In Memoriam: Tex Schramm, probably the greatest influence on the game of American football ever seen. And before you say the name “Rozelle”, Tex was the guy who brought St. Pete into football in the first place.
Ah, it’s one of those types of Wednesdays when there’s nothing to do but sit back and contemplate, “What’s uglier, the Honda Element or the PT Cruiser?”. Oh, hell, there’s not even anything to pimp except for Haley. I’ve never gone two columns without a Pimp Section before this. Summer hits, and all of our college-age contributors vanish into home or jobs. Get on the stick, guys. WWE never takes a vacation, so neither should you. Not unless you’re in the process of moving to another state to take a new job, of course.
Let’s move…
CHRISTOPHER ARRINGTON SAYS “SCREW RAW”
From what I heard about Raw last night, I’m glad I was at the strip club last night. There is very few things better than a booty shake club in a black neighborhood. The girls are less attractive but it’s an anything goes atmosphere there. I mean there are not a lot of places, other than a bachelor party or at an escort service, where you can put a big black dildo in a woman till she orgasms in America. Sure some the actions are of a less than legal nature, like Hyatte’s special cable box, but like that box you don’t care because of all the joy it brings.
I’m glad to see someone has their priorities straight.
SEAN FRI SAYS “SCREW RAW”
Fri, being a good actor, decided to go for something a little more in the business than Arrington did:
What I did instead of watch Raw Last night, instead of watching Raw, I went to see Liev Schreiber as Henry V in Central Park. Gotta love the Public’s commitment to free Shakespeare.
Here’s a recap, for anyone who missed it:
Opening interview (Archbishops of Canterbury and Ely)
More of the same old same old, complete with bitching about church lands going to the king and a secret plan for later in the show to win the King’s favor by supporting his shaky claim to the French belt. They put over Henry, aspecially in light of how weak a character he was when he first came into the promotion.
After commercials, these two are still talking, this time to Henry. God, get to a match already! The jabber on about Salic law and how property can’t pass through the female progeny (let¹s see what Steph has to say about that) until Henry finally announces his intention to seek the French title. Fun with the French title-holder’s valet and some jokes about balls follows. How grown up.
Pistol v. Nym, draw (Mistress Quickly match) Bardolf-ference
Pistol introduces a few new catch phrases (“abate your anger!”) that’ll look mighty good on T shirts. With this guys promos, it’s a wonder he’s still stuck in the mid-card with these other losers. Match was over before it began, but still better than the arch-bishops blathering. 2 stars.
Henry d. Cambridge, Scoop & Grey (handicap match) execution
Henry buries the three midcarders, making himself look strong but killing the troika’s push in the process. I know they have to build him up for the title match, but these three will never work again after this angle, which ends in their death. Pretty good blow-off, though, I guess. 1 star.
English Army d. Town of Harfleur (I quit match) Harfleur taps out
Loooong match, the longest of the night, as it will turn out. Good stick work from Henry to kick it off, and the undercard, especially Fluellen and Pistol, do a good job of carrying the other workers. In a big match like this, it’s tough to keep the tension, but it had a nice pace for such a long event. In the end, Harfleur surrenders meekly in the face of Henry’s superior promo skill. This guy can bury and opponent with the mic before the match even starts! I was hoping for a more definitive ending, but I guess this leaves the door open for the angle to continue. 3 stars.
The English Language d. Catherine of France (basic nouns match) pinfall
Catherine does a great job of selling the fact that she’s winning when everyone in the arena can see that she’s losing. That’s genius. Nice support from Alice, her valet, but the English Language proves too much in the end. 3 stars.
Promo (Mountjoy the Herald)
Mountjoy seems willing to accept Henry’s submission before the title match, seeing as how the English Army has already had a lengthy match tonight. Henry cuts a weak promo (for him) and says that even though they’re hurting, they won’t run from the match. I guess this means it’s on, but then again, they’ve been advertising the match for weeks what do we think Henry is going to do? Go back to England? Pointless.
We get shots of the French in the locker room, warming up and discussing who has the coolest tights. Shots of England making its way to the ring. Henry trashes some jobber in the hall. What was that all about? It’s apparently on when we get back from commercial.
England d. France (French title match) total squash
And it’s apparently over. Why all the build up to this if it’s going to be a squash? The go to the trouble of making England look weak to build the tension (I mean, we all know how it’s going to end) and then in a matter of minutes, we’re reading off the casualties: over 10,000 for France and 25 for England?!?! Henry has WAY too much political clout backstage, evidently. Good promo to start the match, something about Rice Cripsys or something, but then it’s a rout. Oh well, I guess they’ll sell the return match for the next PPV. Although something tells me, after this blow-off, they’ll just move on to Henry VI. 1 star.
And there¹s still a LOT of time left in the show. So the title match isn’t even the headliner? Even if it is a squash, why bury something so important three slots down from the main event? This is normally the case when Shakespeare has the book, though. Except for the blood bath that ends Hamlet, he always buries the main event in the middle of the show.
