Hello, it’s FLEA. One Trick Pony action today, as I obviously save my best
stuff for Monday. I’ll catch up on other things soon – the holiday weekend is
shot with a bad combination of Rain and Wisdom Teeth…but not lacking in
deviance and other things that occur when your significant other is doped up
like a loon by a dentist with no sense of humor and the liquor store blow-out
features strong whiskey at a discount price. Nothing is too good for this
household…the only thing missing is a nice view of the ocean, which will, due
to the Grace of Whatever Higher Power You Worship, be replaced by…well. It
wasn’t God who made HonkyTonk Angels, but he allegedly invented teeth and
livers, so…Let It Bleed, as Mick would say. That’s Jagger, not
Foley
Hello to YOU!
C’mon let’s go…
TOP (ONLY) STORY
The E-C- Double F.U.
It’s reading things like this that really make my day. Kind of similar to
going out to dinner and having the waitress tell you because the cook is drunk,
the dinner is on the house. I like my cooks drunk…and fat – never trust a
skinny sober cook, he’s most likely a coke freak who, in a fit of
"enlightenment", decides that he’ll create something new that evening
to impress the patrons: a little penne pasta tossed ever so lightly in a melted
cheddar sauce. Great. The prick just "invented" macaroni and cheese.
Call Zagats. Better yet, call a cab and go somewhere that the chef is an bloated
alcoholic and will threaten your life if you order the filet any other way than
"still mooing".
Anyway – check out this story below. More comments later on "the show of
shows", but this one really shoves it in and breaks it off…
There are several changes made to the ECW One Night Stand PPV on the DVD
version, which was released yesterday. The Danny Doring and Roadkill promo,
which was shown briefly and out of context live on the PPV, has been removed
from the show. Ads for the Rise and Fall of ECW and WWE 24/7 replace the
Vengeance and Rob Zombie movie ads. There is some slight editing during the
main event as well, showing a different camera angle for the double DDT by
Tommy Dreamer and Beulah McGuillicuty to mask Beulah not hitting the DDT rightFor those wondering, the DVD is listed as TV-14, which means all the
expletives are edited out. Interestingly though, Sandman saying, "E C
F****ing W" at the end of the DVD during the post-brawl celebration is
heard clear as day even though it was bleeped on the live PPV broadcast.Speaking of Sandman, PWInsider.com received TONS of negative
feedback for the fact that Sandman’s ring music was changed from his Metallica
performed theme to some generic WWE music. Worse still, the crowd noise is
muted, so one of the most electric scenes of the entire event is lost on the
DVD version. There’s also a change to the Dudley Boyz theme as well.
– Mike Johnson, pwinsider.com
So, for all of you chumps that bought into the hype that "WWE’s version
of ECW wasn’t worth $35 bucks" before the show…and bypassed the replay
due to the promised fast track production of the DVD, the yoke is on you.
Normally, the WWE’s DVD versions of the shows are top notch, but this one screws
the pooch. After sitting through bad matches all night, the only real redeeming quality
of the show was the Sandman’s entrance…which has been taken away partially due
to copyrights, but more likely for reasons of karma. Bad karma if you were a
naysayer and didn’t think the show would be, at the very least, memorable.
To make this even better, WWE is as serious as a heart attack re: "tape
trading" and amateur bit torrent thieves are on the run, scared of the
Supreme Court ruling outlawing such behavior. I’ll come back to that one, but
here is the point – ECW was always an "in the moment" production, with
romanticized hindsight a 50/50 proposition, depending upon your level on higher
thinking. Many shows, matchwise, simply sucked. One Night Stand included. But,
the vibe presented was off the charts, so long as you were their live, or
watched it live. It truly was an ECW production – "accentuate the positive,
hide the negative". In this case, the negative was 90% of the show, clouded
in retrospect by an insane crowd and "magic moments" promised and
delivered by Paul Heyman.
For months all I
read was half assed, xenophobic, fear of WWE "creative" taking a
collective shit on a brand that, in feeling died around 1998, but in theory
lived on via life support for another few years until everyone realized that it
*was* smoke and mirrors, Kool-Aid and possibly taking advantage of the tired,
poor and hungry "outcasts" who would rather live in poverty rather
than face reality. For "One Night", and after a reported "severe
political struggle" the show went live, simultaneously showing it’s ass and
everything that’s wrong with wrestling, but making even the most jaded cynics
rush to their computers to produce such magical introspective thoughts, such
as..
