Tuesday Hearsay 02.11.03

Hello and welcome to Tuesday. I’m Flea, plenty of stuff today, blah blah blah and come on let’s go.

Don’t worry, He’ll be back!

PRIMARY PARABLES

Sunday night featured a WWA PPV, pre-taped from Glasgow, Scotland several months ago. Not bad stuff, compared to the ridiculous Japanese Hardcore PPV I watched last week. I had planned on doing a review of the Hardcore show, but I realized (1) I ain’t the re-capper around here and (2) there was really nothing to the show. Briefly re: Japanese Hardcore 3, Buck Woodward and Eric Gargiulo did a decent job calling the action, and the action really annoyed me. In what continues to be an epidemic, one guy hits a “death move” and the other guy kicks out at two. For example – a guy takes a suplex HEADFIRST into a ladder propped up in the corner, which should damn well be translated into an injury angle for the suplexee, or at best, a victory for the suplexer no dice. Fucker was back up two seconds later doing moonsualts or something. It’s horse hit, I’m tired of seeing no selling and multiple two counts masquerading as “*****” wrestling matches and I blame Johnny Ace.

Now then, WWA had their show, the pinnacle being a match between Sting and Lex Lugar. Oh yeah, it’s also a way for other people (no names mentioned of course) to point out that THEY found Nathan Jones!, not that I would be singing that at the top of my lungs. I have seen him in action several times now and although he has improved, this guy is an accident waiting to happen.

I don’t give two f*cks about the rumored story that “he lactates from his nipples” You know why that story is so APPEALING to the IWC? Because the whole bunch of you are queers. Not to mention incapable of creating your own “humor” so “OH YEAH IT’S SO GODDAMN FUNNY TO MAKE THIS URBAN LEGEND INTO FACT!!! Fucking jerkoffs. Not YOU, of course, but you know the people I’m talking about (which is everyone BUT you). What I don’t like about the guy is the fact he is going to hurt someone, legit, and it will be a shame when it happens. And I’m not saying “if”, I’m saying “when”. This guy is worse than 10 Ahmed Johnson’s and about 1/10th as talented. Jeff Jarrett is probably among the Top 5 “wrestlers” in the world – meaning, he knows how to “work” and how to make the other guy look good and per usual he tried his best here and almost got killed for his troubles on at least THREE different occasions. I haven’t said much about Jones, because I do like to give the benefit of the doubt, but not under these circumstances. There is nothing even remotely appealing about Nathan Jones, once you get past the “uber hype” he is latched on to being portrayed as a psychopath. All sizzle, no steak and as all the smart people like to say “The marquee says WRESTLING”. I like the idea that people with “skill” are really getting to shine, as Angle, Lesnar, Benoit, Eddie, Chavo, and now Haas and Benjamin pretty much Samckdown to themselves and are being given leeway to go fifteen to twenty instead of three to five. You talk about an “evolution” in the business, there it is – bringing in a stiff like Jones is taking a step backwards down the evolutionary scale and it won’t be a pretty sight when he cripples someone – especially (insert name here) because it’s going to happen.

Sting vs. Luger was about as good as it was 2 or 3 years ago, except Lex is FUCKING HUGE, as you may or may not have read. Have you ever seen the Twilight Zone episode where they fix Ellie Mae Clampett’s face to make her beautiful, but “Beauty is in the Eye of The Beholder” i.e., everyone else is a Pig-Nosed freak? That’s what Lex looks like, one of the Pig Nosed Freaks. But who cares, he has no chance of getting hired by Vince, unlike Sting, who apparently now WANTS to work for the filth that is WWE. I said enough about him last week, I think it took 15 guitar shots from chair Jarrett, but eventually Lex got the duke. Good for him.

Sabu won, Norman Smiley lost and another midget match took place, at least until Saturn showed and showed them f*cking midgets what’s what. Hyatte’s second favorite woman Midajah (or Mid “section’s as big as” Asia, as Glorydog likes to say .OH THE WIT! And p.s. he’s probably not coming back, but who really knows these things? Remember to send mail to GetWellHyatte@aol.com ) got kidnapped by Saturn. However the best part of the show was the verbal exchange / match between Mike Sanders and Joe E Legend.

