Okay, I wrote something very serious the other day. Now I’m going to try to be funny until the bottom, where I respond to the overwhelming response to my article. Really, my whelm is over flowing because of the response. Anyway, I’m going to make some jokes about Steve Williams and his situation, because that’s what I do. That’s what you’ve pretty much come to expect from me. I’m still the same guy I was before I wrote the article.
NWA SUCKS DONKEY! JOSHUA GRUT SCRAMBLEVISION EXCLUSIVE
Well, I have PPV scramblevision, so let’s give this crap a listen to, shall we?
The crowd sounds dead. The announcers explain what’s going on. It sounds kind of borning.
They call out Harley Race to little crowd response. Here comes Dory Funk Jr. Here comes Jackie Fargo. I never heard of him. Never. I’m sure I’ll get bitched at for that. Billy Armstrong comes out and kills himself to keep with family tradition. Three more people come out. Never heard of them. Ricky Steamboat actually gets a half hearted response from the audience. I can’t quite make out the audience. I bet it’s none too impressive. Ricky thanks the entire audience for watching the show tonight. Both of us. He pimps the NWA belt, saying that to become the NWA champion is the ultimate goal of every wrestler Vince passed on. Steamboat is going to be the referee in the final match. Here comes Jeff Jarrett. He calls the battle royal stupid. He says this is the biggest joke of an NWA title ever. Jackie Fargo interrupts and speaks Jeff Hardy to Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett will be the first man in the battle royal. Ken Shamrock tell Jeff Jarrett that Ken Shamrock eats where ever he wants or something. Here comes Scott Hall. Hey yo. Scott Hall will win the title. Everybody says that the battle royal sucks. This is odd. So far, 10 minutes and no wrestling. WHEN DOES THE ACTION STOP?
A chick is with a midget.
Here come the Indy’s! Jerry Lynn, Lo Ki and AJ Styles come out. They work in the X division. I guess that means they’re going to kill each other. 3 foreigners come out as The Flying Elvises. The Indy’s offer a handshake, but the Elvises attack. Man, this must be like a Ring of Honor show set on stupid! Wow, listen to that crowd! No really, listen to them. You can make out individual conversation. The announcers are honestly the loudest people there. I’m usually not a fan of piped in cheers, but they can use them here. It sounds like a lot of exciting stuff is going. Estrada and Lo Ki are currently in. This is what they promised us, non stop action and all that. Apparently a great move by Styles. The fans kind of popped for Lynn’s cradle power driver. Something happened, and the Elvises win.
There are women dancing in cages.
The crowd likes the midgets. They give the midgets generic music. Tio and Hollywood. Sounds like a buddy cop movie. The crowd is enjoying this more then anything else so far. The crowd is counting along with a 10 punch thing. You know, the whole show is taking on a vaudeville feel to it. Midgets and dancing ladies and Elvises. My God, could the whole wrestling business be based on Vaudville? I think it could. Now the crowd is out of it again. The announcers say that this is not something we’ll see every day. I’m just not seeing it. Oh. It’s over. Tio wins. Oh. Teo.
There are women dancing in cages. The have been unjustly imprisoned. We must liberate them!
Doe Ed Ferrerrarraerra have dread locks? I thought tonight was the ten woman battle royal? There’s Daffney. They have a professional cheerleader. Next week will be the battle royal, because the schedule is completely full tonight. Hey, between the midgets and these women talking and the dancing girls in the cages, it’s the tightest 2 hours on television. Francine plays the heel. Wow! THIS ACTION WILL NEVER, EVER STOP!
The cruel masters force the girls to dance in their cells.
Mortimer Plumbtree goes all Raven on us. Here comes the Johnsons. They look to be wearing dick costumes. I can’t say for sure. Psiscosiose and Power Boy James George come out. Or was that cowboy? I don’t care. You can honestly hear a pin drop in that place. Then they start clapping for some reason and stop. It seems like the Johnson’s are going to do a dickish Killer Bees act. Shamrock’s sister comes out and watches the match. This is so f*cking stupid. Really. Psicoaseies is in trouble in the corner. God, I need beer money. The chick is apparently influencing the ref. The finishing move was called the finishing move. Why not call it the big Johnson or something. The ref and the girl exchange money.
Some backstage thing. I have no idea what is going on.