Fluellen d. Pistol (eat the leek match) pinfall
This is pointless. Why does this follow the main event? This could have been placed anywhere and had the same effect. At this point, both of these talented midcarders seem to realize the futility of it and are just going through the motions. 1 star.
Henry v. Catherine, no contest (marriage match) submission (but who’s?)
This seems hastily booked, and totally superfluous. I guess they’re trying to court the women’s audience again. Henry tries some French, but it’s a mismash of styles here, as he and Catherine have almost no room to work. Alice is again strong on the ring apron, but even she can’t get these two over. Weird ending with a Henry going for a kiss, but Catherine apparently reversing it? Finally broken up by her father. 2 stars.
England’s negotiators d. France’s negotiators (terms of surrender match) submission with escape clause
THIS is how they end the show? With bureaucracy? Shakespeare has to get his head out of his ass and realize that backstage shenanigans will never substitute for in ring excellence. I swear, sometimes I think this guy believes his own hype and writes scenes just to hear people speak them. Enough already! Zero stars.
And the show ends with another promo! Great, bookending promos. Talk, talk, talk. They tease Henry VI for the next PPV (I was right!) and seem to set up an angle where the French title is disputed, but I can’t be bothered anymore. I don¹t know why I even bother watching half the time. Shakespeare has to wake up and realize something is very, very wrong and do something to turn the promotion around, and quickly, or he’s in a lot of trouble.
And rumor has it that, after this, Willie is going to go right for Henry VIII without bothering to handle Henry VII first. But you should know by now, Sean, that any PPV booked by him, no matter how good it looks on paper, is just a Tempest in a teapot. As You Like It, but All’s Well That Ends Well, I guess. Hope that you had a pleasant Midsummer Night’s Dream when you got home, though.
COMMENTARY ABOUT KANE?
No, I’m going to let everyone else have their say. Paul Bearer likes the way they’re going with it, according to the latest column at his web site.
However, I must cite Semi-Regular Matthew Sforcina on one particular Kane issue I haven’t seen discussed:
Why exactly, if Kane is so upset about his looks and how everyone is making fun of him, if this is the case, why on earth has he changed his entrance video to shots of himself without the mask? Surely he would keep his old one or at least not be in it.
Well, I don’t think he has any say in his entrance video, whether in character or not. However, I’d love to see him use that as a future threat against Bischoff or Austin or Shane or Linda or whoever.
Now, that being said, Matthew Michaels and I had a discussion about this, and he told me that he actually posted something in the Forum about the continuity surrounding Kane. I told him my view of What Actually Happened With Kane (something I alluded to in the past, but didn’t go into details on), and he twisted my arm and told me to put it in here. Well, okay…my Kane Kontinuity as amended to take into account events on Raw:
1) There really was the fire at the mortuary, with UT’s and Kane’s parents dying. Paul Bearer did rescue Kane, but Kane was unharmed. UT disappeared that night, and Bearer and Kane never saw him again.
2) Kane grew up a happy, well-adjusted, good-looking child…well, as well-adjusted as you can be with Paul Bearer as a surrogate parent. Eventually, he grew up enough to get a girlfriend named Katie Vick. There was one slight problem: Kane grew resentful of the fact that his brother never tried to find them. The resentment grew into hate.
3) Then came the automobile accident. Katie was killed. Kane had his face mashed and fire-damaged. Plastic surgery couldn’t repair all the dermal trauma, and Kane thought that losing his looks was the end of the world, as it would be for most late adolescents. He started to wear a mask, and came to believe that if his older brother had been around, maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t have happened. That eventually turned into blaming UT for his loss of looks.
4) Relatively shortly after this, Ted DiBiase brought out a guy at Survivor Series 1990 who called himself “Kane, the Undertaker”, naming himself after the brother he believed to be dead. Paul Bearer was obviously watching.
5) A few weeks later, Bearer made contact with UT, who was overjoyed to find his father’s old mortuary assistant alive. UT didn’t look for him because he was a reminder of what UT had lost in that fire. Bearer, though, did not tell UT that Kane was alive, because he was afraid what might happen if Kane got near UT. And Kane? Maybe he simply didn’t want to see UT out of anger, maybe he was told by Bearer not to try to contact him.
6) And so through face and heel turns we go, until UT started to chafe under Bearer’s thumb. Bearer, knowing he was losing UT, had to play the ace of trumps: he revealed to UT that Kane was still alive. Bearer decided to play the guilt card, telling UT that Kane was badly burned in the fire that killed their parents and that he lived like an animal by choice because of it. Kane went along with this because he knew that it would cause UT an incredible amount of pain to hear that. UT didn’t fall for the emotional blackmail, and Bearer was forced to produce Kane.
7) Eventually, UT and Kane were able to reconcile, with Kane seeing the error of his ways. He probably let UT in on the real circumstances of his life, and UT might have been the first one to encourage Kane to remove his mask. However, because of the emotional turmoil of the reconciliation and the still-extant feeling that he was ugly, the mask stayed on. However, Kane did make some psychological adjustments to his status. Changing the full-body suit for the tank-top model was the first sign to the audience that Bearer was lying about Kane being burnt in the mortuary fire.
