The Weekend Hotline News Report 02.01.03

Archive

After having quite a disgusting week at work this week, expect this column to be a little more bitter than usual. My positive outlook for the week has been shot to hell because of the web hosting company who handles the servers for the company I work for.

Basically, some idiot that works (or hopefully workED) for them kicked the breaker on our servers and the “redundant power” they promise didn’t kick in. So our servers crashed harder than JFK Jr’s plane. Not so bad, but it took most of our file server with it so I spent much of the week communicating on the phone and over e-mail with clients and telling them everything was just fine. Wonderful stuff. So, anyone in Upstate, watch out giving your hosting dollars to the hosting company with the same name as a real estate company and that’s all I’ll say about that.

The weigh in happened on Tuesday after a weekend of birthday and superbowl drinking, I’m happy to report nothing went back on. While I didn’t take anything OFF either, I didn’t put anything back on so I’m happy with that. The post week weigh in recorded a loss of another 1 pound. At this rate, I will have reached goal number one in two weeks to be under 230 again. If it just stays this easy

I would comment on the State of the Union address, but I didn’t see it, although I did see the drinking game. Once again, I will say I’ve agreed with W’s tactics on just about everything right down the line. I was happy to hear he actually outlined the tax cuts that each income bracket will be getting and how he described exactly what a household that makes $40000/year would get. See the difference between Congressional Liberals and the rest of us, is they consider $40k/year as part of the “wealthy.” So, when they say the tax cut only benefits the wealthy, consider the numbers they’re talking about.

Now, I haven’t decided what I think about the dividend tax, but I do understand what W is saying that it’s double taxation. Basically, a corporation’s profits are taxed by the government. Then, out of those profits, they pay dividends. Now, their shareholders get those dividends, but then have to claim them as income so the government gets a second piece. By the time you get any benefit from it, the .000000172% of the company’s profits the shareholder gets are then taxed by 50%, so in the end, the shareholder nets about 32 cents on his investment. I think the thing that almost puts me entirely on Bush’s side with this is the fact the Congressional Democrats talk about the Dividend Tax like they’d be giving American’s a gift if they even considered cutting it a little. Hey douchebags, it’s OUR money, remember. I think that’s the thing that bothers me most about Congress when they talk about tax dollars like it’s theirs and it’s something they worked for and any tax cuts (or tax lack-of-increases, for you Liberals out there) are a gift.

As for Iraq, I was and will be for blowing them back to the Stone Age. Because, I don’t fear the superpower with a stockpile of nuclear weapons. I fear the lunatic with ONE. However, while I can listen to the argument that there are a lot of people in Iraq don’t deserve to die because Saddam is a lunatic there’s also a lot of people in the United States who don’t deserve to die because Saddam is a lunatic. And as much as Serj Tanakian, Tom Morello, and anyone else say it’s over oil whatever. Your stance falls apart if you own more than one car that isn’t an oil/gas hybrid or if your house is heated by Gas. And, as Flea said, of course it’s partially about oil but it’s also having a smallpox virus dumped into San Franscisco’s water supply. Saddam has no issue with killing civilians and torturing his OWN contrymen. Imagine what he does to a country he hates but somehow, Saddam can do whatever he wants, and somehow, the idiots in our country still see it as us being bullies. Fuck them.

Speaking of Flea, big props to him for covering three days a week of news. I do one column on Saturday and one on Tuesday and that’s a lot filling THREE days in row with interesting reads… good shit.

Response from last week

Jesse: I think people had a problem with the Hogan thing was that it went on too long for TV. Like SK said, it probably was pretty exciting live, and I would have done the same, but they could have easily edited out some of the cheering. After the first few minutes, it dragged on until he started talking. It wasn’t like it was a big surprise to anyone that he was going to be there, since on TV they showed a Hogan poster right before he came one.