"I’ve never been so happy to be wrong in my life"
Well goddamn. And all apologies to several people on this site (well, not
"this" site", but insidepulse, if this makes it there)…the
above quoted remark is one that drives me insane and makes me realize that this
world and the literary rationalizations that come with someone "happy to be
wrong" would be better of having their tongues cut out with hedgeclippers,
their fingers burnt with hot oil and their brains lobotomized with a garden
tool. That one phrase, or variations thereof, have made a mockery of any serious
commentary, in any line of journalism or repetitive conversation null and void
to anyone with an IQ higher than the clowns nose at the rodeo.
"Well, Tony…I said that the Pistons would win in 5, but I’ve never
been so happy to be wrong in my life! San Antonio is a great team for the
league"
"Well, Carl…I was sure that the "Runaway Bride" was dead in
a ditch…I’ve never been so happy to be wrong in my life! Forget the three
obituaries I morbidly slurred live on the air and rejoice!"
"Well, IWC…I said for months that WWE could never recapture the
spirit…the *true* spirit of ECW, but after watching the One Night Stand PPV,
I’ve never been so happy to be wrong in my life! And because I’m so happy to be
wrong, tonight I’m treating myself good! BEFORE I shove this keyboard up my ass,
I think I’ll chop my dick off! ECW! ECW! ECW!
People simply have no shame. And the root cause of that is usually pessimism.
It all started when the first mention of "the ECW show" saw Benoit
proclaiming that "ECW was FUN". The collective heart attack from the
ECW marks put the Thursday Afternoon Nurse Under 60 Spongebath at the Old Folks
Home to shame. "ECW was not about "fun"…or "garbage spot
wrestling". It was about the purity of the sport…giving the crowd
"what they wanted!! The best wrestling in the world!!!" Bullshit – the
only "fun" part about it was the *fun* in "dysfunctional".
An insult to everything that ECW stood for, indeed.
Brief Interlude: After the Fact…"Match of the Night" (as rated by
almost everyone) – Awesome / Tanaka. Pure garbage spot wrestling, with no
redeeming qualities whatsoever. With the exception of Joey Styles venting
Heyman’s frustration at Awesome live on commentary. A true burial.
One of the funniest ones I read was from ROH king Gabe Sapolsky.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a transcript at the moment…which is probably for
the best. I have better things to do with my money than fight an almost
guaranteed "infringement lawsuit" that would most likely end up with
Flea dough bankrolling Ring of Honor in some fashion. Yer Rambling, Boy! And
just when things were going so good…I need a break
…okay – Good ol’ Gabe’s point was pretty much this – it’s much better to be
part of a revolution than to have said revolution bastardized in the name of a
sellout. In other words, Vince McMahon’s company can’t do ECW…the analogy made
was "Pre-wanting to cash in Metallica" vs. Anything after "…And
Justice For All". Same old mindset from the insiders looking out…it’s
cool until everyone else thinks it’s cool…and then it sucks. "But LOOK AT
ME! I WAS THERE BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE". The ultimate sign of a dumb ass.
It’s usually the luck of the drawr – right place at right time. Hell, I fell in
love with Guns N Roses when they were opening for Motley Crue six months before
Appetite for Destruction become the greatest album in the last 30 years. I just
checked the paper and there is no ad howling "I WAS ON THE BANDWAGON FIRST,
SO THE OTHER 30 MILLION OF YOU CAN SUCK ME – signed FLEA". No…I look at
the big picture – Axl is a nutjob and the ECW "brand name" made more
in one night than all the "original" marks could have begged, borrowed
or stole.
Brief Interlude: After the Fact…99% of the feedback I read described
"One Night Stand" as "fun". Oddly enough, the last time
Benoit was right is when he showed his pecker to Woman, proving that that an uncircumcised,
no class, white trash catfish is no match for a Canadian. Guess Matt Hardy never
read GRUT.
The PPV itself, matchwise, was abominable. Jericho and Storm has the match of
the evening, curtain jerking, simply because Y2J thought outside of the box and
gave the fans what they wanted to see. From there it went downhill, and fast. A
mess of a 3-way, Rey and the Wrestler formerly known as "that masked
guy" stunk up the joint, as did Eddy and Benoit. Sabu’s match was passable,
only because the thrill of thinking the guy is going to croak, live on PPV,
keeps you glued to the set. All of this allowed Awesome’s sloppiness and
Tanaka’s Jap No Sell to wow the crowd. Tanaka sold chair shots like Hyatte sells
having the tab for dinner handed to him – both should change their names to
"ME NO PEI". HIYYOOOO! Alright – so my membership to Analogies R’ US
was cancelled on Tuesday. Get Bent.
During all this, a mockery was made of the WWE stars in attendance…by the
hostile crowd, a Live and Loud RVD and Paul E. basking in the glory of his freak
kingdom. Hell, he got his shots in, good ones too, and if that is his
"farewell to thee" moment, so be it. I doubt it, but who knows. RVD
made no sense at all, which leads me to believe that Eric S.’s pills have warped
his brain, but good. When has RVD EVER been good within 20 feet of a microphone?
