The Rant of the Week: Nuke The Panda's
Submitted by Phantom Lord on Sunday, October 31, 2004 at 5:55 PM EST







Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain, it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow Phantom Lord and this is an especially EVIL edition of The Rant of the Week. Ok it’s not that evil…well maybe it is depending on your point of view. I don’t know about the rest of you but I can not wait for this damn election to be over. I’ve made it clear whom I’m voting for and why I’m voting for him. I just hope that the results of the election are at least known by the end of the night and the barrage of lawsuits from both sides doesn’t contest the results too much. I mean if you thought 2000 was fun, just imagine if Congress has to decide who the President and Vice President is. The screams of disenfranchisement from both sides will be enough to make your head spin. Well in any event I have about a bottle and a half of scotch and I’m more then ready for what ever happens.

I wish I had some Whiskey or Rum…but alas I’m to cheap to go buy some on my own. Speaking of Whiskey, I had a rather interesting Saturday at least from an entertainment prospective. I spent most of it watching CMT waiting for the rebroadcast of the CMT Outlaws Concert. I caught the CMT Crossroad’s concert with Hank Williams Jr. and Kid Rock…man that was good. I loved the rendition of “You can’t say the F Word in Country Music” and “Family Tradition”. After that they played a block of Hank Jr. videos and I never fully realized how good Country videos can be till watching them. I mean Hank and Waylon’s video for The Conversation was great. Just two guys are playing their guitars while drinking. But the best video was Hank’s duet with his father Hank Williams Sr. on “There’s a Tear in my Beer”. Truly an amazing video to watch. I’m not a big fan of the whole super imposing a dead person into a living persons video…but this worked great, especially for 1989 and the god awful Chroma Key Technology that was high tech back then.

So yeah I’m I think I’m starting to get back into Country/Southern Rock. I mean lets be honest. The music of today is shit. Sure there’s good stuff if you know where to look for it, but for the most part the stuff on the radio and that gets played on MTV or FUSE is crap…plain and simple. What wasn’t crap was The Outlaws concert. I mainly wanted to see James Hetfield perform his version of “Outlaw done got outta hand” and it was great. But I was impressed by Gretchen Wilson and I think the next time I make a Best Buy run…I shall be picking up her album. Who doesn’t love a redneck girl who loves to party and raise hell.

Ok I’m done with the country talk. Fear not my loyal fans, I’m not giving up the hard stuff. I’m just looking to expand my musical horizons. I mean there are times where I will flip on 96.3 FM here in NYC and listen to the Opera or a Symphony depending on what is on.

So we have this daylight savings time thing and as I’m writing this it should be 5:45 AM but since we went back an out it’s only 4:45 AM. See the people of Hawaii, Arizona, and Indiana have it right. The hell with going forward and backwards…JUST LEAVE THE DAMN TIME ALONE.

But speaking of people who just won’t leave things well enough alone, our favorite group of tree huggers the World Wildlife Fund is suing Vince and company again over royalties or something.

Here’s the article from the main page of LOP a few days ago.

The World Wildlife Fund is once again looking to engage WWE in court battles, still stemming over the wrestling promotion's use of the WWF initials.

The lawsuit claims that even though World Wrestling Federation switched to WWE after a court order, there is still American (and world) confusion of the issue. World Wildlife Fund argues that it has to attach the full name of its organization to its initials just to clarify its meaning.

World Wildlife Fund now seeks damages for WWE's repeated use of the 'WWF' initials and looks for the court to assess the potential revenue had WWE licensed the initials from WWF, instead of illegally using them.

Ok here’s how I see it with my limited knowledge of the law. Basically the WWF is pissed that there are people who think the WWE is still the WWF and they aren’t getting enough donations to meet their yearly quota so the WWF is looking to sue the WWF and make some easy money since McMahon and company folded the last time around.

Well there are a few times I will be on Vince McMahon’s side 100%…but this is one of them. Vince as a loyal viewer and supporter of your company for the last 20 years or so of my almost 24 years on this hellhole of a planet…I command you do counter sue these tree hugging pansy’s and bankrupt their ass for causing you to change your company’s name and lose Millions in the process.