8) UT’s confession that he set the mortuary fire is a lie. He was only doing it to make himself and the Ministry look more evil.
9) Kane never went all the way with Katie Vick. He really did lose his virginity to Tori.
That should explain pretty much all of it, I think.
IT’S ONLY FAIR TO LET SOMEONE FROM CALGARY HAVE HIS SAY ABOUT BRET
Well, my comments about Bret Hart recently have inspired someone from Calgary named K Martell (great cognac) to write in about Bret, his family, and an interesting perspective about him:
Since the topic of Bret Hart seems to be one of the hot ones in your column at the moment, I thought I’d weigh in. I don’t think anything I say will come as a revelation to anyone, but I’ve never read any comments from this perspective.
Like Bret, I live in Calgary, and thus I’ve been exposed to the Hart family for most of my life The most obvious thing about them (Bret in particular) is that they see themselves as a form of local royalty, and are quite put out when they are not given the adulation they feel is their due (actually, they remind me a lot of the Kennedys, but not in any good way). Two examples stand out for me: the brother of a friend of mine teaches school, and he had a number of Hart kids cross his path in that capacity. Bruce’s kids were polite enough, but according to him, Bret’s kids were hell on wheels, believing their family name should grant them special status. Given her brother’s penchant for running roughshod over anyone who gives him shit, I can imagine how well that went over.
Another incident happened a couple of years ago. I’m a bit hazy on the details, but it centred around the family wanting to sell off parcels of the land around the Hart mansion to condo developers; apparently, selling the land in a piecemeal fashion for development purposes violated some local zoning laws. When the request was denied, Bret immediately went crying to the media, essentially saying that given all the family has done for the city, an exception should be made and his father entitled to do whatever he wants with the land. The reaction of “ordinary” citizens was twofold: one, other than putting on a weekly wrestling show (and make no mistake, most Calgarians COULD NOT CARE LESS about professional wrestling), what exactly have the Harts ever done for this city? (The late Ed Whalen, who did commentary on Stampede Wrestling, spent every second of his spare time lending his celebrity to local charities, and achieved – deservedly – an iconic status among Calgarians that the Harts can only dream about) Second, since the Hart home is in one of the few areas left that hasn’t had condo developments vomited up on it, I think most Calgarians preferred to have the land left as is, or at least developed in a less intrusive way. The land department’s decision stood. So much for any groundswell of public support.
Another thing. I think this is obvious to many wrestling fans, but I feel the need to say it anyway: Bret Hart does nothing that does not serve to further glorify Bret Hart. Case in point is the stroke he suffered. Don’t get me wrong – recovering from his stroke probably took a Herculean effort, and I applaud him for it, but since then he has done nothing to turn his personal tragedy into something a bit positive for anyone but himself? Any promotion of bicycle safety, or endorsement of mandatory helmet laws, even though he admits that, had he been wearing a helmet, the stroke might not have happened? Nope. Any mention of the good work of the Heart and Stroke Foundation in his newspaper columns or on his website? Nope (plenty of mentions of his own merchandise, though). I mean, for all we know, Bret’s doing all kinds of things in the background, and kudos if he is, but given his love of the spotlight and his seeming need to be adored by ordinary citizens like us, wouldn’t this be a perfect opportunity to go out in public and at least appear to be unselfish? Compare his lack of action with that of Walter Gretzky, who’s done a PSA and charity work for the Heart and Stroke Foundation ever since his stroke. Hell, compare him to his sister-in-law, who used Vince’s blood money to create a charitable foundation, even though no one would have faulted her if instead she’d taken the money and rolled in it naked.
One last point – I can’t resist mentioning this. Is there a more hilariously shameless namedropper anywhere than this guy? Look at his columns and you’ll find them peppered with references to his “dear friends” from the world of politics, entertainment and athletics. I’m sure he knows a lot of famous people, but it’s funny how often some celebrity whose name was recently in the news is suddenly his “dear friend,” and he looks more impressive by association (my personal favourite was a reference to his close and personal friend Tim Johnson. For those with short memories, Johnson was the manager for the Toronto Blue Jays until he was caught lying about his, as it turned out, fictional experiences in the Vietnam war, was run out of Major League Baseball shortly thereafter, and has rarely been heard of since. Wonder how many times he’s been invited to Bret’s place for a barbeque since then?). I’m sure if the Second Coming happens in our lifetimes, we’ll be treated to a story of Bret hanging out in the Promised Land with his “dear friend” Jesus Christ.
I know Bret bashing is in fashion these days, but in my own defense, I’m not saying anything I haven’t said privately since long before the Montreal screwjob. Maybe if Bret didn’t take himself so seriously, we wouldn’t feel the need to respond in kind. Or maybe, after living in Calgary most of my life, I’m just sick and tired of the Harts, and writing this is a form of closure.
I hope that provides some Bret Backers out there with something to think about.
