Wrestling News, Opinions, Etc. 08.27.02

Archive

It’s Friday night as I write this. Normally, I don’t start the column off this early, but I feel that I have to take advantage of the unalloyed rage that I’m feeling right now before I take my medication. I’ve come to regard these now-rare moments like an old friend I haven’t seen in a while. Well, right now, Lulu’s back in town, and there’s only one party to blame…

SOUTH-WORST

Back in January, if you remember, I relayed my complete frustration with the Airline Formerly Known As ValuJet and the continuous dicking around they did with me on flights to and from Tampa for a job interview. I thought I’d never have an airline-related experience like that again in my life. The airlines, however, seem able to tap into a new bottom to whatever barrel they store me in when I put my future into their hands.

This time, the culprit is Southwest Airlines, who successfully turned a twenty-four hour stretch of my life between Thursday night and the time I walked into my apartment into a festival of despair that even I have to appreciate on some sick, demented level. The only step down for them would have been a snuff film. Artistically brilliant display of sadism on all counts, designed to cause me the maximum amount of anxiety and mental trauma that not even a lobotomy could counter, much less the meds I’m on.

Let’s set this one up: simple flight for a job interview. Chicago Midway to St. Louis to Little Rock. Leave Chi at 7:30 PM, have about a 45-minute layover in STL, be in Little Rock at 10:30 or so. Dead simple. Not for Southwest. The 7:30 flight is cancelled. They end up putting me on the 8:30 flight, telling me that the plane will be held for me (among others) in STL. The 8:30 flight ends up taking off at 9:30. Naturally, the plane to LIT is not going to be held an extra hour. So now it’s 10:30, I’m at Lambert, and there ain’t jack shit going anywhere near LIT. The next flight there leaves at 8:45 AM. My interview in LIT is supposed to start at 8AM. Whoops. Out come the hotel voucher and mammoth amounts of apologies, and my body is telling me not to argue anymore because I’ve already been up for 21 hours and did a full day of work, and crash time is definitely approaching (no, BFM, I was not going to ring you up at 11 at night, especially in the condition I was in; besides, you were probably pissed from the Rams getting their asses handed to them by the Bolts).

Okay, my mind said to me, barely alert. I’ll call Hertz right now and change the rental car pickup to tomorrow, then call the place I’m interviewing at when I get to the airport for my 8:45 flight and tell them what’s happening. The rental car, no problem. The hotel’s courtesy bus is on the way for me. Maybe I can salvage something out of this.

Of course not. My life is an endless stream of complete misery, and I’ve only had one refreshing gulp so far.

HANGIN’ WIT’ DA BUBBAS

The courtesy bus arrives, and I grab it along with two of the other passengers who got stranded. It’s a mother and almost-pubescent son with drawls so thick they make Jeff Jarrett sound like a member of the RSC. The moment we leave the damn airport grounds, Trailer Trash Timmy starts whining and asking the driver to stop at Jack-In-The-Box. The driver recommends a few restaurants that are within walking distance of the hotel after we arrive there, but Trailer Trash Timmy wants f*cking Jack-In-The-Box, and delivers that message in quite an insistent fashion. The driver is about ready to lose it. He annoys the driver so much that he eventually takes the courtesy bus through the f*cking drive-thru at Jack-In-The-Box. Now my mind is split: I need to crash, but Trailer Trash Timmy needs to be plowed through the nearest convenient pane of glass. The only reason I restrain is the fact that Long-Suffering Mom is attempting to apologize to the driver and myself for Trailer Trash Timmy’s antics. Finally, Triple T stuffs his face full of Double Coliform and shuts up.

(Heavy-duty pimps to the crew at the DoubleTree in STL for seeing the way I looked and getting me a room ASAP. You guys were so damn great I feel guilty about stealing the shampoo and soap.)

Good night’s sleep, wake up in plenty of time, get back to Lambert quick. The De La Renta suit is flashin’, the Bill Blass shoes shinin’, the Paxil and Lamictal kickin’, and the Departures screen is reading “On Time”. One vente latte at Starbucks and something from Great American Bagel later, and I’m on the phone leaving voice mails to the HR manager at the plant. I also get a hold of my recruiter, who is not pleased at the situation and says he’s getting on the phone to the plant as well to try to mollify them a bit. I hang up the phone and grab another quick look at the Departures screen. The “On Time” has changed to “9:30”. Now I want to do to myself what I wanted to do to Trailer Trash Timmy, but the damn medications won’t let me. Another voice mail to the HR manager explaining the new situation. And guess who’s behind me in line when the plane boards? Yep, Trailer Trash Timmy and Long-Suffering Mom. Like I needed to be reminded of that.

