The Rant of the Week: My Fathers Day Special: An interview with Phantom Classic
Submitted by Phantom Lord on Saturday, June 19, 2004 at 3:37 AM EST



Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain, it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow Phantom Lord and this is my Rant of the Week. As always I am coming to you from the Capitol of the World the one and only New York City and this week it hasn’t been The Big Apple. It’s been The Baked Apple. Good lord the heat has been muggy as hell here, but anything is better then the cold. Now I bet some of you are expecting me to go off on a tangent about the cold blooded murder of Paul Johnson who was from around here in the Swamps of New Jersey. But I won’t. I have a Live Journal and I’m going to try and put the vast majority of my non-wrestling views there. But if you really want to know what I think, I suggest you stop by the LOP Forums and click on The Sanctuary because there is an excellent thread in there that was started by fellow main page columnist Dumass. Dumass said it better then any pundit ever will and I suggest everyone find their way to it.

But despite the state of the world, blunders in the world of Wrestling go on and I have to ask what in the hell was Chavo Classic thinking last weekend. He no shows the Smackdown shows and scares the hell out of everyone thinking something might have happened and it turns out he didn’t feel like working. Well I can’t blame him for that, but it’s not that hard to say I need the weekend off. Well with the firing of Chavo Classic, Smackdown now like Russell Crowe in the movie “The Quick and The Dead”. There’s a scene where Gene Hackman has his men drag Crowe into the bar and prop him up on a chair while he’s being hung from an over head beam and Hackman pulls out his gun and shoots the legs of the chair to weaken it to really make Crowe suffer before it breaks.

Well imagine that Vince McMahon is Sharon Stone’s character (Not figuratively…but I wouldn’t be surprised if he does have a few gender issues with himself…) and as Russell Crowe is dangling from that noose he has a choice. Does he shoot the rope and save Crowe or does he let gravity do it’s work and the chair breaks and Crowe’s neck snaps like a twig when that rope pulls back. That’s the position Smackdown is in right now. Bruce Prichard is a moron for wanting to kill the Cruiserweight division. I know it kills the established stars to have to wrestle a high impact style, but when you got guys like Guerrero, Mysterio, Noble, London, Akio, and we hope Ultimo Dragon and you tell them you put the cuffs on them and say you can’t wrestle this way…you have to wrestle our way it just ultimately kills any chance of them succeeding.

Speaking of killing, would someone please call the FBI. The Dudley Boyz are guilty of a whole laundry list of Federal and State Crimes and if this Live Free or Die match goes forward, they will all be guilty of first degree murder. I mean how dumb can McMahon be. This one defies all logic. Paul Barer gets kidnapped and now we are expected to believe that if The Undertaker doesn’t do “the right thing”, Paul Barer will be buried alive in Cement. Oh that’s just brilliant…what’s next? An on air pregnancy test? What it happened??? Lewis Black Mode AH SON OF A BITCH.

I been saying for a while that watch them do this Lita angle and who was the one to suggest that first? Why my father. See with Fathers day coming up I had an idea of sorts. Why not interview my father. He’s the one that got me hooked into wrestling and since he broke the Lita story to you the readers way before anyone else on the net, I figured I get his thoughts on his favorite moments and where he as a common fan sees wrestling going. So with out any further interruption, I introduce to you the man who made me the person I am today…my father Phantom Classic

Phantom: How long have you been watching Wrestling?

Phantom Classic: I grew up watching wrestling mostly since the 70’s. I’ve seen everything from Samartino till now that was seen on the East Coast. I didn’t get to see too much of the West Coast Promotions until later.

Phantom: Who were and still are some of your favorite wrestlers to watch in the ring.

Phantom Classic: Bob Backlund, Bruno Samartino, George “The Animal” Steele, Rowdy Roddy Piper. Today I would say Benoit, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, and Rob Van Dam.

Phantom: As a common fan, what’s the one major thing you see wrong with Wrestling today?

Phantom Classic: To many storyline’s and to many breaks in-between the matches and the women are really stupid.

Phantom: Since we’ve watched a large number of NWA-TNA PPV’s, do you think they have what it takes to take on the WWE head to head.

Phantom Classic: Yes and No. Yes meaning they have talent but no there is trying to do the same thing what the WWE is doing with their story’s instead of just letting them wrestle.

Phantom: Who are some wrestlers you miss watching wrestle.

Phantom Classic: I miss watching Taz, Sting, Bret Hart, and some of the old time wrestlers like Ivan Putski, Stan Hansen, Bruiser Brody, and Jake The Snake.

Phantom: What do you think of all the politics in wrestling from guys like Hogan, Triple H, Nash, and so on.

Phantom Classic: I don’t believe in politics and it shouldn’t be put into the business of what they’re doing just to get over or to be more of a headliner or to get more money.

Phantom: Who were some of your favorite managers in Wrestling.

Phantom Classic: Jimmy Hart when he only managed bad guys like in Memphis. I also liked The Grand Wizard, but if you go with Hart for the bad guys I liked Arnold Skaland with all the good guys.

Phantom: What were some of the best matches you’ve ever seen.