(And Memo to Louis-Martin Parent (any relation to Syl?): I don’t think Bret’s anti-US angle has anything to do with the intensity over the reaction that Hebner, et al, still receive north of the 48th. I think that the fact that he was a proud Canadian and declared it during that angle struck a chord (anti-US is different from being pro-Canadian), and when Vince screwed him in Canada, it did turn him into a martyr among Canadian wrestling fans.)
DOES FINLAND HAVE A SECOND AMENDMENT?
From 1bullshit via the afore-alluded-to Sylvain Parent:
Former WWF/WWE superstar Ludvig Borga (Real Name: Tony Halme) was shot on Thursday in Finland by his wife. Halme, who was just elected to Finland’s parliament a few months back, was taking to a local hospital shortly after the shooting. There are no details as of yet on why Halme’s wife shot him, and no offical word on his medical condition at the present time.
Memo to Debra Austin: Getting any ideas?
LET’S TALK ABOUT RAW AND BREASTS
I knew that when I wrote the line about Molly Holly and Gail Kim having the two smallest bustlines among the women wrestlers on Raw, that someone would write in asking me about one particular other person. Take it away, Russ Cook:
Since Stacy K. deigns to climb into the ring on occasion, would she therefore not qualify as a “wrestler”? If so, I believe that she would take the title, hands-down, as the smallest bust-size on the RAW roster.
I specifically made the qualification of “women wrestlers” to disqualify My Beautiful and Beloved. When I used that phrase, it was meant to designate “women who spend their time primarily wrestling”, as opposed to a valet who might occasionally get into a match as part of an angle.
(BTW: My attraction to her still surprises me, because I’m a tit man.)
Does the “ogle” factor, however, translate into interest in her matches? If so, B.B. would’ve become the Women’s Champion a few years back, and Jackie would be immensely popular…
I think that the “ogle” factor, as you put it, does translate into more interest for women’s matches, because men are basically pigs. That being said, BB would definitely have worn the belt, because it seems to be a requirement if you’re a woman wrestler in WWE, that you get to wear the women’s title at some point. However, she was so bad that the audience wouldn’t have tolerated it for one second. As for Jackie, she’s been the victim of creative problems, namely not having had a good angle since she left WCW. They might have been on to something with having her as the third member of APA, but decided not to pull the trigger on it.
On a personal note, I don’t see how you could state that the talented and beautiful Nora Greenwald, a.k.a. Molly, has a small bustline.
She’s small in comparison to the rest of the overinflated yabbos on display every week, that’s all.
She’s perfect. Natural, non-enhanced, athletic. I’d run away with her tomorrow.
And I love the fact that she’s decided not to get a tit job in order to “fit in” with the rest of the girls. By being normal, she’s different. However, have you noticed that she’s wearing more cleavage-flattering ring attire lately? It really struck me last night, which is what led to my remark about hers and Gail Kim’s ballast.
She’s grossly misused, however. It’s sad that her only push to this point has come about because a lecherous, over-the-hill wrestler-turned-announcer made juvenile jokes about her physique.
Well, no, you’re forgetting about Novocaine Helms. But that’s just another example of the fact that she’s being misused. She’s one of the few women who can cut a hot promo (and if Regal hadn’t had one of his injuries crop up, something really could have been done with those two together), and she’s very talented in the ring. I’d like to see her be given a chance instead of more one-off bullshit like the match with Kim on Raw.
And I’ll close off this section with a great comment from Nick Cottrell:
While it’s true that women’s wrestling will likely never get over as anything more than a sideshow attraction, and the only “Divas” that most of the viewers are interested in are those with mind-numbing enhancements, I’d like to point out that the only reason I even watched Raw on Monday night was due to the pre-show advertising of Molly Holly taking on Gail Kim for the Women’s title. While the strap means nothing, I’ve always been a big fan of Molly’s, and fully believe her to be as capable (if not more so) than many of the men on the roster. She’ll never get that Chyna push of being just as good as the men, though – she looks too much like a normal woman.
And vive le difference.
I’D USE THE PHRASE “WAG THE DOG”, BUT THEY’D PROBABLY EAT IT
Now that Iraq has settled down to a situation wherein only a few soldiers are killed each day by pissed-off ragheads, the Junta needs another situation designed to send Americans into a sense of high tension. And along comes North Korea, waving their dicks and yelling, “Hey, we’ve got plutonium now!”.
Who the f*ck is paying Kim Jong Il to make such a complete ass of himself and his country? This has got to be a setup by the Junta. First of all, are we going to take a country seriously when its leader’s greatest desire is to look like Roy Orbison as head of Wu-Tang Clan? They’re so ridiculous that the Chinese have even taken notice. They sent an envoy there over the weekend to tell Kim, “Look, you’re making an ass of yourself. Stop this shit right now or we shut off the money supply.” Being threatened with a North Korean strike is like being threatened by the Easter Bunny, even if you’re South Korean. And the Junta’s expecting it to scare people because of the word “nuclear”. That is so insulting to the US public it’s a wonder why we’re not on the verge of armed rebellion.