Eventually, the goddamn plane takes off. Fuckin’ A. It also lands in Little Rock. Fuckin A again. However, we’re not allowed to get off. Seems that there’s a passenger on board who had an eentsy-weentsy medical emergency, and the EMTs have to get him off before we can deplane. At this point, I’ve just lowered my head and begun to emit low moans. Finally, I get off, get my ass to Hertz, and get behind the wheel of a slick silver Stratus, one of my favorite ways to get a Torch-style barely-connecting wrestling reference into one of these types of columns. I then proceed to get on I-30 going the wrong way. Hey, it’s been twenty years since I’ve driven through Little Rock. Look at a road map of the place sometime; there’s no goddamn reason for there to be so many interstates around one medium-sized city in directional variants that make the city planning of Frankfurt (where most of the streets were laid over old oxen trails) look sane. You could say the same about Chicago, though; there’s no rational reason for I-94 West to go north for a hundred twenty miles.

Sorry about that. Let’s get back to the story.

My 8AM interview thus begins at noon, and everyone there was happy to see me. Apparently the voice mails and the recruiter’s calls were able to spread the news about my delay. Except for one problem: the HR manager and the VP of the division I’d be hired into have already left for the day. In fact, they left to do a pre-screen on another candidate for the job I’m interviewing for. Dear God, I didn’t need to hear that. Fortunately, the rest of the interview went well, and they ponied up for grub. They also gave me a small psychological battery, the results of which I’ll share with you tomorrow since they’re eerily accurate.

Somehow, the trip back was without incident. I made it back to the Damn Vaninator totally exhausted and psychologically wrecked and pointed it home, when out of the radio comes the perfect capper to this whole thing: the voice of Ozzy growling “Mister Crowley”. If there was ever a time I wanted to have the alleged powers of said subject of song, it was at that moment. Conjuring a demon to ravage the souls of anyone who worked for Southwest would be a good starter.

A pox on all your terminals, Southwest Airlines.

If there’s anything like karma in this world, I’m going to get this f*cking job. I’d better, or else there’s some avatar of Buddah who’s going to experience some major hurt.

YOU’RE A MORON: THE WRESTLING EQUIVALENT OF PENIS ENVY

You know, with everything Southworst did to me, YAM would seem awfully redundant and mild, but, yep, another AOLuser rears his ugly head. This time, it’s Thankugod1, demonstrating that he’s obviously a new reader of my column by putting out this charge:

Your repeated references to the Rock as Flex is growing tired,

First of all, it’s “are growing tired”. Second of all, if they’re growing tired only after two and a half years of writing them, I must be doing something good.

especially since you’ve never actually giving a viable reason as to why you really don’t like him.

Wrong. I did it for Letawsky’s column back in March. Besides, why should I have to defend my views just because they happen to be in the minority? Why don’t you justify yours?

And it’s not only me. Get this one from Joe Stock, who wrote me on Monday:

I saw Rock’s reaction at Wrestlemania 18. I saw it last night. Both times he looked peeved

off. Summerslam even more so. That he even cut a heel promo off the air. But than he says he doesn’t care how the fans react, as long as they react. I think that’s BS. He seriously looked pissed they were booing, just like at Wrestlemania. I think he ego can’t take getting booed anymore. He’s had the chants of “Rocky” and all that for too long. I think he in his own mind he really believes he’s the People’s Champion and nights like Summerslam break that illusion. But it’s just a theory, I could be wrong.

You may actually be right on that one, Joe. It’s called “being a mark for yourself”. It’s why Hogan turned face the first chance he had after the NWO was finally played out. Undertweener suffers from a major case of it. It’s only become apparent recently that he’s a mark for himself. That’s why I didn’t include that in the reasons I gave Letawsky.

I haven’t read your article in weeks (months?) hoping that since then you’ve got tired of trying to garner attention (shall we say cheap heat) with your Rock hating “gimmick.” I guess not. I think you got talent, but I really just don’t buy this snick at all.

Gimmick? People who know me know better. And, please, let me remind you of something. I am the person who:

1) said that he was happy Barbara Olsen was “smeared across the Pentagon” on September 11th because she was an evil fascist bitch.

2) said that Korey Stringer’s death was suicide aided and abetted by the Vikings coaching staff.

3) has admitted to two major mental illnesses and described the effects of the medication I’m taking for them.

4) has admitted that, if not for one of those medications mentioned in #3, I would have cut a heel promo at my father’s funeral.

5) has stated that I can’t wait for my mother to die so I can get her SUV, and has called her a “castrating bitch” on top of it.

6) has advocated mixing prescription medications and alcoholic beverages.

7) has admitted to a familiarity on occasion with cannabis sativa.

8) put out a how-to guide on the subject of basic software piracy in my column, and then provided a bit of humorous hypocrisy when I threatened another website with a lawsuit for copyright violation.

