|
|
|
|
|
Submitted by Wevv Mang on Sunday, May 23, 2004 at 6:58 PM EST
Ridin’ With The Bossman – The Ego Of Wevv Greetings! Welcome to another edition of Ridin’ With The Bossman! Well, there was a PPV, and it seems like almost no one bought it or watched it. Then we have Raw, Smackdown, and so me newsblurbs to talk about. So, let’s get to it, shall we? WWE TV – The Series Judgement Day The first match and the last match were good. Eddie bled a lot. That’s about the gist of it. Raw Recap info provided by Mr.. Recap, Steven "Rommel" Schaeffer, who was smart enough to not spend money on Judgement Day Before the show starts, we get a message from Rudi Guilallani. "You Damn Net Writers! Vince has wished cancer on you for so long, he’s wondering if it’s taken effect. Vince now realizes that he still needs you rat bastard net smarks. You have money. So pull your heads out of your asses and let a professional stick his finger up there instead! Thank you. Bastards!" Trish vs Lita A revenge match for the joke Trish played on Lita. Solid action. Then Kane shows up on the Titan Tron, distracting Lita allowing Trish to get the pin. It looks like it’s going to be another night of Kane being creepy. Poor bastard. Randy Orton Promo Great work from Randy, even though he started out kissing H’s ass. Not too bad, if it’s going to lead to Orton taking on H. He then goes on to say how he is a great IC champion. Shelton comes down, to offer his rebuttal. Benjamin needs to rehearse his lines before he gives these promos. To many pauses after he speaks. If he got the promo early, and could read through it aloud a couple of times to get comfortable, it would do wonders. Then the Creepy Hand Of Vince rears it’s ugly head. Orton says the infamous "You people…". It was solid right up until that point, where it nose dived. There was absolutely no reason to add that. Sports Entertainment After a botched video clip, we got Evolution hanging out. H wants help, Orton will take care of Shelton, Batista will win the belts, and Ric will lose his pants and dance around. Bischoff has a new plan to get the creepiness back into Eugene’s character. Eugene is acting less retarded than usual. Kane – Two squashes for the price of one Kane squashes Val Venis, Matt runs down and gets squashed, Lita runs down to save Matt, and gives her answer. It’s yes. So, now that we know the answer, but not the question, let’s speculate about what Lita has agreed to. Is it to allow Kane to wear her thong as his new mask? Could it be to allow Kane to impregnate her in an attempt to revive his fan base of Kanenites? What creepy, horrible angle could it be? Shaving Kane all over? Find out Next Week! WWE loves Republicans! Now, here’s a retard, a homo, and some racial slurs and sexual perversions! Get your ass out and vote! Edge and Benoit vs Batista and Orton Good, solid match. A lot of back and forth, and great work from even Batista. Ric appears at ringside and tries to cheat covertly for his team. Doesn’t work, as the faces capitalize and Benoit makes Orton tap out. Eugene Some putz is in the ring. He’s going to conduct the interview of Eugene. Coach makes the save. HE then goes on to rail on Eugene. He’s a joke, he’s not good, and he’s a failure. Eugene starts to leave when Rock appears and saves the segment. Great stuff. Eugene likes H. Why? They both like to play games. Ah-HA! There is your first hint that maybe Eugene is more than he appears. Or else it’s a joke, saying that all H fans are retards. Your pick. Rock and Eugene beat up Coach and Garrison Cade. Rock does get to call H a fag. Battle Royal Jobbers enter, and are promptly eliminated. Jericho may have injured himself going over the top turnbuckle. I hope not. H Orton, Kane, and Shelton are the last four. Benjamin goes, then Orton, and then HBK runs in to beat down H Kane gets the easy pin. This does not count as doing the job for Kane. It's a battle royal. Raw now has a plan, unfortunately, it involves Lita and Kane. Kane’s now a number one contender and Lita has yet to reveal what Kane asked her. Not a good combination. The rest of the show is in good shape. Funny how Eugene has taken off. Once he stopped acting like a creepy retard, and started acting like a goof, the fans started digging him. Any day now, he’ll be acting like a normal person. Of course, Vince’s idea of what a normal person acts like are way out there. Smackdown Recap info courtesy of Mathew Tremly Eddie starts the show off with a hot promo. Bradshaw then comes out in his limo, with his lame entrance music, and then says that he will fight Eddie, but not right now. Angle rises from the depths, and uses his telepathic powers to announce a match for Great American Bash. Luther stands idly by, far away from the bald wonder. Angle then reads the minds of the crowd, and decides to give them what they don’t want. A six man tag for the main event. Rico and Charlie vs Johnny the Bull and Nunzio Nunzio is STILL hurt from the beating the Undertaker gave him two weeks ago. Which is funny, considering what happens later on. The champs retain in a damn good wrestling match. Jackie looks hot. Billy Kidman vs Akio Mordecai makes his TV