But this time the press is prepared to smack Dubbaya’s face. Here’s what Nick Kristof of the Noo Yawk Pravda had to say in a recent op-ed piece about the Junta’s selective memory:
The C.I.A.’s assessments on North Korea’s nuclear weaponry were suddenly juiced up beginning in December 2001. The alarmist assessments (based on no new evidence) continued until January of this year, when the White House wanted to play down the Korean crisis. Then assessments abruptly restored the less ominous language of the 1990’s.
The latest issue of the Naval War College Review describes the ambiguities of the North Korean uranium program and argues that U.S. officials “opted to exploit the intelligence for political purposes.”
At least the shoddy, manipulated intelligence has been exposed ahead of time, instead of the Junta being able to use it to spark a very interesting and unique “Fifty Years Of The DMZ” celebration.
(Memo to Regular Cabbageboy316: I actually wrote the “wave their dicks” line before I read your mail. Great minds think alike. Or we think about Koreans waving their dicks, one of the two.)
A TRUE MASTERPIECE OF CYNICISM
Let’s see. Manchester United is ready to go on a short but highly-publicized American exhibition tour against other world-class clubs. They’ve just lost David Beckham, the one guy on their roster that Americans might have heard of. What to do, what to do? Oh, here’s an idea: sign Tim Howard from the MetroStars, and then have Sir Alex pimp to the press that he might be starting in goal for ManU next season. Then have him make his debut for ManU in his old home stadium at the Hoffalands (Not only that, but he’s a Jersey boy to boot!). And, oh, by the way, he struggles with Tourette’s Syndrome.
That is truly breathtaking in its audaciousness. Hell, Vince could pick up a few refreshers from this one. Bravo, ManU. And you wonder why soccer fans around the world hate you.
YOU’RE A MORON FOLLOW-UP
Two of the three twats I nailed yesterday actually wrote back. Let’s start with the short and sweet from HabBeeb13 (who, Daniels tells me, constantly pestered him and Grut on AIM):
Hyatte is better than you…Thats all there is to it…
See apples marked “Hyatte”. See oranges marked “Eric S”. See inability to compare.
And now for Ryan LaRoche:
I was not defending Steve Austin’s actions, nor Steve Austin himself. I was merely defending a person’s right to like him.
Hmmm, that’s usually not the case from someone who begins a letter with “What gives you the right to judge Steve Austin?”.
He hit his wife one time and suddenly he becomes the anti-christ. That doesn’t fit.
So you must acquit, huh, Johnnie Cochran?
People are flawed and they make mistakes. You act like he beats up women every day. You also act like you’ve never done anything wrong, which I know I can say is not true.
I’ve never beaten up a woman, no matter how much she deserved it, like that cunt of a boss a couple jobs back. Believe me, that would have been justifable homicide there.
Yeah, Austin also walked out on the company, but why should I hold that against him when his own boss, Vince McMahon, obviously doesn’t.
Because Vince is primarily concerned about making a living and seeing his company thrive. I, on the other hand, don’t have that particular concern. So I can take an idealistic stand while Vince takes the pragmatic one. Duh.
All I’m concerned with are his actions on TV, how entertaining he is.
You’re being myopic, and he isn’t entertaining.
Just because you don’t find him enjoyable doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to.
Just because you find him enjoyable doesn’t give you the right to press that view on me when I express the contrary. And it’s my column.
The fact is, where you live, all you see are screw ups, mistakes, and failure (regarding your sports teams). Maybe you’re transfering your hatred for all those sports teams onto Stone Cold.
Freud, Jung, and Adler are rolling around in their graves right now. Laughing hysterically.
Let’s break this down, shall we? I don’t acknowledge the existence of a certain minor-league team that allegedly plays on the North Side. The White Sox have been a joke since I was a kid, so I never invested any emotion into them. The Blackhawks have alienated their fanbase so much that they’re ignored here. That leaves the Bulls, who were one Hue Hollins bullshit call away from winning eight straight titles, and the Bears, who have won a Super Bowl. Yeah, lots of failure in my mind to project on to Austin, huh?
Whatever the case may be, saying something like, if you like Austin, then you’re an idiot (or whatever line you used), is an ignorant statement. I’m a grown man and have the right to like whomever I want, regardless of what the popular opinion is or what your opinion is.
No, I take the status of “grown man” away from you. You are now my bitch, and I will tell you what to like and not like. That’s my right given your status as a YAM winner. Now go away, bitch, and never darken my door again.
Let’s get a rational answer going to all of this. I turn to Semi-Regular Tom D’errico:
These people that support Austin (in the YAM) really do deserve it.
See, I don’t despise Austin being on TV. I get a kick out of him once in a while… although lately the character has just been boring. (Maybe there could still be a niche for him to fill, but they’d have to completely alter the way he acts….