9) only refers to the President of the United States by a derogatory nickname, and has claimed that he fixed the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the Kentucky Derby.

10) uses the nickname “Mad Dog” to describe the Vice President of the United States.

11) states that the Attorney General of the United States should just drop the pretense and wear his SS uniform in public.

12) stated that if Al Gore had been properly inaugurated President, September 11th wouldn’t have happened.

13) said that if had could choose only one person to die between Osama bin Laden and George Bush Sr., I would choose Bush.

Among other things.

Yet, with all that said by me in a public column, I need to draw cheap heat by calling Duane Johnson’s face character “Flex”. Oh, my. Looks like there’s another vacant seat on the Clue Train.

A “no sell fest”? That alone let me know that you really don’t believe what you are typing.

No, I believe it perfectly well. Just like I believe everything that I write. It’s called “integrity”. Look it up.

Rock sells more than ANYONE

No, he lays down for more people than any major star (and every job is well-calculated to make sure he doesn’t lose his heat), but on the way there, he either no-sells or oversells, and he did the former in the match against Trip last week.

and Triple H, believe it or not, is one of the best at selling move sets in the business,

When he chooses to.

no matter if he is the Internets whipping boy for the next few weeks

Weeks? Try at least the last year or so.

(at least until Brock wins the World, then he will be the Internets on hand bitch).

But the nature of that bitching will be “they’re pushing him too fast too soon in order to do another Goldberg”, not “he’s sleeping with the booker, so he gets his way”. Unless Heyman’s added “blond steroid freaks” to donkeys and Chinese boys on his list of preferences.

Your not believable.

My believability is much higher than your level of literacy.

Yeah, lets throw a still relatively green talent in with a disabled, rusty worker instead of the Rock/Brock & HHH/Micheals matches………yeah what ever.

Sounds like you’re describing the first match you mention.

Shyt, even some of the other columnist don’t by your routine, as I’ve gotten responses from them in emails about it.

Why the hell are you asking other columnists here about me? Don’t you have a life? And don’t the other columnists have lives? They actually answered you. Methinks, bucko, you asked the wrong columnists. Those who know me well know that it’s for real.

Like I said, you got a good idea for a column

Idea? Now you don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about. I do a news recap, along with presentations of my opinions on various and sundry. Ideas don’t enter into it unless I’m doing a concept column like the one ripped off by last week’s winner.

but damn, the constant “Flex is bad” stuff is a cry for attention much like the UnAmericans “I hate America” gimmick. Taking the easy way out.

Cry for attention? Oh, please. If it was a cry for attention, I would have ditched it a long time before I got here. And “taking the easy way out” is falling for Vince McMahon’s mind control convincing you that an inferior wrestling talent should be the biggest star in the business. I would also have to presume that you think that the chants at SumSlam were some kind of auditory hallucination, as the Lon Guyland crowd broke the chains all at once.

Here’s what I think. I think you’re coming around to my way of thinking, but you’re such a pussy that you’re terrified to come out and admit that you don’t like Flex out of complete fear that your whiteboard buddies will ostracize you. Well, guess what? There are more of us than you think, judging by my mail, and judging by those chants. You don’t have to buy the party line or be a camp follower. Just admit that you hate him and free your mind from this confusing trauma.

Then again, you could just be one of the sheep.

SUMMERSLAM FALLOUT

Crowd pops huge and I don’t think anyone could have predicted that the crowd would have turned Brock babyface tonight. – The Boss, in his SumSlam recap

Ahem…you do have a columnist here who has been publicly begging WWE to turn Flex heel for two and a half years (it wasn’t a Lesnar turn, either; they’ve been booking Lesnar as a tweener-tending-toward-face with a heel manager from the start). Let’s see if they take advantage of it. They didn’t after every other opportunity like this (Wrestlemania, for example).

Okay, so what was in the water in Lon Guyland? The right people went over in the right way on a consistent basis (although I will quibble about Latino Jesus and Our Lord and Savior jobbing on the same night…talk about WWE becoming WCW; you can’t really throw Jericho into the mix, because given the way his character’s been pushed, he had no choice but to be Flair’s bitch). The results provided good continuations for extending certain feuds that are over with the public (specifically Booker/Goldust versus the Un-Americans; ditto Undertweener and the UAs, and it was nice to see UT flash back to his old persona). All in all, it’s a positive turn in the creative direction for an organization that’s been drifting in that area for a long time, and it happily coincided with some great wrestling matches. Even the garbage wrestling was pretty good (garbage matches are always good if the men in the ring completely trust each other, as do Michaels and Trip).

(Lots of parentheticals, huh?)