Phantom Classic: I remember when they threw in the towel for Backlund because I was at the Garden when that happened. I was also there with Phantom Jr. the night Bob Backlund lost the title to Diesel. It broke my heart to see them turn Bob Backlund into a bad guy. Another good one that I saw at the Garden was Ivan Putski vs. Stan Hansen which was a very brutal match to watch.

Phantom: What was something you saw happen that you didn’t like seeing.

Phantom Classic: Recently when they cut all of Molly Holly’s hair off. There was no need to go that far in a match. When guys get their hair cut, it’s all ready been trimmed. That I didn’t care for. Maybe of been funny, but I didn’t care for it or expect it.

Phantom: Where do you see Wrestling going in the next five years.

Phantom Classic: It’s going to go nowhere unless they restructure the way they are doing performances now unless they let the fans have more imput. In other words listen to the fans more instead of all of this commercialism.

Phantom: What’s some of your favorite moments that you’ve seen.

Phantom Classic: Watching some of the old tapes we have such as Flair vs. Steamboat, Raven vs. Shane Douglas. Some of the live shows we’ve been to where we didn’t know what was going to happen because you could just sit back and not know what was going to happen like when we saw Ric Flair beat Sting for the NWA World Title at the Meadowlands in 91.

Phantom: Finally, why do you watch wrestling.

Phantom Classic: I’m just hooked. It’s something I look forward to watching even though it’s become predictable. Back then they didn’t tell you what the story was, you got the idea that there was something up but you didn’t know what it was. Now they tell you the story first and then they go out and wrestle. When Flair used to do an interview in WCW and someone would run in to start a fight or he would start a fight during the interview it was something that you didn’t expect to see. Now when you watch interviews you know someone’s going to run in like this stupid thing with Lita. The first night I saw Kane look at her, I knew she would turn around say I’m Pregnant. That’s why you want the idea of being surprised, not knowing what’s going to happen. That’s why the PPV’s are suffering because you can all ready tell what’s going to happen halfway into the match and who’s going to win and lose.

Phantom: I’d like to thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.

Phantom Classic: Your welcome Phantom Jr. and I hope we can continue this at a future date if I get a good feedback from this. If it works out, I’ll start my own column as soon as I learn to type.

See I told you he figured out Lita was going to be knocked up. Now it’s just a matter of how the WWE plans on going with this one. Now if they are willing to execute a fat man on live PPV what’s stopping them from the first on air abortion. Sure the right to life groups would protest, but it would make for some fun programming. I think they will go this route but will find out that Kane is a staunch Republican and he would kill Matt if Lita thought about terminating their little bundle of hell. I just wonder how they are going to pull this one off. I mean people say Lita can’t act (Which she can’t), but if she got her self pregnant for real for the sake of the angle then everyone should give her credit for going the extra mile.

Of course the most likely ending to this is Lita and Kane planned this all along as Lita’s way to get back at Matt for crushing her heart on his RAW Debut. It’s the Raven/Beulah/Dreamer feud in reverse. Either way I like it and I think it’s going to be big for RAW despite what others say. I mean what’s the worst that can happen? Kane Tombstones her and she has a miscarriage and he’s charged with an unlawful abortion and becomes the WWE’s Scott Peterson.

Damn this column is long today, but I shall keep going because last night I witnessed a thing of greatness and that thing was JBL and his promo on Smackdown. I don’t know if he tapped into something we didn’t know he had, but you could really feel the emotion of what he was saying and I agreed with him 100% after he was done and I actually clapped in my room. JBL was on the money and I think he will be winning the WWE Title at the Bash in an epic old school blood bath of a Bullrope match and JBL will be a great champion. JBL has become the kind of heel you either love because he’s so good at what he does or that you hate so much you want to see him dead.

JBL’s been getting a lot of heat and rightfully so, but he’s worked it to his advantage and you have to praise him for that. It’s just a shame that Smackdown is in the tank right now because JBL and Eddie have had a damn good feud and the buyrates will never give them both the credit they deserve. Plus with this PPV being two week’s after Bad Blood, I’m fully expecting Eddie to lose simply because you know McMahon is looking for an excuse to say he cant draw as a champion.

He threw us on the net a bone by pushing Eddie and Chris. Well Chris managed to get over as the champion in a huge way. Eddie did to, but the ratings and buyrates say other wise and if Vince thinks JBL is the future then so be it. I’ve given up expecting Vince to change his ways. From time to time I just ask his pet projects be something I’ll like. I really like JBL, so Vince can consider himself lucky. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Don’t fuck up.

Well that’s it for this week. As always take care and to all the father’s out there have a Happy Fathers Day.

There is a chance I might be going to the WWE Raw House Show at MSG next week, so if I do expect a report and maybe a picture or two.

So Like I said, take care and remember someone has to provide you with this information so it might as well be me {S Bob Grant

Ooooh I almost forgot. To my Australian friend who told me to go fuck myself cause of what I said about the Germans and losing WW2, well I thought about what you said and I’m gonna have to say Kiss My Big Fat American Ass. Think otherwise? Direct it towards my Live Journal. I’ll have a thread on this column there.

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