The funny thing is the cheering and chanting you saw on TV was edited some. It went on for longer. And, in the second place they never showed the segment with the Hogan poster to the live crowd. No one, including the Pepsi’s security staff, knew Hogan was going to be there UNTIL he came out.

And to Hector G: Thanks for all the exercise info. I did change the way I was doing some stuff per your suggestions and we’ll see how they work out over the next few weeks.

Thanks also to all the folks who have sent in good wishes on this and those of you who said you started it on 1/1 like I did. We’ll keep each other motivated deal?

Top Story

AOL posting the biggest corporate loss in the history of the United States should be and it CAN be thanks to the relatedness of the actual top story. For anyone who doesn’t know, AOL/Time Warner posted a $100 BILLION dollar loss in 2002. What I want to know is how a company manages to LOSE that much money. Like, how bad do you have to be to lose ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. That is an average of $274 MILLION dollars a day. AOL managed to lose this year more than the GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT OF SOUTH AMERICA. To put it in better perspective, you would have to lose $136,000 per day, EVERY DAY SINCE THE BIRTH OF CHRIST!!!

Assuming you believe in Christ if you don’t that means you’d have to spend more than most people make in four years every day for the last 2002 years. That is some bad money management.

Regardless, this news prompted Ted Turner to resign his position in AOL/Time Warner. The word on the street is that he’s looking to become a media mogul again in his own right. He wants to purchase the Braves and his networks back from AOLTW. I don’t think they’ll be too tough about this considering they CAN USE ANY FREAKIN DONATION THEY CAN GET.

The hopes in the wrestling community is, since Turner attributes much of the early success of TBS to WCW and WCW Saturday Night, he’s looking to pick up a wrestling promotion presuming he gets his networks back. This is incredible news for any of the small indy promotions looking for a deal. I would say NWA:TNA is the most likely to get the deal as they’ve been looking for a real distribution deal for months now and, while the PPV model was good for news, it probably isn’t working out so good in practice.

This could be big news for a smaller promotions and it’s great news for wrestling fans as a whole. If there’s anything we need right now, it’s an alternative to the spoon-fed crap we’re getting now. The idea of any competition going against Vince is a good one to me. Maybe it’ll motivate him to get back on top the game. With all the stuff he’s doing right now something’s got to motivate him.

Although, the ultimate irony would be if he went bankrupt and Teddy T ended up buying him.

So, with the possible launch of a new show in 2003, I sit here somewhat happy and hopeful that this will give Vince the wake up call he so desperately, desperately needs.

Ridiculous Things The WWE is Concerned With

And, while ratings and buyrates are plummeting faster than a stockbroker in the 20s, the WWE continues to worry about the most ridiculous thing with their talent.

For example, Nova who is probably one of the best offensive wrestlers/spot machines they have this side of Kanyon has been ordered by Stephanie to cut his hair because he looks too much like HHH. Yeah, like the patent leather Venom outfit won’t be enough to throw people from a loop.

“Hey there, Johnny when did Hunter start wearing superhero outfits and join forces with the Hurricane?”
“Jeez Jimbob, I don’t know.”

So, I guess the fact THEY’RE ON DIFFERENT SHOWS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING.

Then, there’s Noble and Nidia. Possibly the only redneck characters the WWE has gotten over since Hillbilly Jim who have gotten over. They’ve seen their pushes expire because Stephanie feels Nidia is too fat. Pot kettle black.

This is what we refer to as “displacement.” Since Steph was recently mistaken for a wholestein Cow wearing the black outfits she’s been pimping the last few weeks, she decided to take it out on one of the easier targets. Since Molly (I think) is on Raw, and Torrie and Dawn would be ridiculous, she took it out on the only other target Smackdown has available. Nidia. Now, I’m no huge fan of Nidia’s, but isn’t it possible, just possible, to continue the push while putting Nidia on a strict training regiment? Just a thought.