Of course, what doesn’t matter here is the execution, but the follow-up. One particular bit of good booking can be flushed down the toilet by bungling the next shows. Take a look at Wrestlemania 17; well-booked, especially with the Shane/Vince stuff, but nothing was done with any of the potential situations, and we got plunged into the hell that the Invasion became. This is what I call Wade Boggs Booking Syndrome. According to first-hand accounts, Boggs was a grandmaster at using that cookie duster of his viz. cunnilingus, but when it came to the actual penetration part, he had, shall we say, a horrid average with men in scoring position.

Hey, I’ve got until the end of this week to get baseball references into this column, so what the hell. Besides, college football is cranking into gear, the pros start up soon, and I always have WilliamsFest III (otherwise known as the US Open) to fall back on. Too bad that the NEC pretty much ended the big golf tournaments until the Ryder Cup in a few weeks (and congrats to Craig Parry for finally getting that breakthrough win).

Let’s see if Act I in the follow-up worked, shall we?

THE SHORT FORM

As per usual, Keith and PK have the good stuff. I provide the crap quotient. I’m even going to go live tonight instead of sleeping/taping. Well, that was mostly due to getting caught up in Neverwinter Nights, but you still get the damn column early this way.

Match Results:

Booker T over Christian (Pinfall, scissors kick): Just for fun, I started tallying up the number of belts the two of these guys have held, and I lost count at around 30. Instead of looking the exact number up, I think I’ll have one of my idiot savant readers clue me in. It may be a record for Most Belts Held By Participants In A One-On-One Curtain Jerker, Non-Hardcore-Title Division. Nothing match, though.

Buh Buh Ray and Spike Dudley over Chris Harvard and Billy Brass Knucks (Pinfall, Buh Buh Ray pins Regal, Buh Buh Bomb): Crap wrestling to be sure, but damn entertaining booking. I don’t mind sloppy wrestling, even from good wrestlers, if the match is designed to function in that way and booked to be barely in control. Fortunately, you’ve got some good traffic managers for that sort of thing in there with Buh Buh Ray and Regal (not to mention Nick Patrick). So, yeah, fun.

Jeff Hardy over Chris Jericho (DQ, gay-bashing): This match went easily over ten minutes, and I can’t remember a damn thing about it. Normally, you’d expect a match between these two to have at least one memorable moment, but there’s nothing that stands out. A failure of execution, period.

Rob Van Dam over Tommy Dreamer, Intercontinental/Hardcore Title Merger Match (Pinfall, Five-Star Frog Splash): Well, if it really is the last Hardcore match on Raw, it went out in a little style, with two of the best practitioners of the art working all their old tricks again. The destruction of Hardcore does make sense in the fictitious Bischoffed Raw universe, though; Bisch was never one for Hardcore, despite stealing most of ECW’s roster a number of times. Well, maybe we’ll get some actual wrestling in for a change now…

Lilian Garcia over Howard Finkel, Evening Gown Versus Tuxedo Match For Raw Ring Announcer Duties (Howard was wearing red briefs): …okay, after this one then. You’ve got to give it to WWE, though; they’ve just provided a great masturbatory moment to fifteen-year-olds of all ages composed of being forcibly stripped by Lil, Trish, and My Beautiful and Beloved.

Trip over ‘Tweener, Number One Contender’s Match (Pinfall, Lesnar-ference): Well, the result did surprise me. With Kane being back and involved with the Un-Americans, I thought ‘Tweener would take this one and get into a feud with Lesnar. Little did I know what they had planned with the Bitch of the Baskervilles and her latest “power play”. Unfortunately, this will end up in a Trip/Steph feud. Hell, it always does.

Angle Developments:

Heelpalooza: The opening promo could have been interesting. But we ended up going from Heyman to Trip to Undertweener, in a sort of Ascending Scale Of Suck. Thank God it stopped with ‘Tweener, though, because we would have had to continue to Flex and then Steph. All in all, not an exciting or surprising opening to Lesnar’s title reign. For this I stopped playing NWN?

Samoa Of The Same Old Crap: You know the moment Snuka walked out, everyone watching was waiting for the words “Three Minutes”. It’s becoming boring, guys, but in order to do something with the Island Boys, the Un-Americans have to drop the belts, and they’re hot enough right now to make a case for them to hold on to them for a while longer. So maybe the status quo’s the way to go for now.

Burn, Baby, Burn: I still think that flag-burning should be considered constitutionally-protected free speech, even for green-carded Canadians. It’s a goddamn piece of cloth, people, nothing more. If the United States has to turn its flag into some kind of sacred totem to be protected at any cost, then we’re a weak nation, period. If you really want to stop flag-burning, then don’t become indignant when you see someone do it. Ignore them. When they realize that they’re not getting to you by doing that, they’ll stop.

Nothing much else going on out there, so I’ll sign out for now. I’ll be back tomorrow with, hopefully, some news, Mailbag, the results from my psychological profile, and a probable You’re A Moron. Until then, have a good one.