Both are good in the ring and kept the crowd cheering / booing / * really * into the match, especially Legend. He has a way of bitching about a two count that must be seen to be appreciated. Sanders ended up winning and I consider both guys to be the star of the show. I might as well not even bitch about why neither guy is with WWE, because, quite frankly, it really isn’t my problem. People like Jerry Lynn, Sanders, and Legend are the types left in the dust, with apparently no rhyme or reason. You can blame “politics”, you can blame “HHH and Stephanie” or you can just wake the f*ck up and realize that in life, there are “haves” and “have nots”. And life isn’t always fair. And your life WILL continue if any of these “underdogs” never make it to Wrestlemania. But that’s what keeps many people interested – the “underdog’s” struggle and people’s incessant need to continuously point out how “unfair” the wrestling business is. People said the same thing about Sabu for many years, and now it has comes to light that he is a pain in the ass to deal with – Of course that’s only a “rumor” maybe sometimes to swim you really do have to swallow, who knows. And who cares really just because YOU are easily able to identify with the “have nots” doesn’t mean I have to. I rode that ride with Cactus Jack from start to finish and know how it ends – writing children’s book and hating wrestling. Bang! Bang!

MRS TRISH HYATTE

Here are a few excerpts from a recent feature on The Diva of The Decade! Trish Stratus the full article can be located here along with some fun facts, and a very nice picture.

In 1997, when the door closed on a possible medical career for Trish Stratus, another one opened: fitness model.

“We aim to please,” Stratus said. “It was neat being Babe of the Year. It means you’re hot. We’ve redefined ‘diva.’ We’re considered beautiful, strong and sexy. There’s a new chapter. Diva of the decade means more. It shows you have all the qualities. I hope to be around for another decade.”

I hope she is too.

FLEA IS NICE

For those of you who do not know, there is a wrestling simulator game out there called Extreme Warfare Revenge and it rules. Scotsman turned me on to this game with his review around a year ago and I gotta tell ya – if you think YOU can book better and rule the wrestling world, this is the game for you. I had been goofing around with the game and having some fun, but have recently been travelling and decided to just start from scratch and see if I could “beat” the game. Of course, it’s all subjective, because you don’t actually “win” anything, but it’s nice to know that with the proper skill, decision making and booking, I took the game to the limit. Or what must be the limit, because I could not make any more money, garner any higher ratings / more PPV buys. A major bummer when I achieved this level (Global, 100%, 90 million dollars, 1.99 buyrate and top ratings on all three TV shows), I couldn’t buy out all the other promotions and be the only game in town. I haven’t checked around, but there must be some kind of internal thingamajig that keeps you from doing that – I don’t know. But what I do know is this game is a blast and you should go download it NOW. It’s perfect for anyone who thinks they can do it better and prefers strategy games as opposed to the games on X-Box or PlayStaion that require a dexterity for button pushing that just doesn’t work for me anymore. Hell, I STILL can’t beat my kid at the f*cking driving game, much less whatever Kung Fu game she embarrasses me at on a continuos basis. But that’s my problem – and it’s why I love games like EWR – it’s all thinking and stuff.

So go check it out – the website is http://www.adamryland.co.uk/. It has my highest recommendation. And where else can I book MYSELF as the top star? There should be a SCREEN CAPTURE at the bottom of this report to prove How Great I Art!

Once again, go check out http://www.adamryland.co.uk/ and enjoy!

MORE TO LIFE THAN WRESTLING

In a heads up to all you music pirates here are two stories for you

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/02/10/music.tag.reut/index.html

and

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/02/09/sharing.firestorm.ap/index.html

Both of these revisit the ongoing battle between the producers of music (record companies and musicians) against the shitbags that prefer to download for free from the Internet (me and you). Quite frankly I’m getting sick of the topic, because there is no way in hell this is going to turn out good. To a certain degree, I can see both parties point’s of view;

• I’m a big proponent of getting PAID for stuff and this is outright thievery

• But on the other hand, I have a hard time feeling sorry for anyone in the entertainment industry, especially when I watch something like MTV Cribs, or see the excess of the people in the industry, which I got to witness FIRSTHAND, once again, in a recent trip to California. Somehow I think they will survive if we “share” music. And if they can’t? Fuck them and their vicarious existence.

Recently, I have become hooked on the rock band Disturbed. I downloaded a few songs, liked the groove and went to the mall to buy the CD. 21 f*cking dollars after tax! Doesn’t that seem a little extreme? Of course, the prices have been raised due to “internet piracy” – which proves to me how big of a scam this is. Supply and Demand is one of the basic principles of business – the record companies will continue to raise prices and cry the blues about “piracy” all the while INCREASING the “sharing” of songs. See above for the steps they plan to take re: tracking and then witness in amazement when Sony, Columbia, Warner Brothers, etc. finally convince the government to step in and Gestapo all over our song stealing candy asses. And it will happen – I’d say the over / under is five years – depending on who is in control after all this war stuff gets settled.