Johnny Ace, one of the lead bookers for Smackdown, is convinced that Matt Hardy will never draw a dime as a heel, because he gets too much teenage girl heat. So, rather than push something new, he’d prefer to turn Matt back to the same old character. Hey guys, newsflash Matt Hardy is getting face heat because the Version 1 character is f*cking hilarious. He is entertaining and one of the few brightspots in an otherwise drab cycle of repetitiveness. He’s fresh, entertaining, AND ISN’T ONE OF THE SAME GODDAM FOUR HEELS YOU’VE BEEN SHOVING FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS.

Matt Hardy’s heel heat was just fine last night. If you tone down some of his comedy and ignite some of his assholishness, like the interaction between he and Shannon Moore, then the heel aspect is there, shining through. Just develop it.

And also, Vince has decided the wrestlers must maintain their characters at all times. Like that’s the one thing that’s screwing up the business. This would be another example of Vince blaming the general suckyness of the shows on anything else he can, besides getting at the root of the problem shitty creative and shitty execution of angles. After spending the last ten years exposing the business as fake, NOW he wants the wrestlers to return to kayfabe and be in character at all times. Sooooooo freakin stupid.

And obviously, if we fix these few things THAT will get them right back on top of the market. Creative is just FIIIIIIIINE.

Ticket Sales

While Wrestlemania looks to be a lock as a quick sellout, the regular shows aren’t doing too good. The Upcoming Smackdown is expecting only about 7,000 people in an arena that can hold about 17,000. I know that the Albany Smackdown only sold about 8,000 tickets and, if rumors are true, Vince was furious with Albany about. He supposedly told someone backstage that it was the last event Albany would ever see. If that logic holds up for every other Smackdown, Vince should be down to just Madison Square Garden and overseas locations by the end of the year.

Again, this is Vince not getting at the root of the problem. It’s the fans fault for not coming, not HIS fault for putting on a shitty show.

Developments of the Past Week

Jeff Hardy’s decent into heeldom continues. After losing to Booker T in Raw’s opening match, he turned on him. The odd part of it: he got the heel turn for the post-match beatdown but didn’t suceed in the beatdown. BOOKER actually ended up winning the beatdown which renders the turn pointless.

Teddy Long informed us that D-Lo needed to conquer the superhero Hurricane since there was no black Superheros. Isn’t the current Green Lantern Black, or something? Anyway, as a general rule, racism angles annoy me but this one doesn’t. I think it’s because they’re playing it a bit over the top.

They waste more airtime telling us that Stacy is REALLY REALLY REALLY hurt.

Jericho comes out to give us his thoughts on last week. Stacy was hurt mainly because Test was a wuss and ducked the chair, leading to Jericho hitting Stacy. See, now THAT’S the Jericho I know and love. Christian came out to agree with Jericho, and then Shawn came out to call Jericho a pussy. See, I like this they’re letting the Shawn/Jericho feud simmer while sorting out issues with Test. THIS is how you extend feuds. They don’t have to wrestle every week, but as long as they have outstanding issues every couple of weeks, it works.

Jazz is backs man-beasts everywhere run and hide.

The Tough Enough guys wrestled an exhibition match which led to them getting yelled at by Nowinski and welcomed to the WWE by Dreamer. By welcomed, I mean caned into OVW. Peace Out guys. I find it everymore amusing that the guy who lost Tough Enough is more successful and has more mug-time then all six of the winners combined.

Rey jobbed out to A-Train. *sigh*

And Team Angle is now the number one contenders for the Smackdown Tag Titles. I could think of worse things on Smackdown then a Team Angle vs Team Guererro match.

In Other Reading

Poffel takes a peep from Outside the Book.

Vanderhorst has a little to say on the subject of Nostalgia.

Zucconi talks up the House Show.

And for the loyal dissention, read Gamble, too.

In Closing

Look for me on Tuesday with music. Look for goodness from Me and Grut in the future. Look for Flea for the first half of next week. Look for a Warren Sapp fan and kick them in the nuts.

Until then, I’m Daniels and this was the Hotline.