May Column Of The Month: 'All About The Game'
    Submitted by Stanman on Sunday, June 13, 2004 at 2:56 PM EST

    NOTE: The following column won the May Column Of The Month Contest in the LOP Columns Forum. The prize for winning the monthly contest is to have the columnist post one of his columns here on the main page. This month we have YourAyatollah and his column, All About The Game. Send all feedback to YourAyatollah@webtv.net. Enjoy!



    ALL ABOUT THE GAME: THE BOY WHO LOVED WRESTLING




    Hello, all, and welcome back to AATG. To all the first timers, here, I say simply welcome, and I hope you enjoy. As you all well know, I got here by virtue of winning the Column of the Month contest in the Columns section of the LOP Message Board. I'd be remiss if I didn't strongly
    encourage everyone reading this to stop now and, instead, go check out some of the great stuff by people like my Queen Tinaali, Valleyboy, last month's COTM winner randomguy#5, Cavalou, and many, many others. Go ahead, I'll still be here when you get back.


    Okay, let's get started. I'm guessing you're a wrestling fan, or you wouldn't be here, would you? Probably not, unless you thought Lords of Pain sounded like a sadomasochism site, and All About the Game some twisted tale of candlewax and hot leather action. If that's the case, my apologies, and please click that email address at the bottom of the page before you leave.


    All that aside, we are, indeed, all fans here. Some of us have been watching since before we can remember, some since Steve Austin and company started breaking cable ratings records, and a few are still but babes in the woods when it comes to the sport of kings. Most of us just love pro wrestling, and we'd watch RAW and SmackDown! every week no
    matter what, regardless of who gets pushed, who's being held back, or how asinine the main event to the Great American Bash is. I'm proud to say that I'm one of those fans, and I'd like to use my third ever foray onto the LOP main page to tell you why. It's a story I'm sure many of
    you will be familiar with. So, without further ado....


    TIME TO PLAY THE GAME


    From what I've been told over the years, I've been watching wrestling since the age of two years old. I would perch myself on my grandfather's knee and watch as guys like the Von Erichs, Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, and countless other forgotten legends would do battle in dimly lit, smoke filled arenas. My first actual memory of being a fan is of watching an episode of the old Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling cartoon
    one Saturday morning. I have since tracked that very episode down, and good lord did that cartoon suck the balls. But that's besides the point.


    The point is that I've been a fan for, literally, longer than I can remember. I was there when Andre the Giant ripped off Hulk Hogan's cross and officially ended their friendship. I was also there, in tears no less, when the Earthquake attacked the Hulkster and crushed his sternum, leaving everyone to wonder if Hulkamania had finally been toppled. I guess because of the fact that I have no father, I latched onto the Hulkster as a true role model, someone to model my life after. When there were no positive male role models in my life, pro wrestling gave me one to be proud of.


    Of course, my Hulkamania days ended as soon as I saw the Deadman. From the very first time I got to see him on WWF Superstars and he stuffed his beaten opponent in a bodybag, the Undertaker has been my favorite wrester. My favorite years in wrestling history are those early to mid '90s ones, where guys like Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Razor Ramon, and Diesel were the kings of the ring. In case you weren't aware, wrestling wasn't exactly the most popular thing going back in those days. I think USA got more ratings for that Westminster Dog Show once a year than they did with RAW for the rest of it. That obstacle course thingy those pups have to run is a fuckin' slobberknocker, let me tell you.


    My being essentially the only big wrestling fan in my entire elementary school, coupled with the fact that my family was on the low end of the economic food chain, made for a lot of teasing and the occasional beating, with the inevitable, "Hulk Hogan wouldn't cry over getting hit with a rock, pussy" coming right behind. It would have been very easy to
    throw out my WWF Magazine collection, burn my Undertaker shirts, and take my Hasbro WWF action figures to Goodwill. I didn't though, because of the fact that other people not liking it made me want to see it that much more. At a time when Your Ayatollah wasn't the Paragon of Popularity that he is now, being a wrestling fan made me feel like I was
    a cool guy.


    When I was the first kid to hit a growth spurt in my school, the taunting and ass kickings stopped, as did the talking shit about my favorite form of entertainment. I started to let my true personality show as opposed to just being so introverted, and I soon found that people actually liked me. Right upon finally gaining that bit of popularity, I was uprooted and moved to a new school, forced to start
    all over again. Lots of emotional stuff going down around that time, and I must say that my favorite escape from the shittiness of the real world was the New Generation. I'd sit in front of WrestleMania 12 or King of the Ring '96 and forget all about the struggles of trying to conform to
    the masses at my new school. When uncertainty and fear were a regular everyday reality for me, pro wrestling gave me the escape I needed to keep on keeping on.


    The Attitude Era hit at about the same time my life took a drastic change. Building resentment and feelings of apathy towards everything in my life, along with the mutually destructive relationship that became my first, and thus far only, true love came together to make me a person that I didn't even know. Gone was the shaky kid unsure of himself and his surroundings. In his place stood a guy full of bitterness and hatred, but competely sure of my superiority in both mind and body over everyone I came in contact with. My girlfriend, my family, school, nothing was safe from my blind hatred and rage. Throughout this dark time in my life, the only thing that really made me happy anymore, outside of music and hot teenage sex in public places, was my old faithful, pro wrestling.