debut (not on PPV, but on real TV). He comes out and squashes both men after and lengthily entrance that involves rituals. He looks like a white haired Kevin Nash, and therefore I must not like him. Typical squash match. Cena vs Dupree Dupree still has the dog. Yes, much better than a hot chick. Folks really want to see the dog. Dupree wins via count out, as he goes nuts on Cena. Cruiser Weight Championship Chavo vs Los Al Wilson vs Spike Dudley OK, again with the old crufter wrestling. Spike rolls out of the ring and allows Los Al Wilson to pin his son and becomes the new champ. -First, Vince loves Chavo Sr. He went nuts at the Cauliflower Alley awards. SO Vince rewards him. A subtle hint at the origin of Chavo Classic, since Chavo was "classic" at the banquet, yelling about how great Vince is, and insulting all the other members. -Second: How hard is it to book Spike? You give him two big angles a year. He can lose the rest of the time, but every underdog should have his day. Hell, make it an annual event, where folks can say stuff like "Well, it’s May and Spike usually wins in May". Not that hard. Booker T vs Funaki You know, I’d rather see Booker feud against Funaki than Taker. One reason, it will entertain me. Good to see the #1 Smackdown announcer back in action, and way to use Booker’s phrase against him., Great stuff. Folks forget that Funaki can actually wrestle. It would be a good pairing for a final run for Booker. Better than squash-a-rama with the Undertaker, which will accomplish next to nothing. Dudleys and Bradshaw vs Rey, RVD, and Eddie Guerrero Eddie was attacked backstage and attended to by EMT’s. I hate this crap. Really, really hate it. It’s the stupidest thing in the world, and it’s completely overdone. If the guy needs an oxygen mask, he shouldn’t be coming back. Period. WWE just insults every single wrestler who gets hurts with this crap, because then no injury is real. Triple H shouldn’t have taken months off, since he wasn’t really injured. You mean he couldn’t wrestle on one leg? So what? Eddy just came back. Nunzio is still injured? Why should that effect his performance? Eddy just came back and almost won, on his own, against three guys. Don’t do that. It’s plain stupid. It means next to nothing. It doesn’t create drama, it doesn’t add to the angle, it takes away. Finish saw Eddy pass out, for no apparent reason, though Cole did say that maybe it was due to injuries, but he just put on a good showing, so it can’t plausibly be that. SO it was fake. He just keeled over, because he wanted to. Thanks Vince. Bradshaw steals the pin. So that was the big show after a PPV? Eh, it wasn’t that great. It was more of a "wrap up the stuff we didn’t bother to on PPV, since no one was going to spend money on the PPV" type of show. Dan Jackson and I were emailing one back and forth about what could be done with Bradshaw. One thing we did agree on was that Angle needs to stop kissing Bradshaw’s ass. Angle is the guy in charge, and that means that Bradshaw should be kissing Angle’s ass. But if Bradshaw is Vince, in Vince’s mind, well then, that’s the way it should go right? Anyone notice that Taker wasn’t on the show? Hey, he just wrestled! Wrestling is hard! He needs another three weeks off. Never mind that Eddy went to the hospital legit, and wrestled two days later, Taker is Taker and needs to rest up. Cashing those checks ain’t easy you know. Bah. The show is still sub-par, and it’s not the quality of wrestling that’s causing it to tank. Over-Analyzing Wrestling Today’s Topic: Ego, Friend and Foe I know, I’m going to skip the Wevv’s House segment this week, so that I can talk about something that’s really important. Me. I rarely talk about myself in my column, and I thought I’d change that as of today. Let’s start with the basics. Hello, My name is Wevv Mang, and I like wrestling. I’m 34 years old. I have been watching wrestling for 6? 7? Years now, after stopping for 5 or six years. Before that, I had started watching sometime in my early teens. I can remember Magnum TA coming down to ringside after his car crashes (angle or real, don’t know which). I can also remember the Freebirds in action and also that I hated that fat bastard Dusty Rhodes, and how dare he call himself the American Dream? That was along time ago. I started writing columns on a whim. After Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker had in my opinion a stinkfest, double DQ match, I thought, what the hell. I’ve been writing for a year and a half. The exact number of columns eludes me, but I think it’s around 130 or so. I made the mainpage of LOP on my 87th. That was back in August, on the eve of SummerSlam. My professional life has been all about the entertainment industry. I’ve had a slew of jobs, in all kinds of professions, but my favorite ones were the ones involving broadcasting. I’ve worked in small station radio for over seven years. I’ve worked in low-end cable TV production for over three. Currently, I’m not in the business, but am trying to get back. It ain’t easy. Entertaining is a passion of mine. I love to write and create. That’s why I write this column. It’s fun. One of the other