Regular readers will know that I was shot in the face a month ago, and died as a result. This doesn’t seem to have affected my ability to write comments and/or columns, so i’ll be making an odd appearance until someone asks me to stop/finds my bones and sets them on fire.
Wrestling isn’t all that interesting at the moment. All “news” appears to be nothing more than PR, and that’s a part of what makes keeping up more of a chore than anything else. Sites like this exist as part of a hype machine. The more we tell you about CM Punk or The Ryback, the more likely you are to care. That’s kinda obvious, right? Every time a “press release” is sent out, we spread the word and more people caring about what’s happening = more hits. Covering shows is also part of that hype machine. The shows themselves exist to sell PPVs (and merch, which i’ll get into later), or at least they did back in the day (hello, TNA).
So when the news is PR hype and the shows are an extension of the PR hype, Where’s the fun? Where’s the actual discussion?
/wooo/ is home to ample amounts of fun and discussion. I’ve been feeding Blair A. Douglas pics from /wooo/ to use in some of his columns recently, so you should know the type of fun that place is home to. It’s not all TNA Bingo though, they have discussions on all aspects of wresting and they could talk about Chikara until the cows come home (or at least until the thread auto-sages). While the wrestling board is safe for work, other sections are not. User discretion is advised.
Twitter! It’s not just a PR machine, it’s also home to guys like Chill Mascaras, who’ll join you in laughing at the worst the TV shows have to offer, and cheering when something actually good happens. Most of the Pulse writers pimp their twitter handles in their own columns (you can find my one in the little “about me” blurb below), so follow them and ease the pain of these three hour RAW shows. As if that wasn’t enough, twitter is also home to some great parody accounts like @NotTripleH, @twistofweight, @SchiavoneTony, @WWE_Creative and @CrankyVince. If you’re not following those already, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
The Pro Wrestling Sleaze List is an archive of wild rumors that I head back to now and then, either for a laugh or to research. A lot of it should be taken with a pinch of salt, but where there’s smoke… Raven and Honky Tonk covered a lot of these during Face Off 1 from RF Video. I don’t normally recommend RF’s stuff because they put minimal effort into what they release (shite video/audio quality, editing with fucking jump cuts while someone is talking and, worst of all, the fact that they just say “tell us about x” rather than ask any real questions, so you’ll hear the same shit again and again), but HTM and Raven’s stories make up for RF’s shiteness.
This collection of WCW related excerpts from the Observer is just ridiculous. If you’re feeling like shit after watching Meth Hardy defend the title on Impact, just remember the following:
“In this weeks edition of the sins coming home to roost, Nitro drew only 3,818 paid to the 16,483-seat Miami Arena for the fourth Anniversary of Nitro. In honor of it being the fourth anniversary, WCW put on a show that when it was over, made you feel like you’d been watching this show alone for about two years. Suffice to say, it was one of the worst Nitros ever. The fans watching the show were like those Pom Pom girls in the Starburst commercial whose football players got beat up by the other school’s mascot” – The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: August 13, 1999
If you can think of any other sites that lighten the burden of wrestling fandom, drop them in the comments and we can all make this a little more bearable.
In other news…
The NWA “politicked” themselves out of having a champion people give a shit about. With Pearce and Cabana out of the picture, they deiced to put the belt on ____. Yeah, I don’t know who the fuck this guy is, he doesn’t even have a wikipedia page.
Bound For Glory happened: It was pitiful. The writers shat all over six months of booking in order to leech off of another company’s past success as Meth Hardy lifted the title.
Hell In A Cell happened: Fella lost, Cena was nowhere to be found and they actually used the cell during the main event. Those three things alone make it WWE’s PPV of the year.
WWE ’13 was released, and relies heavily on the Attitude Era (which now appears to be a legitimate WWE PR term). Roughly half the roster is comprised of guys from the late 90’s (including 3 Triple H’s, so you can now have yourself a Two out of Three H’s match). The actual gameplay has been polished from last year, but it’s basically WWE ’12 with Attitude guys and working online features (you can actually use community creations this year). As per usual, THQ have decided to milk their audience by releasing current “superstars” as DLC. I’m seriously doubting that Tensai will still be under contract by the time he’s available to download, but the main problem with this strategy is that The Ryback, who headlined a PPV less than a week before the game was released, won’t be available until December. Same thing with AJ Lee, who WWE are currently using to get Cena over with the comic book/gamer crowd. Other problems include: The RAW set being out-of-date, Jerry Lawler’s commentary being abysmal and the fact that none of the six Cena attires in the game are the Rise Above Cancer shirt that he’s been wearing for the past few months as part of this Komen thing…
Last Monday on RAW, the whole WWE roster (well, the “important” characters) stood on the entrance ramp as John Cena unveiled a cheque for the sum of $1,000,000. The “whole company” was out to show support for “the cause” they had been pushing over the last few months. What was the cause? It wasn’t breast cancer research, it wasn’t breast cancer treatment, it wasn’t even regular cancer research… (it was more to do with Linda’s political positioning and tax refunds, but read on anyway).
Of the $1,000,000 WWE are donating (from profits made from Cena merch), roughly $150,000 will go towards finding a cure. Susan G. Komen For The Cure spends 15% of their income on actually finding a cure. Why should you give a shit? Well, reason one is that the people buying the merch have clearly been duped.
Reason number two is that in the 2009/2010 financial year, Susan G. Komen for the cure spent $75.4 million (20.9 percent of its total income) on research. By comparison, Cancer Research UK, a British, uh, cancer research charity, spent £332,000,000 ($535,018,000)(69% of total income) on research during the following financial year.
Reason number three is that you would think finding a cure for cancer would be the ultimate goal and that a non-profit would not sue another over using the words “for the cure”, but the Komen organisation spend quite a lot of money hassling other charities for that very reason. They’ve legally threatened over 100 at the time of writing. It gets worse though: On top of pursuing anyone who uses “for the cure” in relation to, uh, finding a cure, they’ve also threatened others over the use of the colour pink in conjunction with cancer.
The official line from the Komen organisation is that “The foundation protects its trademarks as a matter of financial stewardship and that the group wants to avoid confusion. A mix-up could mean a sizable donation, landing on another charity’s books.” because heaven forbid someone should donate to another charity looking for a cure for cancer, that’d be a fucking atrocity, right?
For more information on the Komen legal situation, check out Pink Ribbons, Inc. or google.