Nascar people come out. They get the biggest pop of the night. Sterling is being interviewed about his race. THIS ACTION WILL NEVER END! Hey, it’s K-Krush! You know him better as K-Kwik. I’ll call him K-Log. K-Log is showing some personality. A Nascar driver insults K-Log for dressing like a black person or something. Brian Lawler or Christopher, depending on which announcer you listen to, comes out and beats up K-Log. Brian Christopher says your kind and my kind when cutting a promo on K-Log. Hey, more matches being set up for next week! I guess neither of them will win the battle royal.
Women dance in cages for their alien overlord masters.
Jeff Jarrett and that Fargo guy do something together. I hope it was sanitary.
York and Mathews come out. Fluff brings out the Duffs, a hick team who are apparently incestual. The Duffs double team Mathews. This entire evening seems to be an exercise in futility so far. I’m going to the bathroom. You’ll live. I’m back. Who saw any of this as a good idea? I mean, someone had to. Fluff interferes and the Duffs win.
Dance, imprisoned wenches! Dance!
Toby Keith video. Did he no show? Nope. The video was just to whet our appetite for the main course! Toby Keith loves America. He now has a major enemy in Eric S. The imagery is just incredible. I can see the Statue of Liberty shaking her fist and a bald eagle poop. This song is basically about how we’re going to blow up every country who f*cks with us. “We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way.†Jeff Jarrett interrupted the song, cause it’s time to start the main event and Jeff Jarrett hates America. Then Jeff steals Bob Holly’s catch phrase.
HEAVYWEIGHT INSANITY! 90 seconds between each competitor and all that. Jarrett is 1. Bagwell is number two. Ugh. Bagwell was booted quickly. Here comes Lash Leroux. I guess this is to establish Jarrett as incredible, cause he just punked out Lash without much trouble. Here comes Norman, and he gets as loud a pop as anyone. 54 minutes and 18 people still in this thing. Big Wiggle, but Stroke for Norman. Norman is eliminated. Here comes Apollo. Never heard of him. Apollo survives the awesome Jeff Jarrett. K-Log enters and attacks Apollo. The announcers are selling Jarrett lasting the whole time. He’s been in for 8 minutes. Here comes Slash. I think that’s the headbanger, right? Here comes a body building champion. MY GOD! NON STOP! Here comes Justice. Does that mean that he’s going to take the show off the air? Here comes Konan. Ariba la razza and all of that. Here comes Joel Gertner who introduces Bruce. Is that Lodi? I guess not. Here comes Rick Steiner. Nobody has been eliminated since Norman. Rick eliminates two people. I think one was Justice. Here comes Malice. Malice is doing the chokeslam every one routine. So much for Bruce, K-Krush, Konan and the body building Champion. Malice also gets rid of Rick Steiner. It’s down to Apollo, Jeff Jarrett and Malice. Here comes Scott Hall. Razor’s Edge on Jarrett. Toby Keith enters and suplexes Jeff Jarrett. Scott Hall eliminates Jarrett. Here’s Chris Harris. Who? Here’s Gangrel. You know, I don’t know what’s what with these rules. I don’t care. Jeff Jarrett, the company’s only star, has a major feud with a country music star. Here come Steve Corino, my old friend. Here comes Ken Shamrock. Is he the last guy? Nope, Brian Christopher is. OH MY GOD! Brian entered the ring with what appeared to be a marijuana cigarette. Lots of people are being eliminated. Malice, Christopher, Shamrock, Hall and Apollo are left. So much for Christopher and Apollo. So much for Hall. So your main event for your first pay per view is Malice and Ken Shamrock. 25 minutes left. I said it a few weeks ago in my report, No Name vs. Has Been. Shamrock with a bunch of submission moves. Malice keeps reaching the ropes. Shamrock hits a belly to belly with 20 minutes left in the program to win the title.
Backstage, Toby Keith wants Jeff Jarrett. Jeff wants Toby. Jeff comes to the ring. Jackie Fargo and Toby Keith come out. Scott Hall and Jarrett have a match next week. With 17 minutes until 10, they scream that they’re out of time.
Really, best of luck to all involved. See you on the breadline soon enough.
EXCLUSIVE 411 SMACKDOWN PREVIEW!!!
Angle says what we all think about Hogan.
Rikishi fights Christian to blow off the long feud.
SPOILER!!! Triple H says that he is the game and that damn good.
