Welcome back to ringside everyone. As mentioned last week, today (Friday the 15th) is my birthday and I am making it a tradition to do a wide-open rant on my birthday. Normally all I speak on is TNA but this week, nothing is off limits.
I’m currently watching the trailer for Jackass 2 and while some people think it’s stupid, I find this shit funny. People like to call the show/movie “pointless violence” and if you’re reading this and find Jackass “pointless violence”, stop reading, look yourself in the mirror, and realize you’re a wrestling fan and wrestling is full of pointless violence. Honestly, a man getting a hit by a bull isn’t funny/entertaining but a man standing there while another man jumps off a ladder onto him is entertaining? Get real. Honestly, think about it. How can you watch wrestling and find it entertaining yet when you watch Jackass, you think it’s “pointless violence”. Now if you don’t watch wrestling and you think Jackass is “pointless violence” then fine, point taken. Now, back to the movie, I will go see it the weekend it comes out and I know I’m going to laugh my ass off because I love “pointless violence”.
So the NFL season kicked off last week and although my Panthers lost, I’m happy football is back. If you live in America and don’t like football, leave, now. You think I’m joking, no, get the f*ck out of here. Go to Europe and watch soccer because if you hate football, you must love football. Here’s my quick outlook for the NFL Season:
*AFC Championship: Colts over Bengals
*NFC Championship: Panthers over Cowboys
Super Bowl: Panthers over Colts
Yes, it is the pick most “experts” are making and yes, it is me picking my two favorite teams, but I really don’t give a damn. They are two of the top teams in the league and there’s no reason they can’t make it to the Super Bowl. I don’t care if the Panthers lost in Week 1. Week 1 means shit. Last year, the Chiefs had the best defense in the league, the Broncos looked horrible, the 49ers were 1-0, and the Eagles were on the same page…week 1. So I once again state, week 1 means shit.
Moving away from my 2nd favorite sport, I move to my favorite sport…Hockey. Training camps opened today and the season isn’t too far away. North Carolina is of course begging for hockey because all these f*cking bandwagon fans decided to be Canes fans the second they made it to the Conference Finals, followed by the Finals, and eventually winning the Stanley Cup. Fuck every bandwagon fan out there. Where were you when the season started and this looked like the same shitty team we had 2 years ago? Could you name five players on the team when the season started? Could you even name the starting goalie when the season started? Of course not, because you didn’t even know hockey was back. But when the Canes had the 2nd best record in the conference, everyone joined the bandwagon. And the bandwagon grew larger as the playoffs went on. Fuck you and your Canes flags waving as you drive. Where were those flags when the season started? At the store, that’s where. So I once again state, f*ck bandwagon fans.
Now, until the season starts I have the new NHL games to hold me over and luckily for me, EA Sports decided to put NHL 07 on the PSP, thus giving me hockey everywhere I go.
I guess I’ll go ahead and finish things up with wrestling since I’m tired right now and I need to rest up for tonight where my friends are planning my death.
Over the past month, I’ve watched very little wrestling. It’s no longer “must see TV” for me. No longer have I dropped everything just to catch Raw or ECW or Impact (never watched SD since it moved to Friday). Normally this isn’t a big deal but it just suddenly happened. I didn’t try to break the habit of watching every wrestling show, it just happened.
On Monday, I didn’t catch a second of Raw. Now Monday Night Football might have had something to do with that but I actually watched the MNF commercials over Raw. Tuesday, I only caught the Main Event of ECW (and a horrible main event at that). Hell, I didn’t even read the spoilers for the show, so it would have been just another normal show in my mind. Thank God I’m not doing a normal column this week because I completely missed Impact last night and since I’m not doing a normal column, I’m not going to be bothered to download it. Sorry everyone, the shit just isn’t interesting anymore.
Now there’s a number of things that have been turning me off to the product as of late and one of them is the fans. Honestly, wrestling is filled with some of the dumbest fans ever. Not anyone here on The Pulse and not anyone reading this column but if you browse message boards/forums like myself, you’ll see many idiot wrestling fans. I warn each and every one of you right now, never join a forum that has a lot of members and expect good wrestling discussion because it just doesn’t happen. Wrestling fans are morons because they aren’t realists. Never will I tell a person who to cheer for but when you cheer for a guy like Jeff Hardy, feel his return was the greatest thing since NWO, and expect him to win the World Title in a month, you just are being real. You’re being a mark and there’s nothing wrong with marks because watching wrestling with marks as opposed to smarks is a lot more fun and entertaining. But being a mark and a blind mark are two different things. Even smarks are ruining wrestling but I won’t cut them down because I am one of them.
That’s just one of the things that makes wrestling un-interesting at this point. But the fans aren’t really to blame because who the hell wouldn’t be pissed off with the product they’re watching? Raw has been horrible over the past few weeks with the McMahon’s and DX taking up an hour (or so it seems), Cena/Edge being pushed to the backburner, and nothing else worth mentioning, aside from CM Punk, I just can’t get into ECW, and while I would still watch TNA over WWE, even I admit the booking has been sporadic and the hesitation on pushing Joe is pissing me off.
The solution? UFC. It’s much easier to get in to and it’s much easier to watch with your friends and not coming off as a shithead. I watch WWE with my friends, I call everything before it happens. I watch UFC with my friends, I sit there, shut up, and oooh and aaah when something big happens. I have yet to miss an episode of The Ultimate Fighter and my collection of UFC Torrents increases by the day. Hell, I’m even renting UFC 53 next week instead of spending my money on this weeks WWE PPV or this months TNA PPV. Sorry wrestling, you’ve taken a backseat to something a bit more real.
Now that doesn’t mean I will stop watching wrestling all together. It’s a tough habit to break. But it’s just not as important as it once was. Something needs to come along that inspires me to watch it again. That one worker (not Randy Orton), that one storyline (not DX vs. NWO), that one thing that captures my imagination. Sadly, it seems like it will be awhile before it comes along.
Also, before you get on my nuts about ROH, blow me. I would love to watch more ROH but every time I try to watch the product, I just turn it off. The matches aren’t bad, the workers aren’t bad, nothing about it seems bad but it’s just so far behind. The DVDs come out 1-2 months after the show and by that time, they put on 4-6 more shows. I just don’t feel like keeping up with it. Also, ROH fans are pricks of the biggest kind (most of them anyway). They think they’re better than most because they watch pure wrestling from a company that can do no wrong. Sadly, wrestling isn’t wrestling anymore. It’s sports entertainment. A bunch of great wrestling matches doesn’t sell in America anymore. That’s why ROH would never survive with a one hour show, there’s not enough time to put on a bunch of great wrestling matches with little to no story behind it. Sorry ROH fans, but it’s true. ROH survives because they can produce a number of great matches due to the fact that they put on shows on weekends only and there’s no real limit (time wise) to the show. When ROH gets a TV Deal and expands their product from DVD sales, then I’ll care about the company. Until then, they’re the best Indy Federation in America but only the 3rd best Federation in America with WWE being way ahead of them and TNA being ahead as well.
So there it is folks, the 2nd Annual Birthday Rant. I hope you enjoyed it, I know I did. Next week I return with a normal version of this column. Until then, drop me a line at AMPLine4Life@aol.com and join me next time, At Ringside.