See, when Foley hung the boots up and transferred over to a commissioner position, he was still entertaining as hell. He added to the show. But he wasn’t the insane bump-taker and taker of ass-kickings he once was. Why? Well, because there was no need for it. Austin (it is assumed) won’t be wrestling again…. at least regularly. Yet, he comes out week after week and gets the best of Kane, Jericho, etc. And there’s nowhere that will go. Sure, we’ll get the storyline of maybe he’s getting fired. But Kane and/or Jericho still have to be the guys that never get to settle the score in the ring. Christ, lord knows if they did get to face Austin in the ring he’d probably win anyway. Gotta protect those top spots. If he didn’t win he might walk again.
Anyway, that was a rant I didn’t intend. The YAM people go through great lengths to compare Austin to other fallen “celebrities” accomplishing nothing. Ryder shoplifts and I don’t care. Kobe may be up on charges and I don’t care. R. Kelly does a shitload of stupid things and I don’t care. In the end, if you like the entertainment you can get from someone and are willing to let the personal shit stay personal, then you don’t care either. If the personal stuff ruins you ability to enjoy how they entertain, then you don’t need to like them anymore. They no longer entertain you and are thus, expendable. And that’s not good or bad, it just is. That’s not to say we hold celebrities to a higher or different standard. They’re just people. You can be friends with someone and have them dick you over and choose to not be friends with them. Why do all these “defenders” feel the need to attack to get their point across (which is a rhetorical question since they’ve already appeared in YAM)?
Damn skippy, Tom.
MAILBAG!
Regular HBK826 gets the God Spot this week, with what I think is a really good question:
And a last point that bothered me to no end when I watched an old wrestling tape. Why does no one on the current roster play to and interact with the crowd? Bret got over at first in large part because he gave his glasses to cute kids. It connected the audience to him and his character, so that when the nice man who was good to kids went out and fought evil, you cared. Hogan, Warrior, and to a lesser extent Sting and Luger got their supposed strength from the fans, creating an interactiveness to their matches that made the fans care. Piper, Dibiase, and Heenan insulted the fans, taunted them, and spent as much time bothering them as they did other wrestlers. Macho Man used to snatch Liz away from fans and curse at them. HBK hardly moved without gesturing to the fans to gain support or derision More recently catchphrases became the way of interacting with fans. Let the fans chant along. So long as the marks are involved they’ll watch. Thats why Hurricane is constantly over, he is always looking out and gesturing to the crowd. Same thing with Edge and RVD. Even the bigger stars like Angle, Austin, Rock/Flex (whichever the case may be at that time), and Vince toy with the crowd. Mick was the king of pandering to the crowd as a heel and a face. He talked directly to them, made them a part of the show, even when he was Cactus. There is no one who isn’t a monster (heel or face) except maybe Flair (the exception to, it seems, every rule) who gets over without this. It would seem self evident, so why don’t more guys do it? It can’t be that hard to work it into a routine, so why is it nearly extinct out side of (from RAW and SD regulars) Matt, Cena, Austin, RVD, Hurricane, and Angle? The ratings have decreased as fan participation has, and this has to be at least one major cause (I think I know a few more, but this letter is long enough as it is and I have one last point).
I think it has to do with the fact that wrestling has converted itself from a live-crowd-oriented event to a television event. Let me explain.
The people you’re talking about all came up in wrestling as three-hundred-night-a-year guys. They’d perform to a house show crowd a lot more often than in front of a camera. In fact, the mentality then was that televised wrestling was there to sell house show tickets. Now, the mentality is that house shows are there to get ratings for the TV shows and buys for PPVs. It’s more “effective” to play to the three million people watching on TV than it is to play to the ten thousand in the house at the time. When you talk about WWE, you also have to throw in another major factor: they’re a public company, and their shareholders aren’t looking at minuscule house show grosses, they’re looking at ratings and PPV buys. That’s what enhances the earnings and makes the stock price go up.
So what you’ve landed up with is a group of workers who believe that playing to a live crowd just isn’t worth their trouble. It isn’t what the fed wants them to do, it isn’t something they feel they need to do, and it just distracts them from playing to the camera so that they can excite a future live crowd through conditioning them by television viewing. As you said, if they can come up with a catchphrase that will get over, or if they can learn to cut a hot promo, and if they can create an image that could capture the audience, the battle’s won.
As for your examples…Van Dam is doing the same old thing that got him over in the Bingo Hall. His gestures are his catchphrase. So I discount him from that. Ditto Cena, whose gimmick requires him to play to the audience. However, Cena was one of Corny’s prize pupils in OVW, and if anyone can teach the importance of the old ways of doing things, it’s Cornette.
(BTW: If you want an ECW guy who can play to the crowd, try Spike Dudley.)
Novocaine Helms and Matt Hardy both cut their teeth in OMEGA, where they were playing to small Carolina crowds and generally behaving like maniacs in an effort to attract people to their next house show in the area. They were involved in the indy scene long enough to understand the importance of playing to a crowd. Same with Edge and Christian and their experiences with indies in Ontario.
