought it sounded fake, which of course it is, but that doesn’t mean it has to sound that way. There was a guy who played football for the Calgary Stampeders whose name was Storm but he spelled it Storme. If I had gone that route it would have seemed less fake to me and I likely wouldn’t have minded it so much. I guess the question everyone is asking is, “So if you’ve never liked it why did you pick it?” The answer to that is, I couldn’t come up with anything better before I wrestled my first match and it just sort of stuck with me.

I’ve always figured a good judge of a name was the frequency with which people use it. Everyone calls Chris Jericho, Jericho when referring to him. A mutual friend of ours, Brett Como, we all just call Como. No one, with the exception of Dallas Paige uses Storm when talking to or about me, Storm just never caught on.

Popularity and fakeness aside, there are some good logical reasons as to why Lance Storm is a bad pro-wrestling name. First and foremost it can’t be chanted. We’ve even discussed this a bit on the comment board and while it was less important when I broke in, fan interaction and crowd response is so important in today’s wrestling environment. Wrestling fans want to be involved in the show and want to take part and have their voices heard. This is why catch phrases and chants are now such a big part of this industry.

Having a good two-syllable name is a good start. It is very easy to chant HoGan HoGan, while Storm Storm not so much. When I worked in Europe in 1993 the promoter actually dealt with this problem by adding the moniker “Tiger” to my name. As “Tiger” Lance Storm the crowd could cheer for me by chanting, TiGer TiGer . This actually caught on very well and most of the fans that remember me from CWA Catch remember me as “Tiger”.

The thing that was most interesting about having the Tiger chants is that I appeared to be so much more over with fans based on my newfound crowd response. Nothing but the name had changed so I don’t think I was anymore over it’s just the crowd had a way of expressing their support and taking part in the show. This opens a whole new can of worms in the name debate.

With so much in wrestling being based on how over you are with fans, having a chant able name or nickname is very important. RVD is a great example; the arenas filed with RVD chants when he showed up in the WWF, and a huge push followed. Does anyone think Rob would have gotten such a huge push if the office didn’t feel he was so over with the crowd? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Rob doesn’t deserve the push or that he is only over because of an easy to chant three-letter nickname. I’m just pointing out that having RVD to chant enabled the crowd to show their excitement for Rob, and this translated into the office viewing Rob as a legit “over” superstar.

Three-letter names are very popular to chant, ECDub, RVD, Y2J, are great examples. Jericho vs. Van Dam matches illustrate my point perfectly. Their matches are constant battles between RVD and Y2J fans, each chanting in support of their favourite as well as to combat the cheers of his opponent. The fans actually compete with each other with their chants. I would guess that if it weren’t for the Y2J moniker for the crowd to chant, Jericho would have been swallowed up in this feud. With Jericho as the face and an arena filled with RVD chants the assumption would have been made that Jericho wasn’t that over and Rob was the bigger star. Jericho would have still been as big of a star but the crowd wouldn’t have had a way to show their love for him, and he would have appeared far less over than Van Dam.

Wrestling crowds like to take part in the show. They will cheer for their favourites when they can, but they will also cheer to be heard and to have a voice in the show. The chants in ECW were perfect examples. You F—ed up, ECDub, She’s a crack whore, Etc. were more to get themselves over than they were to cheer for any particular wrestler.

I guess my point, in all this, is that crowd response is not always the most accurate gauge of what fans want to see, or what actually draws money. I didn’t draw any more money as “Tiger” Lance Storm, than I did just as Lance Storm, but that is often the perception. In wrestling, perception often becomes reality so if there are any upstart wrestlers out there trying to settle on a name for themselves, think hard about a two-syllable name or three letter moniker of some kind. It could make a big difference in your career.

Till next week,

Lance Storm

credit: stormwrestling.com

PLUGS

Sorry if I came off in a bad mood. It’s been a tough day.

The World According to Ron by Ron Gamble examines what happens when people stop being real. He doesn’t want the WWF to turn into a soap opera. I say the only thing stopping the WWF from already being a soap opera is convincing female characters. Get an out of work actress and train her to wrestle, not the other way around, and then you’ll have something. I don’t think you can pull that off today with a male actor. The fans won’t buy it. But they buy Stacey.

Also, Brian Cole did a review of Starcade 87′. He farts in Keith’s face! I fart in solidarity! Ewww. Wet fart. I need a tissue or something. Mr. Keith? May I have a tissue? Please. Please Mr. Keith, I need a tissue. Why are you smiling like that? What are you doing, Mr. Keith? Mr. Keith, no. No! NOOOO! EWWWW! YOU’RE LICKING IT OFF? Wait a second! That’s not your face! That’s a mask! Widro?! That’s a mask also! Eric S.! That’s a mask also? No, it’s Eric S. I’m sick of this joke.