One of the scams that has been going on for years is the whole “12 Tapes / CD’s for a penny”. Just Buy ONE! Join the club! Cancel at any time! Just say no and we’ll take you off the mailing list! Next thing you know, you get the same Michael Bolton CD seven months in a row and BY CHANCE you forget to return it, even after repeated requests to have (let’s call them “Columbia House”) remove you from their list. Of course, you are then blacklisted as a “credit fraud” with the “default on Michael Bolton” following you around on a credit report. Then, go and try to buy a house or a car! Negative Credit = more in Interest you have to pay = more money ROBBED from you for no good reason except you forgot to read a line of fine print from “Columbia House”. You know, the line that says “We have you caught in a trap and the only way out is to either keep buying the CD’s at our price, or else.” For any of you running to check, that statement was paraphrased – the legal jargon is much more severe. In essence, am I supposed to feel bad for downloading free songs when the record companies, the legal system, the credit bureaus and the Federal Government conspire to rip me off? Think about that the next time Lars Ulrich and the record executives want to call you a scumbag for using Kaaza.

JEEN MEEN

According to the Web, “Mean” Gene Okerlund did an interview and spilled his guts on the following topics

Confidential

• Gene likes it and has no problem with the show “exposing the business” as some night say. “What the Internet Wrestling Community would do if they had the skill, talent or know how to step from behind their computers and put their money where their mouths are”. (That was my quote, but I KNOW that’s what Gene and the people in the business think.

Tony Atlas

• Gene tells us what we all know – the guy couldn’t cut a promo. But Ric Flair could.

WCW, Vince Russo and What Happened

• As per usual, it was the “inmates running the asylum”, Russo sucks without McMahon’s editing and people milking guaranteed contracts. In other words, the same thing everyone else says. Guess if you say it enough, it’s true. Gene doing interviews bombed out of his skull was NOT mentioned at least not in the recaps I read.

Everyone Else

• He loves them. Especially Heenan

His Future Plans

• He’s hoping to get back to doing the backstage interviews, but until that time it’s HAPPY HOUR AND TIME FOR SOME DRINKS!

hr
Jeen Meen (to Terri Runnels) : Hey, would you like to suck on a stiff COCK

Terri: Excuse me?

Jeen Meen: .TAIL with me tonight after the show?

Whomp bop a lula – a whomp bam BOOM!

RAW IS WAR

I didn’t watch it. Well, not much of it anyway. I was only interested in the Bischoff stuff this week and it turned out about the way I expected: Vince has to whip his cock out and remind everyone who rules the world. I think I’ve said this before it’s ERIC FUCKING BISCHOFF! Regardless what you think about what he did in WCW, that’s history, he works for Vince now and is a GREAT performer! Fuck, he gets more reaction with a sneer than most wrestlers do with a triple-lindy split legged moonsault, complete with pointing at themselves (I think you know who I mean). But in the course of one evening, Vince has managed to totally bury Bischoff and the last piece of the puzzle will be a Bicsh / Austin match at No Way Out. Who knows and who cares. For all you dickheads that constantly moan about what a menace HHH is, please keep a copy of this show and see who is responsible for keeping the status quo.

By the way, Austin returned, but it was off camera send em home happy, as they say.

BY SPECIAL REQUEST

I was hanging around AIM tonight and the topic of plugs came up guess who this is!

Well, I don’t have a new one til later in the week, but my one from this past week seemed to get a lot of interest. It was about how Vinnie Mac could learn something from Seinfeld and Cheers…that patience is the key to success. You have to wait for some things to find their audience. Just because somebody isn’t a hit right off the bat, you don’t bury them. If he keeps that up, he’ll have no Main Event players in a couple of years, after the current generation is gone.

• My archive is at:
• http://www.411wrestling.com/columns/index.php?columncode=51

• And my latest column is at: http://www.411wrestling.com/columns/article.php?columns_id=1702

Who is the Mystery Plug? Only one way to find out!

And by the way, after you click on the links, hang around and read it! It’s all good stuff. And here’s a hint! I once described him as having the “coolest f*cking name around” or something like that. If you want the direct quote, go visit MY archives! Until the, It’s Mystery Plug and Flea’s professional advice would be to give into curiosity

PAGE SIX

Coming tomorrow, a contest update! Oddly enough, there were only two winners last week I thought the answer was fairly obvious, but I’m kinda disqualified from playing. So come back tomorrow with your thinking caps on and be prepared to win! For those of you that need catching up to speed, I’ll have all the details tomorrow. And just so you know, it will be the LAST WEEK of the contest! I have all the names of finalists and will announce the winner NEXT WEDNESDAY, in either a column of my own, or somewhere else. That has yet to be determined – I haven’t heard from Eric, but the three weeks is almost up, so we will see.

