At its center is an enigmatic, tragicomic figure, a kind of ghost or relic of age-old ignorance. – Alexander Guchkov
Yet another ninety-year-old prophecy about the WWF comes true (if you want to know who the quote is really about, ask Hyatte).
And it’s time for me to educate the unwashed American masses yet again on the fact that Boxing Day has nothing to do with Sly Stallone. It doesn’t help when Ali opened yesterday (great film, from what I’ve heard, and I’m not a Will Smith fan). Hope all of you had an enjoyable holiday yesterday, and Happy Kwanzaa to our African-American readers. Me, I’ll spend this day reading Two (Harry) Turtledoves and watching a DVD.
This is one of those days when you wonder why you’re doing a column. The WWF’s not on until after the New Year, no SD to report on, and no one’s comped me for the XWF show in Milwaukee (What, pay for it? I’m an Internet Wrestling Personality, dammit! ‘Tis the season to give me the perks that I’m due!). However, I think I can use the time and space constructively.
THE VERY SHORT PIMP SECTION
Only one person other than me is sick enough to post anything on Christmas, and that’s Nason with a look-back review of Goldberg’s book, which, as he said, can be found on remainder shelves at your local good bookstore.
THAT WACKY CNN.COM
Actual link header from their front page on Tuesday: “Israel to lift Jericho blockade”…oh, sorry, I thought that this was The Torch, who’ll mention everything that sounds like a WWF reference. Again, sorry for that.
IN MEMORIAM
Harvey Martin, one of the greatest defensive ends of all time, passed away at the age of 51 on Monday night of pancreatic cancer. He was your typical member of the Cowboys in the fact that he was a boozer, a drug addict, and violent. However, his recovery was inspirational and his play was awesome. Another example of a great football player who died way too young.
IN THE ABSENCE OF NEWS…
Since there really is no news today, even of the world variety, I thought I’d do an explanatory column. I use a lot of nicknames in my column, and a lot of them date back nearly two years. Since my tenure at 411 has been rather short, I seem to forget that a lot of new people are reading me this week and asking “What is he talking about?” So I thought I’d explain some of those nicknames and where I got them. Let’s start off with the most common:
Flex: Most of you know that when I use this name, I am talking about the character portrayed by Duane Johnson on WWF television. Actually, Flex is the name I use for Mister Johnson’s face character; The Rock is the heel character, and I will revert to using that when he is finally turned heel again. It’s a long, long, long, involved story of why I feel the way I do about him, too long to explain even in one of my columns. Let’s just say that my hatred of him is over two years old now and leave it be.
One gentleman, Sek by name, wrote an entire column on his website about my use of this nickname, wondering why I called him by his USWA nickname (and wondering whether I’d call Glen Jacobs “Unabomb” instead of “Kane”) and claiming that I was “jumping on the hate-Rock bandwagon”. He hadn’t been reading me for long, and jumped to a lot of wrong conclusions. I informed Mister Sek that I wasn’t bandwagon-jumping; in fact, one might say that I’m the driver of the bandwagon (a view which a lot of people claim). As for the name itself…
The way this came about was out of desperation. I had already used up all of the synonyms for Satan and gone through all of the archdemons of Hell. It was getting to be a real struggle to find some pseudonym every week that would avoid using the name of the heel character. So I decided to settle on something that would be insulting yet instantly identifiable. I thus turned to the existence of Flex Kavana for comfort. I thought that “Flex” would be the most insulting thing I could call him without verging into obscenity. Thanks to my loyal fans, the use is starting to become common, and God bless you all for that.
Chester the Molester: Bob Ryder. On the night Russo and Bischoff came back to WCW, WCW Live had its first Real Video broadcast in addition to its normal Real Audio. I was watching it while chatting with fellow former Shooters staffer Brad Lavender. As the broadcast came on, I caught a look at Bob. His general look and outfit struck me as very familiar. I then realized where I saw it. I said to Brad, “Oh, my God, he looks like Chester the Molester!” Bob did bear a striking resemblance to Hustler’s famous cartoon character, and a nickname was born.
Milord: Dave Scherer. Last year, New Jack was facing Grimes on an ECW PPV. New Jack blew his trademark balcony dive and seriously injured himself during that match. After that match, everyone was blaming New Jack for screwing up the dive or Heyman and the booking crew for having him do it in the first place. Not Scherer. He wrote an essay at 1wrestling the next day saying that the people to blame for New Jack’s injury were…ECW fans. Pleasing that bloodthirsty lot was the reason why New Jack kept doing those asinine stunts and why the poor guy got hurt. Of course, when Scherer wrote that, he didn’t bother to inform everyone of the fact that he was Joey Styles’ business partner, or of the fact that he was the middleman that got his pal Bob Ryder the job of running and maintaining ECW’s official website (and Bob owned the domain). It was more important for Scherer to cover for the ECW front office than for looking at who really was to blame, and he did so in a condescending fashion that masqueraded as impartial opinion. That attitude was pure noblesse oblige. Because of the noblesse part of that, I decided to refer to him as “Milord”.