A good lawyer can easily argue that your TV Ratings, PPV Buyrates, and most importantly House Show Attendance all took a nose dive after you were forced to change your company’s name all because of a British courts ruling. I mean come on…this is America. The WWE is an American company. Are we gonna let a bunch of guys from another country push us around? Fuck No. Sure there is that Sovereignty crap…but come on if your telling me your cant appeal and bullshit your way into a victory then that’s just sad. The law is there to provide us with creative loopholes. If you play your cards right Vince you could probably get the WWF name back. It has to be killing you to know what you created has to be referred to as Entertainment. Sure you say its Sports Entertainment but deep down you know as well as I and every other die hard fan the words Wrestling and Entertainment have no place next to one another.

So Vince…I know you have a few Interns who browse the boards. Guys take my advice. Return fire at the Panda and bankrupt them. You wouldn’t be the first Multi-National Corporation to destroy a charity and you wouldn’t be the last.

Moving along, RAW and Smackdown were in virtual chaos by all accounts because Vince was at home recovering from a surgery. If I were an investor I would be seriously worried if everyone runs around like a chicken with their collective heads cut off just when the boss is sick and a couple other people decide they need a week off.

For those wondering, the much talked about Tough Enough angle on Smackdown! ran exactly as Vince McMahon desired.

Stephanie had argued with her father about the angle, since she felt the fact that the wrestlers did not really sell the Big Show Bodyslams exposed the business. If "wrestlers-in-training" could take a Big Show bodyslam, how could it ever work against WWE superstars?

This is an example of the concept that Vince does still control his product. His daughter and son-in-law do not, as of yet, think for him, contrary to what some skeptics feel.

So Princess Stephanie was left in charge and everyone was fending for himself or herself. Damn it woman…if you’re the Executive Producer you put your foot down and command people. I wouldn’t put up with that shit. I would make it very clear…do what I tell you or I’ll find someone else to do it for me. As much as I hate Triple H, politics aside if he really sees himself as God all mighty in that locker room he should of made it known to everyone that what he says goes and this time he isn’t kidding.

Now as for the whole Tough Enough thing, I didn’t see it because quite honestly I was in no mood to watch Smackdown. I was tired and I was enjoying listening to Michael Savage on the radio. But reading the spoilers and the constant bickering between Stephanie and Vince I say the next time the hell with the Bodyslams. I’d go right into Open Hand chops and German Suplex’s 101. You picked a bunch of BAH GAWD HOSSES…Well see how tough they are.

By all accounts the only one with any real talent is Mike The Miz who was in UPW. The rest of them are football and basket ball players with more look then talent. I think they made a huge mistake not picking the MMA Guys. The one good thing Smackdown has going for them is overall better wrestling action. I’d much rather see Kurt Angle and some guy looking to be the new Shamrock then a Generic White Guy using the dreaded Big Boot and Powerbomb of DOOM.

Where was…oh yeah Stephanie and Triple H. As much as it pains me to say this…it looks like you two are going to get the keys to the castle when Vince decides he’s had enough and he retires to his own Island in the South Pacific. If this past week is an example of what we have to expect with you both running the company then the WWE will since faster then WCW. You might think I’m exaggerating but lets look at this shall we. It was basically everyone for themselves as there was no script in place and to add to that people were taking sides and if the reports are right it was damn near close to open warfare. I look at it this way. The WWE locker room is much like politics in this country. On one side you have The McMahon Empire and those loyal to them and on the other you have a bunch of guys who could probably do great business but those loyal to the McMahon’s their lackeys wont let them.

So because of all of this the script kept being re-written and we got a show production wise that was very much like WCW Nitro. Granted Nitro and the throw a dart at a board and hope for the best style of booking provided us with great matches…in the long run it didn’t exactly help the company. So if you two are going to take over the company I seriously suggest you spend a bit more time focusing on your management skills then running off to commentate on a body building ppv.

Vince…next time even if you have to transport yourself in an Iron Lung, don’t ever leave them in charge again. Remember the episode of The Simpsons where Comic Book Guy (Who I sadly bare a striking resemblance to) had a heart attack and Bart and Millhouse took over running the shop. Same thing here except we can replace the cops raiding the illegal movie showcase with anarchy in the locker room.