Kurt Angle is an old-fashioned kind of wrestler. He’s a throwback to that earlier era by choice and inclination. This is a guy who almost never became a pro wrestler due to his introduction to ECW on the night the crucifixion took place. He’s taking what he liked about pro wrestling when he was younger and disregarding what’s happening now.
I wouldn’t put the blame on ratings declines on this fact alone, though, or even as a major reason. I think that the lack of good storylines and the inability for the “creative” teams to come up with something that will hook the audience are more important. But the fact is that performers have to be able to perform under any condition, and if they maintain the mentality that it’s not important to play to the crowd, then it certainly won’t help the situation.
Memo to Regular Rob Bemis: Goddamnit, Robert, what did I tell you about SimGolf? The installer should print out a coupon for a discount at Betty Ford, for Christ’s sake. Be sure to get the 1.02 patch, though; it does improve a lot of things.
Michael Wehrman asks me about an issue near and dear to my heart. The alteration in regulations that would force US meat producers to state country of origin of the meat in their products starting in September 2004 was repealed during the House budgetary hearings for USDA on Monday. Mr. Wehrman, knowing that I am am expert on this issue, wonders how I feel about that.
How do I feel? I’m glad it didn’t pass. From every practical standpoint, it wasn’t necessary. It was simply another xenophobic post-September 11th “protect America” thing, combined with the long tradition of legislative agricultural protectionism. The farmers wanted it, the industry didn’t, and you know that I’m on the industry’s side here.
I am really sick and tired of agriculture getting protectionist assistance, and not only in the US. A little over a decade ago, there was a big fooferaw in Europe about steroids in American beef. I was in Germany at the time, and I remember the local Mickey Ds actually posting signs that their burgers contained no American beef whatsoever (unfortunately, they didn’t tell us if there was any beef at all in them; I’m still unsure about that to this day). That’s just representative of the nonsense that EU agricultural commissions do from a legal standpoint every day. Thanks to the willingness of French and German farmers to get on their high horses about anything and everything (look at yesterday’s stage of the Tour de France; by the way, was anyone else hoping that some of the riders would run over their hick asses and see if those racing bikes could do some Dave Mirra shit?), the agricultural situation in the EU is a complete trainwreck.
The cost of having to redo all of that packaging, for everyone in the industry, would be enormous, and that’s just the obvious issue. From the standpoint of production, it would be a complete disaster. You’d have to segregate origin products and implement intense tracking measures to make sure that, for instance, your pork loin coming from Canada gets processed and eventually packaged as pork chops with a “Contains Canadian Meat” label.
What about from a food safety standpoint? Again, no reason. USDA has reciprocal agreements with most countries’ equivalents that consider mark of inspection in one as being valid in the other. I’ve had to work with imported Canadian pork and beef and New Zealand and Australian lamb for further processing, and there were no concerns with safety. So if they’re doing their job on their end, I have no worries about doing mine on this end, and you should have no worries about eating the stuff.
But don’t other countries require country-of-origin labeling? Yes, they do. I’ve had to work with a lot of export product in my time as well. Canada is a royal pain in the ass to deal with concerning import. You have two different federal ministries to deal with, as well as the province equivalents. They require import certification (well, every country does, along with a USDA stamp of export approval on each box), a declaration of country of origin on the package, and the f*cking box to be printed in English and French. And once one of those ministries get a hold of your product for some specious reason, it takes moving heaven and earth to get them to release it. Every time I had a problem with Canadian product coming in, I always made a great effort to give them as much tsuris as they continually gave me. South Korea’s pretty much the same, except their bureaucracy is a little smoother to deal with. The Japanese and Chinese, if memory serves, do not require country-of-origin declaration. Shipping product to military installations overseas is also a hassle. The thing is, they can require this because their agrisectors have more pull with their gummints and because their processing industries are much smaller and consequently have less pull.
There’s no real need for country-of-origin designation from any rational standpoint. Bravo, for once, to the House for playing shenanigans with a budget bill. Now, if you could only restore that million bucks that you were going to pony up to USDA for purposes of investigating Tyson/IBP, ConAgra, Cargill, and “Whoops, How Did That Glass Get In There?” Farmland…
Let’s do politics, courtesy of Jim Anderson:
I was wondering what your insight was over the “government’s” reaction to the judge ruling that Moussaoui should be able to question his alleged al-Qaida superior. There are so many aspects to this that disturb me. The country has one of the biggest PR problems of its existence right now and by saying they will just use a military court to basically circumvent the Constitution, they are doing themselves no favors (not that I don’t relish every time this administration makes a complete ass out of itself). I’m not defending the guy, but give him a chance to defend himself if he isn’t a part of it. This “protect the country at all costs no matter how many rights we step on” attitude has gone too far. I think your opinions are very insightful when it comes to this country and politics and I was just wondering what your opinion was on this matter.