Want to see some anger? Want to see some really real anger? Then you will. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to listen to my story, the story of:

MERCER CRENSHAW IS A DICK, BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Mercer Crenshaw is one of the people who runs a student play club called CAST at NYU. For the past three years, I have acted, directed and written plays for the organization. I am a commuter, so I had to invest lots of money and time into something I was not being paid for. Last year I wrote a play called “Coming Out Party”, a one-act play about a guy who gets dumped by his long-time girlfriend so he convinces himself that he is gay. He comes out to his family, who spend the play convincing him that he is not gay, which he is not. It was the funniest show in the series of one-acts. After Mercer Crenshaw had directed his own work the year before, I was told me there was a new rule that did not allow writers to direct their own plays. I conceded. I was offered a part by a very nice girl named Jaime, in fact she offered me the lead role, but I turned it down.

The next semester, Mercer Crenshaw wrote a series of one-act plays in a blatant rip off of Fractured Fairy Tales. I shouldn’t say rip off, because the posters said the plays were based on a book. I wonder if they sent the writer of the book any money? Anyway, Mercer inserted himself into the play I was directing without asking me. He also directed his own work, breaking the rule that he had laid down only a semester ago.

I said nothing, because I was working on a one-act play called “The Third to Last Dress Rehearsal of Empty Head, A Play Written and Directed by A Student.” It’s a hilarious show that I’m very proud of. It’s basically about the worst director in history. I wrote in the part of Jim, a person who says one line over and over again and is stopped and told how to say the line properly by the director over and over again until he snaps at the end of the show and yells a lot. I wanted this part. I loved this part. Mercer and others had inserted themselves into their own work. I figured I could do the same.

That was not to be, as a girl named Amy who I had worked with many times beforehand decided to direct my play. She never had any intention of casting me in the role. Not knowing Amy would direct my play, at the first night of rehearsals I asked both Mercer and a different Josh if they would mind if I took the role. They said no problem. I asked Amy, and she said to talk with Mercer and Josh. I had, and considered the part mine.

The next night, my grandfather went to the hospital. I was not able to attend the second night of rehearsal. Apparently a discussion took place there where they decided this year everyone would have to try out. I was not called or contacted until I wrote an IM to Amy on Sunday night. Not thinking about trying out, I told her that my mom’s birthday was on Monday night, the same night I believed they were going to pull the plug on my grandfather. After I told her this, she told me that I would have to come in on Monday night to try out for the part. Right away, that’s messed up. I said no, and she told me that if she didn’t see anyone she liked for the part, she would cast me.

She didn’t. She cast the other Josh, the other director, the person I told how badly I wanted the part. She wouldn’t even tell this to me straight out. I had to contact her and ask her again. Since the first night of tryouts, nobody had called me. So, I got mad, and told her not to talk to me anymore. Then I got drunk with my brother and we distracted ourselves from real life by screwing around with her on his AIM. Then I got really drunk and said if she did not drop my play, we would pursue legal action. We wouldn’t, but we were drunk. I apologized for this later on, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was wrong.

In the morning, I was prepared to apologize. My head hurt and my heart hurt and while I was still pissed, I was still going to apologize. Then I got the e-mail from Mercer. Amy had sent Mercer our AIM conversation and asked him not to respond. He did anyway. He felt hurt by this. He was the victim. I don’t know what he wanted from me by sending me this e-mail. I had not contacted him. I had not complained to him. He did mention that he had no recollection of telling me it would be no problem if I had the part. He then said if I was to have asked him, he would have said no. That’s a lie. He’s put himself into plays I directed without consulting me, he’s made and changed rules to allow him to do what he wanted to, and now he was calling me a liar while lying. In fairness, he claims to have not remembered rather persistently. I’m inclined to believe him. In this letter, he also critiqued my AIM conversation with Amy.

This was on Tuesday. On Tuesday, after getting the letter I wrote him calling him a liar and a hypocrite. Maybe he’s not a liar, but if he means what he says about not wanting to let me have the part in my own play, then he is certainly a hypocrite. I also told him in this letter that I believed he had turn the club into his own personal launching pad. Then I got pissed about his critique of what I considered to be a private AIM conversation. I sent him a second letter that stated how pissed off I was about his critique, and how I considered him untrustworthy. In both letters, I stated that my brother and myself would take legal action if they did not drop my play. In one of the letters, I joked that my brother’s business was not doing so well, and thus he had a lot of free time to pursue this. I also told him to go to hell and a couple of other mean things. I called him a little girl and the such. I was so angry that he had the gall to stick his nose where it did not belong.