See you can learn a lot by watching The Simpsons. What a fucking joke that we have to wait another week for the season premiere.

Now your probably thinking that I would be making fun of the WWE and company for low buyrates for their last two PPV’s. I forget who said it, but they said Vince and Linda are marketing geniuses. I think the WWE is averaging around 225 to 250 thousand buys for a ppv per month. Sometimes its much higher depending on the show, but for the most part the core ppv buying audience is a quarter of a million. Well No Mercy had around 125 thousand buys and Taboo Tuesday had around 100 thousand. Now everyone is saying “Oh well this just proves that everything is in bad shape”. JBL cant draw as a champion and Taboo Tuesday was a disaster.

Well even though I am a product of the New York City Board of Education and I have limited Math skills at best…these two ppv’s when added together come to a total of 225 thousand buys and that would put it right at the average mark per month. So not only does this mean that the viewers picked sides as to which show they would watch…but the WWE still had a profit since they only need about 100 thousand buys to break even for the production cost of the ppv.

Could the numbers have been better? Of course they would have if they just built the ppv’s instead of making most of the matches a week before the show. But the fact remains that no matter how much we on the IWC would like to say the company is in the shitter…financially they are not.

Speaking of JBL, did anyone honestly believe that he would be such a great champion? People on the message board complain about him not having any convincing wins but I’m in the boat that he is a great heel champion. His character with out a doubt is the best heel in the WWE in a real long time. His matches have been pretty good as JBL has busted his ass to prove he was worthy of being champion. And the quality I love the most in any old school throw back…he blades like a motherfucker. It’s a shame he isn’t on RAW because he would actually be a quality World Heavyweight Champion.

Speaking of World Champion, my hat if I was wearing one would be off to the guys who got all the ROH signs on RAW last week. The Samoa Joe = Real World’s Champion sign was the best sign in years. To a point it is true, I mean he has been ROH World Champion for damn near 23 months I think. I have not seen a lot of him, but the little I have seen has been great. I saw a music video made by the guys at Pro Wrestling Guerrilla from a match between Joe and Super Dragon and they were stiffing the living hell out of each other. Overall it looked like a great match with some amazing moves…especially the Dragon setting up for a Tornado DDT and hanging on and rolling it into a Dragon Sleeper.

But still I was amazed at all the signs. See if Vince were there the WWE Goon Squad would have snatched them all the moment so much as a glimpse made it onto tv. I was also amazed at the signs for C.M. Punk popping up on RAW. TNA, Maybe you should like let by gones be by gones and bring him back. People seem to like him. The last time I checked a cult following is always good for business.

As for TNA Victory Road is next week and I might be ordering it. $30 seems pretty stiff but Petey Williams vs. A.J. Styles, AMW vs. Triple X Last Man Standing, and to a point Jarrett vs. Hardy will all be worth it. Roddy Piper is having an In the Pit with Piper segment and supposedly its with Johnny Fairplay. If you’re a fan of train wreck television…look no further then that. But what I’m really interested in seeing is the results of the DOA Voting between Vince Russo and Dusty Rhodes.

Now with The Out…err Tag Team combination formerly known as The Outsiders but due to Legal Reasons they can’t be called such will be in opposite corners as Nash is in Hardy’s corner and Hall is in Jarrett’s corner. Call me crazy but the way things are looking I’d swear TNA is going to do the Millionaires Club vs. New Blood angle. I know Vince has said he is leaving and judging by the video on his Forgiven website I do believe he is sincere. But a part of me knows the old Vince Russo would love to pull off one last swerve just to show everyone he still can and I’m hoping we see something like that come this ppv.

Of course with Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel booking like its Memphis in the Mid 80’s I doubt they would since that would involve booking on a scale bigger then Jeff Jarrett who is content to eclipse Jerry Lawler on the local scale. That would work if TNA were still in Nashville, but since it’s on a National Scale and this ppv is make or break for them…guys seriously cut the crap and if Russo can still work his magic…USE IT.

Well I think I’m done for this week. Lets hope that when I write my next column we won’t be knee deep in Election 2004 controversy.

As for me, my tooth is killing me so I’m gonna go down a couple Advil’s and take a nap since I’m still off from the time change.

Until next time take care and remember someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be me {S Bob Grant

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