    As high school moved on and, eventually, came to an end, I came out of my funk. I worked hard at repairing the damage I'd done to the poor girl who had stayed by my side through the whole mess, but it was too little too late. I don't know, maybe she liked the mental abuse. I didn't like giving it anymore, though, unless it was to myself. After my big
    breakup, I was a wreck. Drugs and alcohol were no use, as they only made me feel worse. It took me two years to get over that girl, and throughout that time suicide was a daily thought. It's funny how love can fuck your head up, as suddenly the hellish dreamscape that had been my 5 year relationship was transformed into my only chance at true
    happiness. Stupid as it sounds, I never pulled the trigger or sliced that wrist because I wanted to know what was going to happen on RAW next week. When, in my head, I had nothing else to live for, pro wrestling gave me a reason not to just give up the fight.


    I'm happier now than I've maybe ever been. I've got a job that doesn't totally suck, I'm finally getting back into the swing of this whole dating thing after a few years on the DL, and I do my damndest to be as good a person as I can manage. I've got no wonderful life, to be sure. In the past year alone, part of my roof caved in, my wonderful great grandmother, who raised me for half my life, passed away, and the only girl I'd been seriously interested in in three years fell in love with my best friend. This smile never left my face, though. Over time, I came to accept the fact that, quite simply shit happens. You can be a bitch and whine about it forever, or you can suck it up and move the fuck on.


    Every single week I sit right here on this couch with the very girl and best friend I mentioned above and watch what? Aquateen Hunger Force. Oh, and pro wrestling. That's right, people, when the happy little existance I've been able to fashion for myself was challenged by the possible loss of both a potential love and a guy who's like my brother, pro wresting brought us all together mere days after the shit went down. From that very first time watching RAW all together after "the talk", it's been totally different than I thought it would be. Through our two days a week WWE experience together, I came to see just how much they
    compliment each other, how well they fit together, and it's allowed me to move on to the point that we will all soon be living under the same roof. At a time in my life when my emotions almost blinded me and caused the unnecessary loss of two important people in my life, pro wrestling was there to soften the blow and help me see through the fog.


    I can sense the confusion. "Steve, what in the blue hell does your life story have to do with Triple H or John Cena?" Well, I guess the answer to that would be absolutely nothing. My life story has nothing at all to do with pro wrestling, but pro wrestling has a hell of a lot to do with my life story. Sure, it's just a tv show, but sometimes even the smallest things can make all the difference. If it hadn't been for pro
    wrestling, I'd have had no man to look up to as a child, no reason to feel good about myself in grade school, no source of light in the middle of my darkest days, no reason to live a couple years ago, and probably two less really good friends in the here and now. That's why I'm a fan, and I guess I always will be. Friends and family will sometimes betray
    you, romantic partners will sometimes cheat on you, and life in general will sometimes take a great big shit right on your head, but, for me at least, pro wrestling will never do any of the above.


    GAME OVER


    Hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane, there. I know some of you could give half a shit, and a few probably stopped reading altogether when they saw this wasn't your stereotypical, "SmackDown! should do this to get better" or "Who's the next big thing" wresting column. Hey, that's gravy, baby. To each his own. However, if you made it this far, I genuinely hope you took something away from this, if nothing more than the hot tip on those Columns Forum reads. Maybe I put too much stock into it all, maybe I don't, but I love pro wrestling, and she's never done anything but love me back. What the hell else can you ask for?


    Okay, time for the very first main page Album Pick of the Week. Since I consider being put here by the votes of my peers a pretty high honor, I decided to break out the good stuff. After literally changing the face of rock music with their first two album, the year of 1986 saw Metallica
    at a crossroads. They could either go on with the thrash metal that they had a hand in creating, as plenty of others were happily making millions doing, or they could take things in a new direction and see just how good a band they could be. Well, Master of Puppets proved that Metallica was not only here for the long haul, but was destined to be one of the greatest bands of all time. The album starts so gently, with a nice soft guitar riff that lures you into a lull before Battery blasts out of the gates and kicks your ass. Eight and a half minutes of the purely brilliant Master of Puppets follows before you can even catch your breath, and sets you up nicely for an album full of twists and turns.
    The Thing That Should Not Be, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Disposable Heroes, Leper Messiah, Orion, and Damage Inc. make up the rest of the album, and every single track is an all time classic. If you're a new school Metallica fan, or if you've just always wondered what real heavy metal is supposed to sound like, this is an album that you simply must
    have in your collection. The greatest album from the greatest band in the world, Metallica, go out and get a copy of Master of Puppets right the fuck now, Your Ayatollah commands it. Seriously, go get it.


    That's that, my first appearance on the LOP main page since August of 2002. As I said before, hope you enjoyed reading this one as much as I enjoyed writing it. All feedback is more than welcome and can, of course, be mailed to me at the address below. Hell, if you're feeling froggy, why not take that leap to the LOP Columns Forum and leave your feedback in the latest edition of AATG, which comes your way in the wee
    morning hours of every Tuesday.


    I'd like to say thanks, again, to all the fine people who voted for me this month. Hope I did you guys proud, here. To all the new readers, I hope I've inspired you to come back again, as I can never have too many people tell me just how great I truly am. You guys take care of yourselves out there in the really real world. Much love, people. Later.


    -Steve
    YourAyatollah@webtv.net




    *NEW GALLERY* Over 14 Total HIGH QUALITY Maria 2008 PB Photos! MUST SEE!

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