reasons I started writing a column was to explore the questions I couldn’t get answers to. Coming from a broadcasting background, and having some experience writing, I was puzzled by WWE’s tactics. Why insult their fans? Why push guys who weren’t over? How could they screw up the Invasion so badly? Why try to provoke the wrath of the FCC? Who put offensive material on their programming when ratings back up that fan don’t want to see it? I was fortunate enough to start writing around the time of the Kane H feud where Kane was called a necrophiliac. Now, my column is dedicated to one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. The Bossman Big Show casket ride through the cemetery. It’s been over five years, and I still chuckle when I think about that skit. But the stuff they were doing back then, and are still doing today. It’s different. I can’t really pinpoint how, but I think it has something to do with the fact, that WWE is trying to be too serious about the topic. Bossman Big Show, once they did that skit, it was over, and they moved on. Next up for Bossman was Al Snow and the feeding of the dog. I was into Bossman then, but that didn’t pack the punch of Big Show. Maybe it was the way that WWE downplayed the angle, since it was a lower card feud and not the main event. Now, they spend all this time telling you the fans who tragic/important/ hideous it is. And then they go for the wrong tone. It’s becomes about how evil H is, and how could he do that, and my isn’t he smart? As opposed to that was wrong, it shouldn’t have been allowed to happen, and what didn’t anybody do anything about it. Bossman was called all kinds of names, but he lived up to it. Enough focus was shifted to allow Bossman to develop his own take on the way his character was played, and he did it with gusto and style. One of the main things I bring to the table, as writing is my understanding of what WWE really is. It’s a TV show. The wrestling is a main ingredient, but the angles and gimmicks add flavor to the mix. When it works, it works very well. It wasn’t that long ago that WWE was booming. What changed? No one knew for sure. Was it the wrestling? Was it the dreaded cycle kicking in a gain? When I started, everyone was focused on how awful WWE was, and that was about it. Having experience putting together TV shows, I used that experience to puzzle out some of the effort that went into creating A WWE TV show. I kept asking questions like why? Why do something like that? Doesn’t it make more sense to try and do it like this? What is the reason behind that? Yes, I stayed away from the dreaded history columns. I didn’t do the reader mail columns. I tried to keep things fresh and try something new. I have never done a DVD review. I do reviews, but know better than to try and recap the action. Angles, gimmicks, plots. That’s where my strength lies. I may not know who won the Royal Rumble of 2002, but once I get a name, I can tell you the back-story that led to the win and what happened afterward. I can see a match, and let you know what I thought of it, but to really stand out for me, something has to be done above the work in the ring. Like making a superstar out of Jeff Hardy, even if only for one night. The match has to accomplish more than just entertain. Long term effects and so forth. Back to ME. You think that people were thinking about merchandise and how it can effect what you see on TV before I wrote about it? How about rambling about cross over appeal of wrestlers to the rest of the entertainment medium? Comedy was the bane of sports entertainment, yet here’s Wevv, doing his comedy schtick, and saying that comedy may be the key to reinvigorating WWE. I read an article in the paper today saying that the fall plans for sitcoms is looking grim. Now, WWE, a very unique product that combines the elements of sports and drama, with a nice promotional tool in the form of live events happening in YOUR HOME TOWN, can step in and fill a niche. Instead of imitating other shows, strike out in anew direction and go for new ground, and thus new fans. There’s a reason that cartoons are a big hit this year. They’re funny for the most part, and have a lot of action. WWE could learn from anime. They may not be able to duplicate the fighting scenes, but they can do something almost as good. Wevv has played a part in the shaping of shaping the IWC. Indeed, I will say that I’m one of the most influential people on the net right now. My topics have been taken up by others and inspired columns in own right. My ideas have made it to WWE TV. I am the only one who can save WWE! I alone know what folks want to see, and---hey, what are you two doing? This is MY time! I made you! Get out of here! Put that down! Don’t you dare- Bossman: Grab him Big Show! Calm down Wevv! Big Show: Got him! Wevv: Unhand me you big doofus! People hated you before Wevv took up your cause! Big Show: He’s in a bad way BM! He's talking about himself in the third person! Bossman: Give him the sandwich quick! Big Show opens up the cooler with the red cross on the side and pulls out a big sandwich. Big Show: here ya go Wevv, eat this. It’s a turkey deluxe! Wevv: Well, Wevv is hungry.. Bossman: Sorry for the interruption folks. Wevv hasn’t eaten anything, and he gets loopy when he’s hungry. He’s normally not like this. Once he gets something inside him, he’ll be back to normal. Hey, anyone catch Boa vs Python last night? That was some fine cheese. Of course, if a giant snake were coming after me, I’d just whack the sucker a few times with my nightstick. I did keep expecting Ric Flair to pop out of nowhere, and start saying stuff like " Take a look at this Python! WHOOO! Only one way you can charm this snake, little lady! It’s the Serpent Of Space Mountain! WHOOO!" Bossman: How’s he doing Show? Good. I’ll try to fill some more space. Let me try some Wevvism here. Ratings, that should be easy. Ratings have dropped since last week. I think that folks were interested in what happened at the PPV, but got enough to not bother checking in. Damn, this isn’t going well. Come on Show, just shove it down his throat already. I can’t keep this up! Bossman: Um, how bout those Flyers? Nice choke eh? It will be a dark day in Canada if the Flames lose to a team from Florida. In baseball news, Phoenix is still going nuts over Randy Johnson’s perfect game. Kind of like when their goalie had the shut out record. I expect the same results for the Diamondbacks. Now they can lose the season in peace. Come on Show, I’m dying here! Big Show: He’s ready. Feeling better Wevv? Good. Bossman: Whew! Take over Wevv. Cubs Suck! Bossman and Big Show exit, with looks of satisfaction on their faces. Thank you Bossman and Big Show. I kind of lost it there. Now to try and repair the damage. Ego is a good thing, if put into perspective. I have talent, and I know it. It's just that my ambition doesn't match my talent. Yet there are others who are more talented than I. Their area of talent is different from mine, but no less talented. It’s specialization. Our talents compliment each other, and thus make the whole greater than it’s parts. Just because something doesn’t appeal to me, doesn’t mean it’s not good. Folks love the history columns. They love the reader mail. They love the rants, the fantasy booking, and even the comedy of others. When I read something that doesn’t appeal to me, and is praised, instead of just attacking it, I use it to inspire me to do something different, or to improve on some aspects of what I’m doing. Now for the real message of this topic. I am not an expert. I am not the greatest thing ever. If my ideas don’t appeal to some people, I’ll try to find something that will, or ignore it. Attacking and bashing just because a good idea, which has appeal didn’t come from me, is not just stupid, it’s wrong. If I started a feud with some one over an idea that I disagreed with, well, hits might go up. It’s true. Strife is interesting, but in the long run, it does more damage than good. One person may win the battle, but in the broader scope, if there’s nothing to get the body of readers to stick around, the benefits are nil. Forcing the fans to pick between Us and Them, well, what if they pick Them? Where are we then? Out in the cold trying to get back the magic that once was before the crap hit the fan. It’s mostly an uphill struggle with no sure-fire results. Sure, doing something what once worked can be tried. If it hasn’t been done in a long time, you can get the nostalgia factor going. But the habits that helped keep a once sure-fire thing going may have developed into something else. Something that trying to do the old gimmick may not be able to keep up with. After all, how can you keep the passion alive when you don’t feel the same way you once did? How many changes have you gone through since you last did it? Trying to recapture the magic of my revolutionary phase in college, it’s just not the same, since it’s been ten plus years since I was that way, and I know a lot more now than I did then. It’s like high school kids thinking prom is the greatest thing in the world. Talk to them in ten years, and the ones who keep going on about how prom was are looked at as losers. They’ve done nothing since then? How sad. At the time, it may be fantastic, but when you try to convey that importance to an older person, they have done things that topped that since then. Like getting married, having a kid, and compared to that, prom may have been special, but it’s not the peak anymore. The flip side of the coin is if you try and do something that you once thought was great, but everyone else didn’t care for. You can keep trying to beat people over the head, to make them see that this is GREAT! What’s wrong with them? Don’t they know genius when they see it? I’m sure you can see the problem right there. If they didn’t like it he same time, they probably won’t the second. Especially if it’s the same thing in a different package. Take for example, Kane and Lita. Chicks have been beaten up on wrestling for years. DDP stalked Sarah, Angle went nuts over Steph, Trish has been abused by Vince, H, and Steph, and everyone and anyone. Same with Stacy and Test, BPP, and some others I’m forgetting. Torrie has been abused by Vince, etc. Just about every chick on the roster, wrestler or