The Gooney Bird: Rick Scaia. The Faust to CBS’s Mephistopheles. He sold his soul and his balls for that slot at Wrestleline. He was as critical as they came back during the News From Dayton and Wrestlemaniacs days, but immediately became the Pod Person we know so well when Wrestleline came about, wanting to please everyone by being a complete suckup and goony optimist. The goony optimist part led, naturally, to the Gooney Bird, and his mating call was “Thumbs In The Middle”.
I hope that catches people up. Now when I use one of those, you know who I’m talking about.
A VERY SHORT MAILBAG
Not a lot of mail this week due to the holiday, so I’ll just get through it PDQ…
The famous “Mark” from last week (again, name, not status) writes again:
Finally found someone more miserable than me. It took an eight months pregnant wife to avoid the guilt trip to my parents. I still got to enjoy opening crap from my siblings that I don’t want. Woo f’n hoo, more trinkets for the guy who’s impossible to buy for. One unrelated question; why can’t I get some Looney Toons DVD’s that don’t have MJ on them?
That’s why people know just to give me cash. I’m really impossible to buy for, so I might as well just buy on my own. As for Looney Toons DVDs, same answer as good technical wrestling: Japan. They’re starting to come out here, though.
Seems that someone got a little sensitive over a throwaway joke again. That someone this week would be AOLuser Danny Mahaffey, who’s bitched at me before. He says:
…and now you’re back to being an idiot again. And, even though you tried to say that you, too, are a wrestling fan, you make comments like this: [In regards to Mae Young’s crotch.] “…oh, that’s right, I’m talking to wrestling fans. Very few of you probably have seen one of those up close.” So, either you’re bagging on yourself (in your atypically moronic fashion) or you’re saying that you’re not a wrestling fan.
Thus telling me two things about you: 1) You’re a virgin yourself and 2) You’re insecure about it. Too bad for you. Just because I hit you in your continually-priapic-yet-unrelieved sensitive spot is no reason to charge me with not being a fan. Have you ever heard of the concept of the self-referential joke? I wasn’t joking on wrestling fans, I was joking on the perception of people who aren’t wrestling fans of wrestling fans being pimply-faced virginal geeks. And you have the nerve to tell me later in your letter that “it’s all a big joke”. The only joke around here is you. Don’t write me again, flamebait.
And then there’s the Letter Of The Week, a.k.a. Justification For Retroactive Abortion, from Steven Cohen (and this is verbatim):
happy holiday I hope you will find some info you can pass on too us about the great wrestler hyabusa I probably mispelled his name……we had read that he had a horrible accident in the ring and have not seen a follow up since….we are very saddened by this!!!!
I wrote about Hayabusa when he was tragically injured in the ring and did follow up (on 10/23 and 10/24, when I even gave a get-well-card address). So far, we have no other news on him, otherwise I would have reported it (if not me, then Grut or Flea). If you want Japanese news, though, the best place is my pal Zach Arnold’s Puroresu Power. And you (plural?) may be the only people saddened by it, since I received a lot of negative feedback on Hayabusa. People were telling me they were actually glad he was seriously injured. Hey, folks, I’m not the only callous bastard out there.
We hope this year another federation will have some success….it is very bad for fans and wrestlers too that there is only one federation the wwf cornering the market…..we miss ecw….heck we even miss…..wcw…..well at least the idea of wcw.
There probably won’t be this year. If XWF and WWA actually survive 2002 (doubtful for both), it’ll take at least a few years more before they become competitive. And then they’d have to not fall on their faces like ECW did.
The ecw had more exciting matchs than the ones we see on wwf…..even the matches with it’s lesser lights like the fbi and dorring and roadkill not to mention jerry lynn and rob and sabu.
ECW had more exciting matches because people were out there committing acts of near-suicide. It was “exciting” because of the danger factor, not because the wrestling itself was more exciting. It was “exciting” because it was different. Now the WWF has coopted ECW’s strategy and made it family-friendly. And referring to the fed as “the ECW” is so moronic that I don’t know where to start in on it.
we are sick to our guts of the wwf and its misuse of its talent……especially molly,jerry lynn,tazz,spike and many others. we hope the new year brings a challenger to wwf if not we see wrestling lose much of its popularity. heck i just r3emembered glow we miss that federation too the had great lady wrestlers and put on a great show and we miss madusa very much cause she was great!!!!!!!!
Wrestling has already lost all of its transient popularity. The WWF’s ratings are now down to its core audience of 4.0. And as for you liking GLOW and missing Ol’ Horseface Madusa…oh, my God. It takes all kinds, I guess.
Trish Stratus arrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! what a no talent…….stacy kiebler….uggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!less than a no talent!!!!
Agreed on Stratus, but the remarks made about my Beautiful and Beloved…you’ll die for those, you know that.
That’s it for me this week. Next week, I’ll do the smart thing and stay off the streets on New Years’ Eve. The side effect of this is that I can cover the WWF’s year-end Best Of show (Best of 2001: a contradiction in itself) and get in a column for you. Have a great week, and tune into Grut tomorrow. Until then, bye bye.
About Eric Szulczewski