Speaking of tomorrow, there will be an exclusive interview with Widro, the BOSS on Page Six. Curious about the plans surrounding 411mania? Want to know what he really thinks about Hyatte, Netcop, Hashish, GRUT and a whole bunch of other things? Only one way to find out – and that is to come back TOMORROW!

To close out today, here is another one from the Eric S. Archives. This one is called “Immorality Play” and was originally published in January of 2001. I remember this as the first time Eric actually “spelled out” why he’s around. You may have to pay attention, but the message is there

SCREEDS FROM THE CURMUDGEON

What lessons can we take to heart from this year’s Royal Rumble? Let’s check and see…

1) The WWF is a finely-tuned, well-oiled machine working in synch for one purpose and one purpose alone. That purpose is to get Stephanie McMahon over.

There was no conceivable reason not to blow off the Angle/Trip program at Royal Rumble and get on with the actual Road to Wrestlemania by giving Trip a good-length title reign. Right now, his character is in complete flux. Obviously, Austin’s not going to be positioned as a heel in Texas (or anywhere else, for that matter), so Trip has to take the role of heel in their battle. Lately, he’s been changing from heel to face and back in the same promo. So why was his program with Angle continued? Because of the sub-angle involved in it. The WWF apparently needs to get a longer lifespan out of the Steph/Vince/Trish incestuous menage-a-trois because God knows the audience finds it interesting (yawn).

But that introduces other complications, like the fact that Steph is the face in that little battle. And if Steph is the face, that makes her in-ring avatar Trip a face as well. Except when he’s cutting heel promos. Because behaving like a dick is no longer heel behavior in today’s sports entertainment; you have to back it up by cutting heel promos on a consistent basis. At least through the end of the promo. And my head’s starting to spin from the use of conjunctions at the beginning of sentences.

Just to summarize, since there was no real purpose to Angle winning that match other than to have Austin interfere and try to build up heat to a match between him and Trip that, let’s be honest, doesn’t need any additional heat, that means that the reason why Angle won has everything to do with Steph. This has been the case for the past year in the WWF, so I don’t know why I’m surprised about it.

2) Anyone can wear the Intercontinental Title, as long as he’s a Canadian named Chris.

Sorry, Eddy fans, but it’s time to face the truth: Guerrero didn’t do jack with the IC strap. It was used simply as a tool to get more out of the Chyna angle than to elevate him. The only two guys who have done justice to that belt lately are Jericho and Benoit. A lot of the smarks out there are treating the secondary belt as more interesting than the primary belt, and this isn’t a good sign if your promotion is in the creative doldrums like the WWF is right now.

Going up against Jericho has apparently drilled the lesson into Benoit’s head about the importance of cutting a good promo, because he’s up against one of the WWF’s best in that department. Benoit finally learning how to do an effective heel promo elevated this whole program and made it one of the more interesting that the WWF has done in the last year. Let’s see how long they can keep this going.

3) Regal is more important to the WWF than even they realize.

The lack of a Regal/Test Euro-strap match due to Regal’s nagging back injury was like a missing front tooth. A lot of the year-end columns that were done on the Net focused on the resurrection of Regal. I didn’t mention it because I don’t like to comment on things still in process. But I was at Pillman, and I saw the man pull himself up out of the grave he’d dug for himself. That match against Benoit that he had was one of the few times I’d ever seen perfection. This is a guy who knows how to be a classic old-school heel and has what can only be called a Presence. He doesn’t have size or mass, but he can dominate the ring just by the force of his own will should he choose. He’s as good at that as anyone since Shawn Michaels. Test has the potential to become that as well, and if he can pick up tricks from the master during this feud, then all the better. Come back soon, Steve. They need you.

4) Edge and Christian as Bill and Ted is played out.

I was getting sick of them about two months ago. There’s only so much faux stupidity I can take, only so many made-up words. This is a classic case of getting what you wished for. Earlier in their careers, everyone wanted them to start doing promos and get off of this mysterious kick they were on. Then they started cutting promos. The problem was that they wouldn’t shut up. There’s nothing that wears thinner on an audience than amusement. Let’s hope that the loss to the Dudz will be the catalyst for a refocus for E&C. A driven team without the allegedly amusing sidelights, with the promo skills they developed in the process, might just cement their position as one of the great teams of the 00s.

