I’m sitting here with my computer now set up in the new place catching up on a few things from the past week. Somewhere during the move, I lost a filling that I had put in in April. The nerve is exposed and the tooth is hypersentive to everything from temperature to when the wind changes direction to when the phone rings. I called my dentist and he can’t fit me in until Saturday, which will be about a week from the time I decided the pain was unbearable.
So I’m sitting here checking out some Torrent sites for old school wrestling action (haven’t unpacked any DVDs yet) trying to distract myself until the pain meds kick in.
I have decided that people who abbreviate the word “versus” (as in “Ricky Steamboat vs. Don Muraco”) as “VRS” are idiots. I can’t tell you how often I come across that error. I also hate it when people say “coming up, C.M. Punk VERSE John Morrison.” It’s VERSUS, you dummy. I’m pretty sure Mike Adamle has been guilty of that, but he gets a free pass because he’s Mike Adamle.
While unpacking, I came across my three or four boxes of old wrestling magazines (sorry, more wrestling talk). There’s some real gems in there, mostly 1984-1995 or so, when I totally gave up on newsstand magazines in favour of newsletters, hotlines, and the internet. The ficticious stories from the PWI family of magazines are so ridiculous to read now that they are entertaining on a whole new level. It would seem every article talks of going back to the subject’s home town and interviewing his long lost childhood friends and teachers.
What’s sad, is that thumbing through any random issue, you’ll likely find five main stories, all discussing something going on in a completely different promotion or territory. Even though I laughed at some of the companies back then, it would be so nice to have more choices nowadays. Sadly, that ship has sailed.
I find TNA iMPACT! hard to watch due to pacing issues, dumb WWE-wannabe skits, and the fact that Mike Tenay and Don West don’t shut up. “He’s walking up the ring steps, Mike!” Um, no kidding, Don, this isn’t radio, I can see very well what he’s doing. “He’s taking off his robe!” Now you’re getting annoying. “Look at the chyron on the screen displaying his name!” Now you’re getting overbearing. “Hey look! The ring has turnbuckles.” it never ends.
Sadly, their house shows get rave reviews, and I would hesitate in going to one if they were to present one in my home town.
I don’t really follow the Japanese product these days at all, although for a long time I did. I very much enjoyed the early to late 1990’s Japanese stuff when it seemed to have a lot more magic to it. Especially when New Japan was on fire and had some great Juniors to complement the main event action.
I see the odd bit of Lucha when I can. I have a soft spot for lucha, having begun my wrestling career as a fake luchadore. This wasn’t quite by accident, as I closely followed AAA when they were on fire in the 1990’s (which pretty much came to an end after the “When World’s Collide” PPV, as the Mexican economy fell apart). When Telelatino showed CMLL and AAA tapes on Friday nights for about a year…well, that ruled.
It’s great fun to explain to people the rich history of lucha, show them the incredible acrobatics and colourful characters.
Lately I have been watching a ton of the old, sometimes boring, heavilly formulaic WWF TV shows from the 1980’s and loving them. I wish squash matches would return, but it won’t happen. WWE seem too afraid someone will change the channel if something big isn’t happening. They need to bring back the PPV updates, but probably never will for the same reason. These were all done away with when RAW was going head-to-head with Nitro. It was an understandable switch, but it you educate your viewers that this info is important, they shouldn’t tune out.
I miss real promos, too. Like back when guys would have a minute or two to just talk. I remember when I was a kid in high school, booking out video equipment from my Film and Video Production class, and taping the local West Coast Championship Wrestling shows in Cloverdale, BC. You’d go up to a Buddy Wayne or Michelle Starr and ask them to do a promo and as soon as the red light went on, they went off on a great rant. The line back then was “just turn the camera on, they know what they are doing, it’s part of their job.”
I find the fact that in most cases, WWE promos are heavily scripted to be a tad insulting as a performer myself. It should be my job to get over and get across what needs to be, and I consider it part of my skillset as a wrestler (sorry, “sports entertainer”) to be able to deliver the goods. Give me bullet points, and I’ll hit them all for you. Scripted promos seems so fake and unorganic, and allow little room to get your personality across. One of my major peeves about my own wrestling career is I didn’t get to talk as much as I would have liked to, because I feel I can talk better than I can wrestle. In hindsight, maybe it was a good thing, though, because the real problem is getting me to shut up.
Anyhow, I can’t feel my tooth now. Thanks for bearing with me through this trying time. Hope my inane ramblings were at least a little though provoking or something.
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Non-wrestling related. French Vanilla Raspberry yogurt rules.
