One-Hour Special again, I’m afraid. Let’s see what’s out there that I can comment on…
THE PIMP SECTION
Rivett defends Lance Storm’s comments. The effectiveness of a heel is always dependent on him being able to touch sore spots in the audience. Given the sensitivity of Americans to anti-American comments at this point in time, I’d say Lance is being very effective.
Daniels, as always, turns in another good recap on the Week That Was.
YOU’RE A MORON: YET ANOTHER VICTIM RESPONDS
Yep, Fred Carlton, who got canned from his position because he dared to rip me off, decides to enter the lion’s den:
Don’t screw with you, it can be very painful? Filth.
Who’s covered with filth right now?
Seriously though, plaguerism?
No, “plagiarism”. Of course, you wouldn’t know how to spell because you don’t know how to write your own material.
You’re not some “hard hitting” journalist writing for a high profile newspaper. You’re an internet wrestling columnist.
Theft is theft, whether you’re stealing from a mansion or a crack house.
I find it pathetic when people like you have false pretences of their own worth. I mean, face facts.. you’re a mentally ill loner who gets unsually intense pleasure through showcasing his gramatic prowess. Sad.
Well, duh. How long did it take for you to figure that out? The difference between you and me is that I publicly admit it.
And your “piece” on Buff was mundane to say the least.. which is the exact reason I ripped it off.
And you can’t even use an ellipsis correctly. Look, idiot, you ripped me off. That’s the issue here, not the alleged quality of the material.
Readers saw me as a “heel”, if you will, at TWNP.. so they made a point of flaming my columns.
I’ve read some of your other columns while over there. They were flaming you because, as a writer, you’re a complete piece of shit.
I copied your bit to see if the readers honestly didn’t like what I wrote, or whether they were just playing to my “gimmick” (or whatever you want to call it).
So now you’re trying to justify it. Oh, you are so full of shit it dribbles out of your ears. How about sticking to the facts: you cut and pasted my material and submitted it to another site as your own work. Material, by the way, that is under copyright. That, Seymour, is not only morally wrong, but against the law.
(For some unknown reason, 411 fans seem to enjoy your efforts.)
Big-time. I get more hits per week than the site you work for gets in a month.
You’ll be glad to know that I received only 3 responses after posting the Buff thing..
One said – “That sucked ass.”
The other said – “i wish you would f*cking die you asshole”
And the other said – “if ur going to write about wrestling then atleast do a decent job of it.”
Twat.
Thus showing that readers of your site, like certain people who write for them, have no class. Certainly they have no concept of grammar or spelling. Too bad they’ll be spared your efforts in the future. You deserve each other. Of course, when your readers include such stellar representatives of the IWC as Marco the Moron (whose entire missive to me, signed, “Marco, TWPR”, reads as follows: Don’t worry you are not mentally ill. You are a fag. So, make sure you swallow & take it the ass like the bitch you are! Have fun w/your shrinks wanker! Hoe! You are my bitch!), maybe you don’t. Not even I’m cruel enough to wish either side on the other.
SMACKDOWN SOMEWHAT SPOILED
Courtesy of Rajah, as usual.
Gee, Matt Hardy really did show up on SD. What a real freakin’ surprise. I still want to know the answer to my question from yesterday, namely since Lita is valet for wrestlers on both shows, does she get to show up on both? Or as an in-ring wrestler (albeit one out with an injury), is she stuck on Raw?
Kurt Angle: a former top-carder, former champion on all levels, now reduced to matches with Mark Henry. You know, I’m only human. There are situations that actually do make me feel pity for another person.
This week’s Stinkface victim is Paul Heyman…you know, I’ve been mulling the jokes around inside my head, and it’s such a well-worn path that I’d rather take Robert Frost’s advice and go down the Road Not Taken. So how’s this? “He won’t mind too much, because he’s had his head up his own ass since 1998”, or perhaps “Now he really knows what Rob Van Dam went through”? Not satisfying, but not a retread gay joke.
Funaki gets a pinfall on Epilepsy and almost gets to third base! That alone should be reason enough to watch.
Eddy and Chavo teaming up again! That alone should be reason enough to watch.