A few hours later, I got a phone call from my mother. My grandfather had died. I no longer cared about the play. I wrote a third letter to Mercer, three sentences long. I believe it went, “Do the play. Do whatever the hell you want. I don’t care.” I may have misquoted, but I believe that’s the gist of it. So, what did he do? He copied and pasted the three letters I sent him and sent them along with a letter he wrote that insulted my brother and myself to four other people and myself. These people were the other Josh, Amy, my ex-girlfriend and a person I had no problems with Alexis and Jaime, who had graduated and lived in California. She was the other person who started up the club, and when I had ranted on Mercer’s abuse of power, I included her. I still don’t see why Mercer included her in the e-mail if the current organization was trying to figure out what to do with crazy upset Josh. In this letter he also said that if they could do the play, great, but if not, what were they going to do? This was odd, because I had stated quite clearly in my third letter that I had no problem with them doing the play.

I responded to this letter with one that I sent to all five of them. In this letter I apologized to Amy for harassing her while drunk and threatening legal action. She has since accepted my apology and apologized to me for treating me like dirt. We’re okay, I think. She’s a nice girl who I think did a mean thing. We all try to be nice people who wind up doing mean things, all of us. I told Jaime that I respected her and was surprised to see that she had been included at all. She sent me a very nice letter telling me she held nothing against me. Josh, who I had liked an awful lot until he screwed me over, kept silent. Good for him. Time has made me less and less angry at him, until I hardly think of him at all. I also told Alexis I held nothing against her. I liked her. I still like her. She’s a cool cat.

I did not apologize to Mercer. He had tried to publicly humiliate me. If he had a problem with me, he should have kept the problem with me. His inclusion of others in his e-mail, as well as insulting my brother who had never talked to him in his life and probably didn’t know he existed until now, offended me deeply. The rat bastard sent me a private e-mail. I responded three times, eventually giving him what he wanted in the first place. I insulted him in the first two e-mails, I make no bones about that. Mercer had a few things he could have done here that would not have angered me to this degree. He could have responded to those by insulting me back in a private e-mail. He could have even insulted my brother in a private e-mail. I would have had a problem with that, but this wouldn’t have been written. He could have not responded at all, taken my play and done whatever the hell he wanted with it. He could have even challenged me to a fight, having insulted his honor. He could have done anything that would have made this situation about him and me. He didn’t. Mercer included others. Now, I do the same.

I gave Mercer a chance. I asked him to explain why he insulted my brother and why he made the whole situation public. He claimed that his offhanded comment about my brother’s business was not an insult. He also said that he was simply responding to my letters by including other people. These are not satisfactory to me. I don’t want him to apologize for the insults towards me. I insulted him also. I did apologize for calling him a little girl for changing his position so quickly and telling him to go to hell because those two things had nothing to do with anything. I believe that making the letter public and insulting my brother had nothing to do with anything. He did not apologize. I gave him the chance. So let’s do what he did. Let’s make this public.

You’ve read the story, and if you’d like to read the e-mails in question, e-mail me. I’ll send them to you. Here’s the contest. Each week on Wednesday accept for today, until Mercer apologizes, I will ask you guys to mail a statement to both him and myself. You can reach me at VPJG@aol.com and Mercer at MercerCren@aol.com. Send them together. The person who comes up with either the funniest or most thought-provoking statement each week will have it posted in my Wednesday column. This statement does not have to favor me. In fact, if you disagree with me and think that sending an e-mail that disagrees with me will assure you will not have your opinion posted, let me clarify. I will post either one statement that does not take a side or the best pro-Josh statement AND the best pro-Mercer statement. Both will be posted side by side. I don’t want to be unfair. I was a jerk here also, but I apologized. He was a jerk who has not apologized.

This being the first time you’ve heard the story, the statement you should write for this week is this: Should Mercer apologize for taking it public? If so, why? If not, why not? Keep in mind that I did threaten legal action against all of CAST, first to Amy and then to Mercer. Also keep in mind that I retracted this threat before he had written the letter to everyone.

All right. Let’s see if he likes it when other people take it public. His argument will be that the other members of CAST were personally involved in this. Well, I like to think that I’m personally involved with all of you. I trust you guys. Let’s make him know what happens when you take a personal conflict and make it public.

Thanks for listening to me rant and possibly for taking your valuable time to help me out. I’m Joshua Grut. I love my grandpa.