Billy and Jaime have a number one contender match. How come the other girls are already wrestling and Nidia is acting?
Billy Gunn faces Triple H. Then Billy turns around. Get it? Then he’s not facing Triple H anymore! HAHAHA!
I am the funniest man on the internet.
The King of the Ring matches happen. Chris should have agreed to the terms of the bet. Too late now.
Angle and Undertaker have themselves a non title party. They invite two friends, Hogan and Hunter. Chaos ensues, and the universe implodes. And that’s Smackdown!
JUNK NEWS! HUZZAH!
First off, an apology to Steve Austin. It turns out that he did not actually beat Debra, making me look like an angry idiot. Vince McMahon gave me my first clue when he said that Steve Austin took the ball and went home. Police revealed today that Austin used that very ball to play dodge ball with Debra. She apparently lost.
Debra refused to press charges, and thus Steve is not considered a fugitive. Debra said with a laugh that it was nothing and it would all blow over in a statement she gave from the crawl space in the attic in a hushed whisper over a cell phone.
Extra did a story on Austin attacking his wife. Go read it. Read it and tell me he didn’t do it.
Austin returned home and was followed by a news helicopter. He was seen with an open beer in his car and gave the finger to the helicopter. It sounds like everything’s going to be all right!
Confidential did a disappointing rating of a 1.2. Raw did a disappointing rating of a 3.9. Together, they did an awesome rating of a 5.1!
Bubba Ray Dudley lost his mother and was not at RAW. The WWE creative team scrambled to find a replacement for him in the mixed tag match. Wait, that’s pulled a name out of a hat, not scrambled.
The XWF has almost reached a television agreement with either Fox Sports Network or WGN. Both networks would make the XWF pay to have their shows aired. Well, you have to spend money to make crap.
The WWE commercial turned out to be bull when the firing of Lance Storm threw the entire script out of whack.
I’ve already written about the NWA above, but I would once again like to predict total failure and an apathetic audience.
PEOPLE WRITE TO ME! (mostly to join my internet wrestling reader/writer lynch mob.)
First off, could you imagine 100 internet wrestling fans walking down the streets of Texas, looking for a professional wrestler to beat up? Gary Larson would have a field day with this.
Well, there’s a reason you never saw a straight opinion piece from me before. I tend to get pretty passionate about these things. So passionate that I now have a pretty big mob ready to go down and attack Steve Austin if there is an incident where he hits Debra again. Then there’s another group who thinks that I’m absolutely in the wrong, a mindless idiot of a vigilante with no respect for the constitution. Then, there’s this guy.
“Dear Joshua,
I’ve just read the piece in the subject line and I have to say two things.
Firstly, I want to congratulate you on a piece of writing so effective that I’ve actually been moved to contact you. I was chilled, surprised, shocked…and deeply affected. Part of me wants to sign up now and go stomp the redneck with you.
Assuming, that is, I can get the air fare together.
So on that front, congratulations. I’ve no doubt you’ll get quite a few flames from people and quite a few more mails agreeing wholeheartedly with everything you said.
We both know what Steve Williams has done is wrong. I would not, could not, make a case for saying that assaulting a woman is in any way a manly thing to do. And I’m not going to attempt to apologize for Steve Williams.
So what am I saying?
I’m saying I think I know why it happened. And I’m saying that as heroic, as correct, as right as your intentions are…they are knee-jerk.Well, hell, we’re all human. We all know what you should do when someone beats on their wife.
But they do say that you should never judge someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes.
Nobody in the world understands Steve Williams right now. Nobody has even the vaguest idea where his head is. But let’s take a brief look at where it might be.
Stone Cold Steve Austin is a hero. Despite anything he does, SCSA still gets adoration from the crowd when he flips them the finger. SCSA can solve any and all of his problems by calling someone out and putting them in the ring, knowing that he’s free to beat the heck out of them. At the very worst, it might look like he’s going down…but sooner or later it’ll be a kick to the mid-section, stunner and beers to celebrate with.
Steve Williams is just a wrestler. He’s just a guy. He’s no better at solving problems than the rest of us and he has the added burden of being Stone Cold Steve Austin at the same time. Steve Williams can’t deal with
all the stress in his life the same way Stone Cold can. In fact, Steve Williams has all of his life’s trials and tribulations to cope with plus those of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Yes, he’s a wealthy man. Yes, he has a
job many of us would happily kill to have. Yes, there are compensations for being two people.