Flex goes over Our Lord and Savior. Click.
GOLDBERG’S BACK, AND JAPAN’S GOT HIM
Who cares? I mean, who really cares? When Scott Hall went to Japan, it was an interesting story because the guy was trying to beat substance abuse problems and trying to get back to making a living doing what he does after hitting the bottom of the barrel (little did we know that Hall’s barrel seems to have an infinite number of bottoms). This is…well, nothing. It’ll be met with indifference by North American fans, and the puro fans are probably up in arms thinking of the possibility that a high-level Japanese star may have to job to Goldberg. Tempest, meet teapot. Let’s move on…
JOURNALISM IN THE IWC REDUX, AND WWE SPINS
I’d rather not go over the nuts and bolts of the Austin charges. Debra filed, Steve’s in the slammer, period. It’s not really a developing story. However, the major hard news sites are taking a rather different approach to reporting the story.
Every site is looking at wwe.com’s blurb and reprinting that. All except one: the Torch. They brought out an interesting fact that WWE didn’t bother to mention. Austin turned himself in to police. There’s a different mental picture imparted with the terms “arrested” and “turned himself in”. “Arrested” implies that the cops had to go out and haul some guy in. It’s a scene from Cops, the guilty lawbreaker having to be taken against his will to enter the criminal justice process. “Turned himself in”, though, definitely says that the person charged has respect for the law and is willing to face the consequences of his actions. It’s a much better mental picture than “arrested” gives of someone.
So, is this negligence on WWE’s part or actual conspiracy to make a former employee look bad? I’d say negligence. What was happening, obviously, was that Debra filed the charges, Austin turned himself in, the cops tipped off the news media (as happens every time a celebrity gets busted), and the news media started burning up the phones to Stamford, totally clueless that Austin is no longer working for WWE (these are, of course, the same media people who think that Hulk Hogan has had an uninterrupted run in WWE). WWE had to put out a quick statement to the press to stop the phone calls, and also put that statement up on the website. From there it promulgated.
The problem with the statement was the use of the word “arrested”. Technically, Austin was “booked on charges”, not “arrested”, since he’d turned himself in. Guess that a wrestling promotion’s site can’t use the word “booked”, huh? Only the Torch went the step beyond the WWE press release and put up the mainstream coverage, which let us in on the fact that Austin had turned himself in.
This whole situation gives justification to Scaia’s infamous rant about IWC members not being “real journalists” (although there are certainly real journalists working in the IWC). This condition has a simple cause: the majority of us don’t have sources that can get news to us, so we’re limited to a certain number of outlets that actually do have those sources. Also, most of the people writing for wrestling websites are untrained in the art of research. If we can’t get what we want in one click, forget it, too much work. It’s utterly bizarre that we have the greatest repository of information in history at our fingertips, and we’re unwilling or, by lack of training, unable to utilize it effectively. Of course, we can all come up with excuses for why this is so (real job, a life outside of a keyboard, etc.), but it doesn’t change the situation. Writers for wrestling websites like having pre-digested news items available at well-known locations. It makes their job easier. Let the pros do the heavy lifting; that’s part of their training and inclination.
This is why op-ed dominates wrestling websites. If we can’t go out and get the news, we can certainly comment on it. Some of us, of course, have a literary inclination and can comment on it better than others. The point is, whether it may be shallow or deep, our opinions are our own, and if you have the ability to express them from a knowledgable viewpoint and in a way that makes readers want to keep coming back, you are as valid in the journalistic tradition as a hard news reporter. However, it does not make you a hard news reporter. The hallmark of a hard news reporter is the ability to communicate all necessary information to a story in as short a space as possible, providing clarity to a situation and the background to understand it, and the ability to obtain all that necessary information. If people skimp on the research, it’s like riding a unicycle: it’ll get you there, but it’d be a helluva lot more comfortable if the other half of the bike was present.
Well, that’ll be it for me this week. Grut takes you in, Ashish and Flea steal your weekend, and Hyatte caps everything off. Read the columns here; they’re great examples of op-ed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to do eleven more hours at the place that makes me unable to develop sources or do research. And that’s not opinion.
About Eric Szulczewski