The United States criminal judiciary system has one constant: that defendants are innocent until proven guilty, and should be given every chance to prove that they are innocent. What the US government has done, pissing on the courts and the law in the dubious name of “national security”, is a discredited precedent going back farther than the Pentagon Papers, which is the first obvious example to come to mind. Chief Judge William Wilkins of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agrees with me on this: Siding with the government in all cases where national security concerns are asserted would entail surrender of the independence of the judicial branch and abandonment of our sworn commitment to uphold the rule of law.
You’ve got to ask yourself what kind of “national security” is being jeopardized here. bin Laden’s still around, but the witness is out of the loop…what is he going to reveal in court that’s so dangerous to the security of the United States given the fluid nature of terrorist activity? Unless it has something to do the Saudi royal family’s connections to al-Qaeda and certain business connections through the royal family that would link Dubbaya to bin Laden even more so than Michael Moore’s doing right now.
This has now become a PR disaster any way you look at it. This is the only guy the US has been allegedly able to hook into September 11th and get into custody, and now, just because they’re afraid that this guy might really be innocent and that they’ve screwed the pooch yet again, they’re invoking “national security” in an attempt to get this thing moved to a military tribunal after Judge Brinkema throws the case out for obstruction of a defendant’s right to call a witness. So now you have a civilian defendant, in a time of peace (no war has been declared despite the Junta’s spin), in front of a military tribunal, where the Junta will deny his ability to call a witness which may clear him of the crimes against him. His guilt or innocence becomes irrelevant the moment this thing shifts to a tribunal. Moussaoui is now a scapegoat for September 11th, imprisoned simply because the Junta wants to provide an image of revenge and “justice”, and is he a symbol to the rest of the world about what “American justice” is really about.
They’re in worse shape if Judge Brinkema decides to keep the trial going. She’s going to start disqualifying government evidence left and right until there’s not enough for the jury to state that the government’s proven their case, and Moussaoui walks. That will turn even the hypnotized retards who still support the Junta against Ashcroft instantly, and then maybe they’ll see the truth about what Attorney General Bormann’s been doing the past couple years to civil liberties for the truly innocent citizens of the United States.
So they’ve just dug themselves a deep hole: look like incompetent asses to the American public, or look like petty dictators to the rest of the world. Their choice.
eternal2K3 asks a couple of game-related questions from yesterday:
Why the bias against console systems? Was that explained previously in an earlier column?
Mostly because of the fact that the PC is a wonderful platform for gaming, and truly incredible games come out for PC on a regular basis. But they all get short shrift from the gaming community, including our own Games section here at 411, because they’re not on consoles. It’s a form of prejudice as far as I’m concerned, almost as bad as the shafting that Mac users get regarding games. KOTOR, being an X-Box game, should have been an easy port for a simultaneous release.
Just look at the Games section. I mean, one of Bebito Jackson’s main stories yesterday was him discussing the prospect that Star Wars Galaxies might be ported to the Playstation 3. And there wasn’t even a “Dear God, why would we want SWG on a console?” anywhere in the story. My guess is that the console-tricity of the Games section might stop after I start gushing over Half-Life 2 for five consecutive weeks after it comes out. Jackson doesn’t get a link because he’s waaay too much like Bower.
Have you played most of the Bioware/Interplay RPGs of the past few years (you’ve mentioned playing Neverwinter Nights in previous columns, and now you’re waiting on Knights of the Old Republic)? If so, which one (Planescape, the Baldur’s Gate series, Fallout, etc.) has been their best work, from the standpoint of having truly enjoyable gameplay?
Please, don’t link Bioware and Interplay anymore. Interplay totally f*cked over Bioware when it came to milestone payments, and that’s one of the main reasons why Atarigrames has the AD&D license now. That’s neither here nor there, though.
Yes, I’ve played all of them. Wasn’t too high on Fallout and its sequel. Planescape deserves every prop for being one of the most innovative games I’ve ever seen. But the original BG was special. Computer RPGs had been in a very sad state before BG was released, almost dead. Thanks to BG, which did everything right from story to staying true to AD&D rules, RPGs became viable again. In my view, you don’t get the massively-multiplayer games without BG showing companies that RPGs were alive.
And NWN is a must for wrestling fans, if only so they can download the Penultima series of mini-modules. There are at least four obvious wrestling references in the core Penultima City module alone (slightly dated now, but still obvious). And he’s released a sequel to it that I haven’t been through yet.
Semi-regular Zac Hartman goes into the “real sports” vein:
I was just curious on your opinion of Rush Limbaugh joining ESPN as a commentator. And what if he praises Urlacher, would that somehow make you hate him less?
Look, Chris Berman’s presence has already turned me off of NFL Countdown, so this is just another reason not to watch. And if Rush should somehow praise Urlacher, I’m going to chalk it up to a rare bout of good taste on his part. He’s still despicable.
Memo to CyberVenom: No, Vader did not die recently in Japan. Just another stupid rumor.
Ah, that’s it for me this week. I’ll turn it over to Grut, who should be back, we hope. Until then, hope that those of you in the southern US didn’t get too bad a blowjob from Claudette and that gay couples start praying for Pat Robertson to be “replaced”. Until next week, ta.
About Eric Szulczewski
