The Wrestling home of Moondog Manson

Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.

I know, I promised to be back to updates as usual now that finals are done with, but come on – if you guys aren’t even interested enough to WATCH wrestling (cough3.7splutter), then you can hardly blame me for not wanting to write about it.

It’s sad to see the amount of deaths in the business recently. And it’s even sadder that the only name people are talking about is the British Bulldog, and maybe Eric “Mass Transit” Kulas, when Shoichi Arai and Alex “Big Dick Dudley” Rizzo passed away too. Davey Boy dying really wasn’t a surprise – he was officially in the Jake Roberts “Gee, never saw THAT coming” category. Kulas… well, it’s sad any time a 22 year old doesn’t make it, but hey. Rizzo dies young too, at 34, but really, Arai’s death should have gotten far more pub than it did. This was the guy behind FMW – hence, the guy behind ECW – hence, the guy behind “Attitude” and likely the reason anyone’s reading this right now. That’s not to say that Davey’s death isn’t important, but it’s sad to see the business fail to recognise the more recent contributions of Arai, in addition to a guy who was a complete mess and whose last positive contribution to the nusiness was nearly ten years ago.

Anyway, enough of that. Since I was away, I missed a whole bunch of other stuff – the name change, the flight from hell, Hulkamania running wild… well, to sum up my thoughts on all that, for those of you that care: 1) It is NOT the “WWE” – it’s the W-W-fucking-F, plain and simple. 2) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – September 11 would never have happened if the hijackers were on a WWF flight. 3) To quote Joey Styles, “OH. MY. GOD.”

Actually, since I HAVE missed so much, and since I really can’t be arsed to recap Judgement Day this late in the game, I’m just going to fire off a bunch of random points about why I hate the WWF so much. Feel free to stand up and shout “here” whenever you agree, just like the in House of Commons.

1) The women’s “division”.

Notice how it was a complete joke until they signed Jazz? Christ, when Chyna and Lita are the division’s most credible champions, it really says something. Anyway, they put the belt on Jazz, have her kill everybody, and all of a sudden, everyone’s raving about the “division”. Now Jazz is hurt, and all of a sudden it’s a joke again. Notice a pattern emerging here?

In fairness, Trish has really stepped up, and is actually pretty decent in the ring. It still amazes me though that Molly – the only other “real” women wrestler they have – still isn’t getting a proper push, if you can call it such in the women’s “division”. She can wrestle her ass off, so why the hell they booked Trish/Stacy for the PPV instead of Trish/Molly I just don’t know. Regardless, the “division” is going to completely stall in a month or so, since these three chicks are the only ones even remotely getting booked (and since Jazz and Lita are out six months and a year respectively, they’ll have long since given up on the women before anyone’s healthy again).

2) The Cruiserweight “division”

For everything I said about the women’s division, at least you can say they’re trying – at least something is going on there. But the Cruisers? That “division” is even more deserving of the “”s than the women’s. Jesus fucking Christ, THEY FIRED JERRY LYNN. Why would you do such a thing if you’re pushing a cruiserweight division? Well, why would the WWF do a lot of things, but there you go.

They spend two months with Tajiri-Kidman as the only cruiser match getting any TV time (no, the syndicated shows DON’T count), and wonder why the division is’t getting over. Where’s Chavo, Moore, Knoble, Hayashi and Lynn? Oh wait, they fired those two. What about the million or so guys in the developmental leagues? And what’s the fucking point of bringing in Rey Mysterio? It’s not like the division’s going anywhere, and he’ll just end up as another purposeless jobber.

3) The Rock.

Or rather, the lack of him. I’ll admit, I found him very tired and a shadow of his former self in the months before he left, but hell, I would KILL to have him back in The Fed right about now. Still, AT least he can take credit for being the only reason fans were still watching wrestling as long as they were. Don’t lose that SAG card, Dwayne.

4) The TNA.
You know, I totally understand what Jarrett’s saying – people WILL pay to see wrestling on PPV, even when they’ve already seen as much as twenty free hours of it during the month. So the market IS there.
What Dubba-J doesn’t seem to grasp is that people will only pay to see WWF WRESTLING on PPV – hence the absence of WCW, ECW et al. And the reason they’ll pay for it is not in spite of the twenty free hours, it’s because of it – they watch the free stuff to build up the pay-show. Paying is the sacrifice they make to see the conclusion of the feuds; they don’t just say “hey, let’s buy all these PPVs just for the hell of it.” If Jarrett thinks people are going to pay to see wrestling that isn’t the WWF – rather, that features washed-up, ex-WWF guys – and further, to pay to see it week after week, I believe he’s very mistaken. Especially if you consider that those fans are most likely still going to be buying the WWF shows too – that’s nearing eighty bucks a month, which no-one can realistically afford (let alone the 50,000 they need to make a profit). And that’s all assuming the shows are even good – Jeez, I wouldn’t pay ten bucks to watch RAW or Smack!Down right now.