If you read transcripts of what he says, it rocks, but live on the mic, in front
of a crowd, his delivery is closer to that of a deer in headlights than anyone
that could remotely be confused with a wrestler, or performer, in any line of
work. It didn’t help that toothless clown Alfonso was jumping around like the
new kid on crack. The best part about it was Rhyno putting and end to it…
Brief Interlude: Before They Were Famous…and toothless, for that matter.
Bill Alfonso was the Earl Hebner of Florida Championship Wrestling when I was
growing up. To this day, I consider him in the elite class that includes Hebner,
Tommy Young, Mark Curtis (Brian Hildebrand) and John Finnegan. Alfonso, when a
move like a figure four leg lock was applied, no matter if it was a jobber or a
Flair himself, would literally jump 3 feet in the air, arms outstretched , like
it was the end of the world. Years later he morphed into a whistle-blowing
annoyance who should have been thrown off the Ben Franklin Bridge. I remember
Alfonso, do you?
Then comes the Main Event, the highlight being (as I predicted) the Entrance
of The Sandman. Off the Charts, Number One with a Bullet, complete with drunken
sloppiness all over two skanks and a pantomimed Singapore Cane jack off to the
wrestlers that make money. Angle and JBL stared in disbelief at the sight,
Christian cried, as he had been told *his* entrance was "great",
Bischoff wondered how they f*cked up "Hak’s" run in WCW and Orlando
Jordan stole everyone’s wallet. Snitsky was lost in a world unknown – he either
has the dumbest natural look on his face since Dan Qualye or he was blasted on a
street mixture of PCP and Thorzine. That guy ain’t
right.
The match, of course, proved all that IWC talk about "ECW is wrestling
at it’s best" was horseshit. A Classic ECW brawl, with run-ins, catfights,
weapons and the flaming table of "Dreamer does the J.O.B Again".
Beulah looked as pretty as ever…for a skank. But, compared to Francine’s
horseface and a general appearance that makes you want to cuss God for not
stopping at Cleopatra, Beulah was hot. A great emotional moment as Dreamer
embraced his lover on the night of his career, to the cheers of a crowd more
likely to pay for a woman and come in 3 seconds than to wine, dine and make love
to her. Faux Romance and Beating Off to Swank is the romantic inclination of the
ECW fan, which is why Francine got a job in the first place, I’m sure. Why
bother with Filet Mignon when a Sloppy Cheesesteak will do, right? And then came
then fun…
Cut to the Chase – classic Old Western Face Off between ECW and WWE – Styles
is in his glory, whipping a drunk Bischoff like a dog on commentary as an even
more sloshed JBL beats the hell of the current underdog of the IWC, Blue Meanie,
like he’s owed money for a bet. I saw that happening live and marked out.
Meanie, as you know, got the worst of it and is now crying the blues, like a
girl, threatening lawsuits and other forms of non-physical remuneration. As JBL staggered
around, confident that the deed was done, he was jumped by Tracy (don’t call me
Sue) Smothers and manhandled by four other ECW alumni, while being held in place
/ strangled by Sandman and his Singapore Cane.
Now then – one of these is being classified as "assault" and the
other "payback". And people still wonder why The American Judicial
System and a Jury of Alleged Peers doesn’t take this bullshit seriously? While
Meanie is plotting his legal revenge, JBL has gone on record calling him a
pussy. Smothers, meanwhile, has boasted that he would "put up his house and
everything he owns" for a one on one "shoot" with Layfield.
Think about it – what the hell would JBL do with a run down trailer and $32?
This sums it up…JBL gets a free pass, because he is an established WWE
Superstar. Meanie will get laughed out of court, with possible charges AGAINST
him for Impersonating a Professional Wrestler. And Smothers?
Tracy Smothers headlines NWA Main event in Springfield, TN tomorrow
night at Flea Country. The same group runs Saturday night in Columbia, TN at
Freddie’s Auction House and Sportatorium
– Meltzer, today
So there, in a nutshell, is the end result of a "One Night Stand".
If you think about it, do one night stands ever end up good? The girl gets
pregnant. Bummer. Or you may wake up, still in a daze, and realize the true
definition of "Coyote Ugly" – you gots to chew your own arm off to get
out of that scene. Best case scenario is that it was a memorable night…one
that can only be repeated in dreams and precious memories, because any replay or
re-enactment of that special night will only end up as an edited and revamped
version of something that seemed very right at the time, but, in hindsight, was
not as special as you were led to believe.
Thanks for Reading
FLEA – ryderfakin@yahoo.com