otherwise, has been involved in some horrible crap. This time it’s Kane and Lita, who haven’t interacted together. How is this different than those other times? It’s not. Yet there it is again. Folks pop when the hero comes out, but after he’s squashed, hear that sound? It’s called silence. Oh, wait, there’s something else. It’s groaning. In delight? Um, no. Same thing with the Bradshaw push. Seems awfully familiar huh? Everyone talking about how great Bradshaw is. Eddy having to prove himself as champ, over and over again. Always coming out short in the matchups. It’s very…Triple H’ish. Two plus years of H on top, and I think folks can recognize the signs of another non-stop no matter whether you like it or not push. Vince has an ego, no doubt about it. His ideas, well, let’s just put it this way. "They’re very creepy people…." Anonymous wrestler in a PW Torch newsblurb about the McMahons. Maybe if the guy got some sleep it would help. Ego. It can be your friend, and your foe. It can push you to accomplish things you won’t think possible. It can also blind you to pitfalls, and the frailties in your logic and ability. Balance is the key. Use your ego to push yourself, and keep your ego in check to see the path ahead. And if you fall, ego can help you climb back to the top, or make you blind and deaf, so that you sink to the depths. The choice is yours. Of course, being blind does give one super powers, like Daredevil or Nidia. That’s it for today. Thanks for the save BM and Show. I have some random thoughts, while you guys get the hearse ready. In ratings news, the new system that is going to be implemented by Neilson is under review. A recent test in New York showed that Smackdown was hit hard, along with just about everyone else. However, BET showed significant growth. Upon hearing the results, BET officials promptly said " Say What?!? We love the new system!" and pop the top off some 40’s and lit up some blunts. Vince may have been right to offend the minorities, since it looks like they ain’t watching anyway. X-Pac was backstage at Judgement Day. He was seen talking with H, and asking about coming back. I have a new theory about H and Kane. X-Pac had teamed up with Kane. I wonder if he spill d the beans about his banging Steph to Kane, who went to Vince. That could be why H hates Kane. Of course, after banging Chyna, H may have forgiven X-Pac, feeling he’s suffered enough. DDP was also backstage. The rumors are that DDP was a joke to many of the wrestlers. Which is too bad. DDP would make a damn good manager or color guy on announcing. I mentioned that Vince is selling his stock. The real question is what Vince is going to do with that money. It’s not like Vince is hurting. I can only speculate that Vince is about to go into another crazy scheme. H’s movie has run aground, and one way to get that sucker made is pay for it out of pocket. Not many people have that kind of cash or be willing to sink that much into an unproven product. But Vince is Vince, and he’s not afraid to take chances. Also, there’s Conan looming on the horizon. The director did say that H reminds him of Arnold. Speaking of Arnold, I keep thinking about that comment Millinius made. I’d have to say that Conan was Arnold’s first big film. Pumping Iron is a cult hit, true, but Conan was Arnold acting. It did well, but more for the fact that Conan had some appeal. The second didn’t do that well. I’d have to say that Terminator was the film that truly made Arnold a star. Arnold also has that accent going for him which make shim distinct. So pinning the hope of making H into a star by backing Milianius may not be a good idea. Quick Plugs Tito covers Raw, and offers insight into wrestlers and things they could do. Also, learn about the Blade Drinking Game! Wrath Of Tito Davey, that brave soul bought Judgement Day. IS it as bad as everyone says it is? Find out here: The Wrestling Menu Dubzilla does a great job, covering a lot of varied topics, like H vs Bradshaw, The Kane factor, and so much more. Always a great read/ Turnbuckle Tailgate Random Guy #5 makes it onto the mainpage. A good day for Wevv, as Random is a great writer. He covers his love of Eugene, and why do heels and faces get along. Check it out. COTM - The Nosebleed Section Pt2 Returns! And there was much rejoicing! He takes on wrestling’s greatest rivalries. Take Up Thy Wrestling Boots And Walk After a lengthily absence, Dumass returns. He remembers Owen Hart A Dumass Thought LOP Forums LOP Columns Forum! Firefly talks about Kane’s push and serving the Taker, Philip Van Philie talks about the problems of the cruiserwieght division, and Rick Stallion talks about meeting the champ. LOP Creative Writing Forum Alright guys, let’s get rolling. Next week, it’s back to the regular format. My experiments are done for the time being. At least until I think of something else to do. Hm. Since Lance Storm is no longer an active wrestler, I wonder if he’d be up for a Wevvy style interview? Time to email and find out. Until next Time, Thanks For Reading and Thanks For Ridin Wevv Mang mrwevv@mac.com
*NEW GALLERY* Go Directly to a RANDOM BACKSTAGE SPECIAL PHOTO GALLERY! Check It Out!
|
|