I hope another fed becomes successful, I really really do – I just don’t know if weekly PPV is the way to do it.

5) Judgement Day.

Oh crapit, I’ll run down the show anyway.

There was some good stuff, no doubt – RVD/Eddie was great, Edge/Angle was REALLY great, and Austin/nWo was better than it had any right to be. But everything else was shite – utter, utter shite. What are they thinking? No really, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? Rico and Rikishi? “Oh no, we don’t need Edge and Christian, let’s split them up. We don’t need the Hardy Boyz, so let’s split them up too. And the Hardyz… well, they had the nerve to try that psychology stuff, so we won’t even put them in the brand with the straps.” Tag wrestling is dead – stone fucking dead.

Hell in The Cell was a total anticlimax. Yeah yeah yeah – great brawl, yadda yadda. IT COULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT BRAWL WITHOUT A BIG FUCKING CAGE AROUND THE RING. That’s like having a ladder match that doesn’t use ladders and saying “oh, well it was a good regular match.” I didn’t watch it because I thought it would b a regular match – I watched it because the WWF has taught me that CELL = BIG, CAREER-ENDING BUMPS. SO they’ve no-one to blame but themselves for the match being a disappointment. Hell, I’ll go as far as to call it utter crap – just a hollow imitation of Cell matches past.

And as for the “main event”… well, at least the goblin hasn’t got the belt any more.

Do you know what the most exciting thing in wrestling is right now? Vince Russo.

VINCE FUCKING RUSSO.

Or rather, the book he’s writing, “Welcome to Bizarro Land” (working title), which promises to be an expose on the WWF during his time there. I expect nothing short of an Under The Mat-esque diatribe, shooting (on) anything moving while taking the occasional head-out-of-the-ass moment to come up for breath and kiss it. But hell, it should be worth reading, if only to see if Russo writes books even worse than he writes TV shows.

The point is, with the most exciting and talented roster in the history of professional wrestling EVER, one of the worst bookers in wrestling history is the most exciting thing going, and that is just tragic. If the rumours are true, and Vince really is looking everywhere for a fix to his 3.7 (THREE POINT SEVEN. Forget “WWE”, they may as well have changed it to WCW), I can only prey that he gives the book to Heyman for six months.

Because, Jesus Christ – I really can’t take much more of this.

Peace.
J$

“Well, I guess I could take the Triple H way. Marry the boss' daughter and sleep my way to the top.” I really love Edge promos……To be fair to Heenan, I’m looking forward to his book too – just not as much as Russo’s……Ditto Scott Keith……Y’know, I’d really like to get excited about the Super J tourney, but as soon as you see Liger’s name in the list, what’s the point?……Well, Legends of Wrestling 2 looks like even more crap, but the John Studd $15,000 Body Slam Challenge might be a fun bit of nostalgia……or it might be more button-mashing crap like the rest of the game. Oh well, it’ll be cool to have Mr Fuji as a manager……Chyna on Celebrity Boxing: I think Scherer said it best – “Who would have thought by leaving wrestling she would actually go into lower brow entertainment.” Who indeed, David……So which jackass at THQ sat there at the board meeting and said “Well, we’ve got licences for wrestling and some muscle car fed. Wrestling… muscle cars… it’s a natural fit.” Fucking amazing……Man, Doom 2 rules. I just found the disks and reinstalled it on my PC, and I now remember how truly cool it was…… Although, the Aliens patch for it is even better. Justin Fisher, you fucking rule……Man, I’m totally burned out on talking wrestling. Let’s talk movies: I still haven’t seen Spider-Man, because despite all the hype, I just don’t know if I can forgive the Green Goblin outfit. I mean, he just looks like a green RoboCop on Smilex……Speaking of which, isn’t it about time Warner gave us a decent (Tim Burton) Batman DVD? The current one hasn’t even got proper chapter stops, for Christ’s sake……I think I’ve just remembered how to shoot a basketball. I haven’t played in months, but I’ve been having pretty vivid basketball dreams and the key seems to be lining up the thumb with the shoulder……I would fucking LOVE to be at E3 right now……Fuck this, I’m off……Scotsman……Scotsman……Scotsm……