But who does Steve Williams turn to when things are falling apart?
The ratings are down. Last time they were down, Stone Cold stepped up and turned things around. He did what maybe no one else could do. At about the same time, Steve Williams went through hell. His wife and kids left him. I’ll bet all kinds of other stuff happened too. He’s seen some of his friends leave the WWE under less than ideal circumstances. Maybe he, at some point, actually had some ideas that might have helped the WWE out of it’s slump.
But hey. Steve Williams is just a wrestler. Unless you’re an internet writer. Or a fan who doesn’t think that the WWE can cut it any more. Or his boss. How do you think it feels to know that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, someone somewhere is constantly critical of what you’re doing? All those comments that other writers made about how much the Austin/Flair angle sucked. About how the WWE was rehashing the Stone Cold vs Management angle yet again…
After a while, it must seem like there’s nothing you can do that is right. There’s nowhere to go, and when you talk to your buddy about it he listens and makes all the right noises…and nothing changes. So you talk
again. And again nothing changes. Why aren’t they listening? Well..maybe it’s time to step back a little. Except you can’t. The Rock is gone, so the company doesn’t have a top face right now and you’re the guy they turn to when the ratings need a boost…and you can’t really take time off because it’s all booked up and you have to be in a dozen cities in the next month or so.
And there’s more. Things aren’t going so well at home. Steve Williams doesn’t know why. He’s the same guy he always was. But talking to Debra just isn’t like it used to be. She doesn’t understand. Hell, no one
understands and maybe you just need to get away for a while, just get gone and get your head straight but no one will let you and now there’s this god awful storyline that’s going to BURY you and no one else can see it and…
I know this, because something not entirely dis-similar happened to me a while back. If you don’t get a handle on it, you wind up in a situation that doctors like to call a “breakdown”.Been there. Done that. If you want a really bad night’s sleep, mail me about some of the things I thought I saw at the time.
From what I can tell, from the comments made by Jim Ross and Vince and Steve’s behavior post walk-out, it seems likely that he’s flipped out. He may have flipped out for good. The frustration that builds up when you are convinced that your world is crumbling around your ears is so complete that you cannot understand what other people are telling you. And when you can’t communicate with people…and when they cannot talk to you…bad things happen. Scary things. Things that you, a a normal person, would never
ever EVER do…but that happen anyway because “you” aren’t there any more.
If you know what that’s like then you have my sympathy. If you don’t, I pray you never find out.
It would not surprise me to learn that, in the next few days, Steve Williams checks into a hospital. It would also not surprise me if he did something awful to himself.
Wrestling has had so many victims this year. Let’s not forget that Steve Williams is now one of them.
And let’s not have that knee jerk so hard that it blinds us to what else might be going on in the background.
Now that’s done…thanks again for writing your article. It needed saying, because I think so many of us were thinking it. Please keep up the quality work. You know, I don’t think (with the possible exception of Dog Ape and Man – and even that had it’s moments) I’ve disliked anything you’ve written. That’s a hell of a work record.
Sincerely,
David Webb.â€Â
And then there was this lady.
“Grut,
I won’t bore you with the whole sordid story, but I was almost killed by an abusive man.
I’m so in.â€Â
I hope Steve gets the help he needs. I hope I never have to find a way to get down to Texas to try to beat up someone who entertained me for the past 6 years. I just don’t want to turn my head and say it’s none of my business. To every male reading this, when a man hits a woman and you know about it, it becomes your business. When you do nothing and then something terrible happens, it becomes partially your fault. We know about this, and we can say that if it happens again, we’ll do something about it. If you know someone in an abusive relationship who refuses to call the police, I hope you make a similar warning to the person. We are decent people, and I hope we can all do the decent thing.
By the way, not that I think you’re stupid but I got a letter like this, if Bubba puts Trish through a table or John beats up Carol at the end of Oleanna, obviously it’s not the same thing. Also, there are people who have beaten women who have gotten the help the need, so don’t immediately attack the guy as soon as you hear about it. Give him a chance to get help, but let him know you will stand up for her if it happens again. It’s just the decent thing to do.
We need to find the proper balance between being good people and giving people their privacy. Let’s do it. Thanks for reading. Enjoy Ashyaski.