5) It’s fine to poach any beltholder in the competition, even if it’s the WCW hardcore title holder.

Ah, the first shot across the bow in Bischoff versus McMahon, act three. So now that he’s here, what do you do with Meng/Haku? There are a number of ways they can go. The easiest and best way is to team him with Rikishi. Rikishi doesn’t belong in the upper-card; even they should realize that by now. Setting them up as a new version of the Wild Samoans would help revitalize a stale tag division.* They could even program it as part of Vince’s whole mid-life crisis thing, attempting to relive some glory days. You could feud him with the returning TBS in the mid-card ranks, but that’d kill any heat either might be able to establish. Personally, I’d team him up with Kaientai. Three Count was never more enjoyable when Tank Abbott was involved with them, so we’ve seen it work on a lesser level.

* This article was originally written at about 5AM on Monday morning during a bout of insomnia and revised due to an error Jeremy spotted in it at about midnight Monday / Tuesday. Thus, I had a chance to see a prophecy come true for once. On Raw, Haku and Rikishi hooked up to take on the Dead Boys in a little extracurricular big-man tag thing. This seems to be the direction in which they’re going.

6) The Big Show is God.

Thank you, Mister Wight. Your check is in the mail. It would have been more if you put him through every table, you know.

7) Bye, bye, Joanie, it was good to know you.

In my final, unprinted, submission to RantCrew about a year ago at this time, I posited the WWF of 2005 and what people would be doing then. I stated that Chyna had left the WWF in 2001 in order to become a regular on the new Star Trek series. Anybody wanna argue that she’d make a perfect Romulan? Anybody wanna argue that she’s already been signed for it?

This is a good way to free her up to do the book promotion tour, but it seems to me that it might just be more final than that. There’s really nothing left for Ms. Laurer to do in the WWF. She’s a three-time IC champ, she’s done about every angle they could think of for her, and she’s descended into the depravity of working with Billy Gunn. It’s about time to cut bait for her. She’s going to have more staying power on the outside than ol’ what’s her name, you remember, the blonde with the overinflated yabbos. Chinchilla or Mink or something like that.

8) The relevancy of the Royal Rumble is on a downhill slide and has been since the advent of twelve PPVs per year.

This is the point that traditionalists, smarks-who-would-be-marks, and other assorted riff-raff will argue until the cows come home, and then they’ll argue with the cows (and I thought this particular argument would have been settled when Vince won the Rumble). This is a corollary to my long-held argument that no PPV should be considered “special” anymore, a point I drove home after last year’s Wrestlemania. Royal Rumble is still being treated by those riff-raff as the line of demarcation, the beginning of the Road to Wrestlemania. How can it be the beginning when you have a PPV between the Rumble and WM? You still have to fill that card. No one is going to buy a PPV that they know in advance is going to be a holding action. So they have to leave elements of uncertainty in place.

The big one this year, of course, is exactly who will be facing Austin at WM. The only thing for certain is that it won’t be Angle; there’s no way they’re going to expose themselves to the fragile egos in that locker room by having someone main-event the biggest PPV in wrestling with less than eighteen months of TV experience. We know it’s going to be one of two people, but that still leaves a match between two faces or a face and someone who doesn’t know what the hell he is right now. The better wrestling match, and the more compelling story, is Austin/Trip, so we can assume they’re going to be booking in that direction. But where does that leave the rest of the upper-card? There’s no feud right now for you-know-who, so let’s assume he’ll be plugged in with UT in a match that I’d watch only if someone put a gun to my head, and even then I’d probably vote in favor of death. That leaves Kane with who? TBS, maybe? Angle, more likely. All in all, this isn’t building up to a Wrestlemania that I’m particularly excited about. There’s nothing on this card right now that would make me go out and buy it other than a combination of Austin/Trip and Benoit/Jericho Hell In A Cell.

So if Royal Rumble wasn’t particularly special or memorable, why am I doing this column? There’s one area for me that the Rumble is special: it was last year’s Rumble that cause my first spasm of infamy when I burst out of the closet and became a flaming Rock hater (the fact that I’d also felt that the Trip/Foley match wasn’t up to standards didn’t help). It was me defending my views that last year’s Rumble match was a piece of unmitigated crap that caused me to get attention among various and sundry webmasters and get writing slots at websites like this one.

So, if you hate my writing and, in some cases, hate my guts, you know now where to place the blame.

* * * * * * *
This has been Tuesday Hearsay, I’m Flea.

And here’s the screen from EWR! Ain’t I Great?