Corner To Corner - Change is Good?
Submitted by Stan Grubb on Wednesday, March 20, 2002 at 12:05 AM EST



There I was, driving down state route 3 inside Culpeper county early Monday morning, when out of nowhere this stupid ass deer decides to victimize my Nissan Pathfinder with it’s head. So there I was, sitting on the side of the road attending to my vehicle when out of nowhere, this dipshit in brown pulls next to me and says “Looks like you have a headlight out there,” and he drives away.

My friends, I wish I could tell you that this week I am one hundred percent focused, but it just ain’t so. So this week, I am allowing you inside my head for a while.

Welcome to a very much divided edition of-

Corner to Corner

Writing this column every week is a refreshing glimpse at a very jaded and difficult to understand business. To be quiet honest, I am not all that different from any of you. In 1988 I started watching wrestling. In 1998, I was sitting in the stands at Starrcade in DC. I have been watching and learning all my life. Whether it was matches with Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, The Ultimate Warrior, Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit, or Rob Van Dam, I have been adapting and enjoying this sport for as long as I can remember.

Understanding this, I have been distracted as of late when it comes to this business. Why? Because this business is rapidly changing before all of our very eyes. It used to be that we could sit back, enjoy a pay per view and be surprised by the results. It used to be that we could sit and watch Monday Night Raw and ONLY speculate about the results. This was all before the Internet.

The World Wide Web has changed this business. The fans and the detractors have changed this business. The adaptive style of today’s performers has changed this business. Change, friends, is not a bad thing (Excuse the rip here Page), It’s A GOOD THING. Change is what makes this business, this game, whatever you call it, so entertaining. Change gave us the end of WCW and the creation of the Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship. It gave us the demise of ECW and the rise to power for Chris Jericho. Change took away competition and change created the void we now feel when the WWF comes on television.

It seemed up until last week, the writers for World wrestling Federation Entertainment could have cared less that we the educated fans of today’s mainstream business. They constantly rained down upon us with the sludge known as Stephanie McMahon and The Big Show. They didn’t seem to care that we were taking large craps all over their segments. They didn’t seem to care that the ratings were dropping each time these ego ridden or overburdened superstars were crammed down our throats. They didn’t even seem to care that we silently mourned the death of WCW and quietly wished for a rebirth. Nope, WWFE writers and executives seemed to care less that we were growing bored.

Did anyone ever tell you that being content with your status was bad? If you’re like me, you know in your heart that being content IS bad. Being content means you feel you have done all you can and have nothing more to prove. In this business, it is being content that spells your doom. I point this out here and now, to show the world that I understand your feelings and I agree with all of you.

World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, the single most dominant wrestling company in the world today, finally heard our cries last week. That’s right, FINALLY… The WWF has come back to THE FANS! It always seemed to me that we were ignored for the most part. The writers, in their minds, never seemed to totally go away from us, but they also never seemed to totally follow us either. HHH in 2001 was massively over as a heel, but his reaction was that of a face. They did a semi-turn and had him be face against Kurt Angle. The next thing we know, HHH is back to full-fledged heel.

So the deal here is that the writers love to mess with our heads? Yeah, and they do it all day long. Fake turns, seemingly huge main events with crappy endings, and even the rumors of big returns all lend credence to the fact that they love to mess with our heads. Pro wrestling was built that way and we seem to love it even more for that. PLEASE, SURPRISE ME! I am BEGGIN YA!

Enter the WWFE roster split. Linda McMahon calls it a brand extension. We call it a split. Next Monday, we finally get what we asked for. Finally, we the fans get an alternative source of wrestling entertainment. Well… For the most part. I think we were all fooled again.

The split is taking place and the draft is being held next Monday. Ric Flair and Vince McMahon will be leading their own rosters and competing against one another. We will get two sets of pay per views. We will get to see just how good our favorite superstars are. So… Why are the rosters being called WWF RAW and WWF SMACKDOWN? See? I told you so. I told you they like to mess with our heads.

We begged for a change right? We begged them to split it in two and give us an alternative. Give us more flavors to choose from! Give us not just The Rock, but also Hulk Hogan. Give us Sting, Diamond Dallas Page, Booker T, and Kurt Angle. We begged for the separation and now we’re only partially getting what we wanted.

Partially? What the hell! Are we to believe that the only way we can get our point across is by literally turning the channel? Is that what being a fan now means? Did we all go from being there for the entertaining matches and wrestling to now only wanting T and A mixed with the occasional brawl? No way! Hell no! I never asked for it, and I know that most of you dear readers didn’t either. Screw old school or new school, just give us something to enjoy.

So now we are going to see the big draft. Now, after a year of having no REAL alternative. We will finally be getting our much-deserved split. And whether we like it or not, we are going to have to tune in to find out how it all ends. Sure, there are a lot of details still unknown, but to me, unless the details include the “brand extension” becoming two independent entities, our request is still being ignored.

This week is different for me. I had three different topics chosen for this week’s edition of Corner to Corner. It was after I began to sit and think about the split even more that I decided to do this a little differently. You guys and girls who read Corner to Corner deserve to know that the writers for WWFE are messing you with. Yeah, as odd as it seems, the one company left seems to only be half listening to us.

Obviously, our cries for changes didn’t make the impact we expected. Maybe its time we started to make a little more noise. I am starting a request here and now that all of us go to the World Wrestling Federation website and we send a letter to their “FEEDBACK” department explaining our displeasure with their half-assed actions. If nothing else fans, we are the conscience that wrestling needs. We, the wrestling fans, deserve to know why we are being slighted in this manner.

It has nothing to do with being angry or bitter. This is a legitimate concern. We spent a great deal of time and money to get our requests answered in the fashion we deserve. We spent countless hours of viewing total crap when Bischoff and Russo were “down south.” We spent hour after hour watching the buildup and the destruction of Bret Hart, Sid Vicious, Mick Foley, The Undertaker, Sting, and even Bill Goldberg. We didn’t ask for the crap to get thrown on us, we were just in the way. Well you know what? We are the reason this business is so successful, so damn it, we deserve to be satisfied.

While we asked to get the big split and we got the “semi-split.” Well, while some may call this edition greedy and bitter, I can only reply in this fashion. Did you spend your money for all of the years of you being a wrestling fan, only to be told that your opinion didn’t matter? None of us can say yes to that. None of us asked to have our opinions ignored.

Corner-to-Corner is a result of the strain of trying to understand just how my opinion can be misrepresented the way it has been. It’s a positive and negative reaction to the angles and the matches that make all of us stand up and cheer. We deserve the right to crap all over an angle and have our opinion matter. We deserve to see change occur in total and not half way. We didn’t spend $39.95 for Wrestlemania only to told the following night that although we asked for a total split, here’s the “semi split” instead.

We asked for a real change Linda. We asked for something new. During the WWF’s “GET IT?” campaign, we responded in positive form. Now, as it draws closer to the WWF’s “brand extension,” we’re being told that the WWFE doesn’t.
You know what? I think now is the best time to tell you all. I don’t get it. I don’t get it and I don’t like it.

Until next week, I am going to go back to pulling the pieces of deer off of my truck so I can go to work and earn money for the next wrestling pay per view. See you next week folks. Thanks for reading.

-Stan Grubb--
impactxtreme@msn.com








*NEW GALLERY* Very CONTROVERSIAL Shots of Randy Orton in His Hotel Room!!

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