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Submitted by Tom Guzik on Thursday, October 31, 2002 at 7:33 AM EST
On Today’s GDH… Rewind – WWE No Mercy 2002 NB: These PPV thoughts were written up after the actual event. “Two columns in two weeks..?”, You ask yourself. Absolutely. My friend Matt Hester, who writes "Beyond the Squared Circle" at Wrestlepalooza.com – invited me to his student house a little while back to watch WWE’s latest PPV offerering, “No Mercy”. He took pity on me, as in my last column I explained to all the GDH readers that I have no access to watching wrestling anymore. This was a strange feeling. Watching a WWE PPV, without hardly watching any of it’s prior television shows. Was this a good thing? I was about to find out. Christian and Chris Jericho seems to be an interesting pairing. Not sure what is going on with Christian’s ring attire. I could also say the same about the middle rope during the conclusion of the match up. Very surprised Jericho didn’t injure himself. Funny it happened because I had just mentioned that “Jericho’s style in the ring can be pretty ropey at times”… Rob Van Dam and Ric Flair did as well as they could in their match up. Bit of a style clash, and certainly an age gap, but Flair still showing that he is the “dirtiest player in the game”. I am so relieved to see Flair back as a heel. What next for RVD? Is it time for him to step up to the big time, or is someone still pushing him down. I really enjoyed the Tajiri – Jamie Noble match. It had a good background storyline to it, which served the purpose of keeping the fan’s interested. The action was also very good to watch, and credit to both guys for pulling it off. We need more of these matches. I have to admit that the Triple H/Kane match did not enthuse me with any excitement prior to their bout, but boy, the last 7-8 minutes of that match was better than expected. The crowd (who really had been hot all night) were just so into it, even though it was obvious that Hunter (such the company man) would never do the job to Kane. Nothing really to say about the SD Tag Team Title Match… How good was that! Stand up Messrs Angle, Messrs Benoit, Messrs Misterio, and Messrs Edge. That truly was another contender for “Match of the Year”. Remember the days when Rock would face Triple H again and again, in different permutations of gimmicked matches. It got stale after a certain amount of time. These guys could keep wrestling each other all the time, and I wouldn’t get bored of watching them. If there’s one genial decision that is to come out of an otherwise bleak year in wrestling, it’s putting Angle, Edge and Benoit on the same show, and adding Misterio into the mix to boot. Genious! Just as Trish came out for her match at around after 3am (UK Time), I was finding it very hard to keep my eyes open, and I needed to head off home. I had been playing football (real football!) earlier that evening in the cold, wet, windy weather, and I felt that if the Tag Match beforehand wasn’t as good as it was, I would have completely passed out in the chair. Bad me. I just felt that I could not deal with another Undertaker match, albeit against one of my current favourite wrestlers, and in one of my favourite gimmick matches. So with that being said, I predict that Brock won the match, after taking a huge beat-down, possibly with Matt Hardy taking a bump, and Undertaker leaving us for the mean-time, though I wish it was for good. All in all, for a PPV in which I knew hardly anything about, it proved to me that you can miss around 3-4 weeks of wrestling television shows, and still be able to watch the PPV with a sense of what’s going on. Actually, it was better this way. Clear it off my Chest – Is Wrestling Embarrassing..? I had gone home for the weekend just passed for one of my friend's graduation dinner's. It was quite a nice evening, it was staged at his favourite football club's stadium, in one of their premier suite's. Only family and other close friends had been invited to the dinner, and I was one of them. As the evening wore on and everyone had finished their pleasantries after dinner. Someone switched on the televisions that surrounded the suite and long and behold, what would come onto the television, WWE Smackdown. I thought to myself, "oh-no, please, not wrestling...". Now, my friend used to tease me when I was younger about watching wrestling. I remember that he would absolutely love taking the p*** out of a interest, that quite frankly interested me and kept me entertained when I was younger. It took a long time for me to realise it was "fake" etc. - and it did take some time. But nevertheless, I enjoyed watching wrestling. Now he wasn't sitting on the table I was on, but a couple of my other friends were sitting there. When the wrestling came up on the television, nobody looked at me, but they were all looking at the television. Phew. Nobody remembered that I used to like wrestling. The show started off with Matt Hardy coming down to ringside with that ridiculous "V1" t-shirt. That was my first call of embarrassment. During his entrance, some silly profile flashed onto screen, to make me feel even more uncomfortable. The alarm bells started to ring around in my head. I thought, that "things surely couldn't get any worse, could they...?" - oh, they just did. Rikishi starts coming down to ringside, to start making me cringe in my seat. Where 2 minutes ago everyone was just minding their own business, now they were all transfixed onto the screen, with a couple of laughs being heard too, as the most embarrassing wrestler you could possibly have to come down to ringside, was getting his fat ass into the ring. Then one of my friends asks me a question. "Tom, didn't you use to watch this...?". I had to respond with something that would cover up my embarrassment. "Erm, yea I did.." - He replied with "Do you still watch it now..?" - I responded with "Well since I'm at University, I don't get to watch it much these days.." Pretty honest answers. Then he replies with "I just can't see the appeal of it. There's like grown men sitting in the crowd, and the fact that they paid to watch this makes it even more bizarre". I was thinking that it's true what he's saying. The way the wrestling came off on the television, was that it's for kid's. Not for 20's and over age group, which I find myself in. When I was young, being a wrestling fan in the UK was not something to shout about. Honest. It was like you were trying to hide the fact that you enjoyed it. My friend's knew I liked it, and there were some friends who also liked it, but didn't watch it as much as I did. Hell, my parents used to watch it with me from time to time. Hell....we even use to have British wrestling on Saturday afternoons, which was even more comedic! But as time went on and I grew up, it was becoming a taboo topic. I would not mention it at all that I still enjoyed watching wrestling. The problem was that wrestling in this country is always aimed at the younger age group. Sometimes when I pick up a magazine in the shop, and begin to read it, I'm surrounded by 10 year old's. (Sorry, thats sounds precarious, but you know what I mean!). Then I promptly put the magazine down. If I ever decide to buy the magazine, I take it to the counter and hide the front of the page with my hand, so I don't get some silly remark from the assistant at the counter. That situation is so stupid, it's almost like I'm buying a porn mag! Just imagine it was an episode of Raw that had flashed onto the screen, and they showed “that” segment with Triple H. I would have uncomfortably shifted away from my table and left for some fresh air. Long and behold, that type of stuff is very embarrassing to watch. If things couldn't get any worse during this evening, hence on the television Rikishi starts to dance. I couldn't feel more embarrassed. Thank god Big Show came down to ringside and promptly disposed of Rikishi, but made matters worse by displaying his world-renowned mic skills to be heard over the speakers in the Premier Suite of Portman Road. "I swear, I never said I was a fan of wrestling....". They don't need to know that! History Obviously as most of you know, I am without access to watching wrestling. I am going to need something to tie me over when writing this column, whilst I do eventually get that access back. I've been thinking what I could do, and seeing as it's soon going to be 12 years to the time that I've been watching wrestling, I want to do something nostalgic. I am planning to do a segment (which might take up most of the column) where I want to go over each month per the column on what happened in the wrestling world at that moment in time. It sounds a little audacious, but what the hell, it's innovative. It'll be fun for me to look back at the years I've spent watching wrestling. It will most probably run from the latter end of the 1990's, straight through to the current day as we know it. I will be asking you, the GDH readers, to help me out on this as well. To jog the memory so to speak. Not all of you were watching wrestling back in the hey-day, but there are still some people who can contribute. In the next edition, I will give details on how you can help, and also in what format it will be written up in. If you have any suggestions or ideas now, then send them to the e-mail address provided at the end of the column. High Impact Wrestling – Open to all new applicants!. Gimmicks Die Hard – Missed a column, find it here.. ……and that my Friend’s concludes another edition of GDH on LOP. Thanks for Reading... and Remember you don't always need a Gimmick Tom Guzik & "GDH" © 2002 Exclusive to LordsofPain.net tommyboygdh@hotmail.com *NEW GALLERY* Must See! McMahon FAMILY PHOTOS! Shane's Wife & More! Very Rare!
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