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Submitted by Phantom Lord on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 at 12:46 AM EST
You head over to the Lords of Pain Main Page to check for the latest news updates when you notice that the November Column of the Month has been posted. Since you have some time on your hands, you decide to check it out. You click on the link and suddenly your computer screen goes black, and an ornate hourglass carved from bone with golden grains of sand appears. You try clicking on it, and as you do, it turns over and you watch the sands begin to fall. As the first grains hit the bottom of the hourglass, you feel yourself starting to slip from consciousness, as you once again begin to…  Volume Eighteen – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle 12/19/2004 Welcome, Dreamers, to the Eighteenth Edition of Enter The Dream Realm. I am Morpheus, Master of the Dreaming, and I will be your guide through this land of Nightmares and Dreamscapes. It has taken a bit longer than I expected, but the Special Main Page Edition of ETDR has finally arrived. I would like to start out by thanking all of the people who voted for ETDR to be the November Column Of The Month in the LOP Columns Forum. It has been a pleasure for me to share my opinions with you all for the last few months, and to have such an honor bestowed upon this column means more to me than I can express here. So, I will simply say thank you to RandomGuy#5, Blackman, delightfulassassin, GoodYearPimp, Valleyboy, ThatDarnFrog, Y2Xavier, RIPBossman, Stinger, THE MONKEY, Zuma420, Winter, Starling313, adeaton, forty-six&two, YourAyatollah, and Alex-SD for their votes of confidence. As some small measure of repayment, I have included a link to the latest columns by each of the above people which you can access by clicking on their names, with the exception of the three who do not write columns here at LOP. Again, many thanks, and I hope I can do the Columns Forum proud! I know many of you haven’t read my column before, so allow me to give you a brief rundown of what you’ll see here. The Daydreams section is where I discuss random happenings in the wrestling world over the past week. In the Counting Sheep section, I will give you the lowdown on the Top 5 columns in the LOP Columns forum right now. The Dreamscapes section is my main topic of the week, and is the heart and soul of ETDR. The Nightmares section is much like the Daydreams section, except focuses on some of the horrible things that happened over the last week in our beloved world of wrestling. In Technicolor Dreaming, I continue my Countdown to the Greatest Freddy Kruger Film of All Time; only one more to go after this week! Finally, Vanishing Vagaries sums up the main points of each section and closes out the column on a (hopefully) high note. That about does it, so enough banter. Now that you know what you are in for, hopefully you will find this sojourn through the Dream Realm both enlightening and entertaining. So, without any further ado, let the Dreams begin!  - Line Of The Week: Christian (to Candace, the “Make-Up Artist”) – “No I don't want to look in the mirror. I think you need it more than me. Nice Eye Shadow.” - I was hoping that we would either see an 8 Man KOTR-style Tournament or an Elimination Chamber Match to determine the fate of the World Heavyweight Championship, and it looks like Eric Bischoff has made my wishes come true. It has been a good long time since we saw one of these, and it will no doubt start 2005 off with a bang. Especially if HHH doesn’t win. - Brock Lesnar’s rumored attempts at seeking a return to the WWE have apparently been confirmed, and the WWE have been playing hardball with him. I say good for them, because this guy has fewer options now than he left the company with when he decided to jump ship. I say bring him back at his old full schedule, with a huge pay cut, and have him job to Shannon Moore on Velocity for a few months. - Daniel Puder is our brand new Tough Enough winner, as we all knew he would be since the second week of the “competition.” This is great news for us fans because it means that the stupid Tough Enough segments are over! Now, I will begin taking bets on how long it will be before we see Miz, Justice, Reeves, and Rodimer on WWE Television. - The voting for the TNA Year End Awards is now open at tnawrestling.com. They have 8 categories available to vote on, including Best Match and Best Finisher of 2004 (like the Canadian Destroyer won’t win), and each category has from 5 to 9 options to choose from, ensuring it has something for everybody. I am curious to see what they are going to do with these awards, so if you’ve got the time, swing by and cast your ballot!  Top Five Columns You Aren’t Reading One of the things that first attracted me to LOP and made me a loyal reader was the high quality of the columns that it boasts on its Main Page. Not only are its Main Page columns some of the best on the net, but there are also some amazing writers in the Columns Forum of the LOP Message Board. What follows is my list of the Top Five Columns that can be found there, in my opinion, and a little bit of a reason why I feel they are the best. Please note that I did not include myself or the columnists I write joint columns with so as to remove any possibility of favoritism, and only chose those columns which have been written on a fairly regular basis for the last couple of months. Remember, there are loads of other great columns to be read in the Columns Forum as well, so please don’t limit yourself to just these! So, read on and find out what you’ve been missing, and as LeVar Burton says, “Don’t take my word for it…” 5. Excuse The Aggravation by XanMan, Doublehelix, and RandomGuy#5 – All three of these guys write amazing columns on their own, and they come together in ETA to bring one hell of a column our way every week. There is always good discussion on timely topics between Xan and Helix, and Random makes sure they keep it real in his official position as Stat Boy. This is definitely one of the more entertaining columns I have had the pleasure of reading, and is definitely worth checking out. 4. The Xaviator by Y2Xavier – Bringing the Thunder from Down Under, Xavier has never failed to bring a smile to my face with his informative, insightful, and irreverent style of writing. One of the younger writers in the forum, but he’s also one of the best. He’s been kicking around LOP since well before I got there, and I haven’t run into a single thing he has written that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. 3. Selective Memory v. 2.1 by Valleyboy – VB could and should get himself a job as a comedy writer, because he has come up with some of the funniest things I have read in my 25 year tenure on this planet. Occasionally thought-provoking, but always entertaining and downright fun to read, I highly recommend checking out some of his work if you haven’t done so already. 2. The Nosebleed Section by RandomGuy#5 – Fought valiantly for the #1 slot here, but fell to the sword of Steve-O, Random puts out what can be called, plain and simple, one of the best damn columns out there today. His impeccable timing, expansive vocabulary, seemingly endless supply of interesting and insightful topics, and his ability to fuse the humorous with the ponderous make him one of the best writers you’ll find anywhere on the net. 1. All About The Game by YourAyatollah – Probably one of the simplest columns I have ever read in terms of formatting, but one of the best written and all around most entertaining. Big Stevie Cool manages to kick out relevant topics from his unique viewpoint in such a way that everyone can relate to his words. He flawlessly mixes the trials and tribulations of the real world with those of the wrestling world, and manages to knock it out of the park every time. If you haven’t read anything by the only Multi-time COTM Winner by now, you should definitely make the time to do so. YourAyatollah commands it!  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle It has been said many times by many different writers, myself included, that wrestling is a very cyclical industry. From a business standpoint, it goes through periods of economic boom, followed by lull periods when business is relatively stagnant, and these cycles correspond directly to the popularity of wrestling during these periods. Although it is the one most referred to, the business side of the industry is not the only aspect of wrestling that can be cyclic in nature. Over the years, wrestling fans have witnessed shifts in the style of wrestling that they see on WWF/E programming with time, from an old school psychological style, to a more high risk style, to a hardcore style, to a high-flying spot-fest style, and now back to a more old school approach. While the quality and nature of the wrestling action that takes place in the ring, or elsewhere depending on the match, is the heart of professional wrestling, for as long as I can remember its soul has revolved around the build-up to and reasons behind that action. The action is what wrestling is all about, but the feuds, gimmicks, and storylines that drive that action forward are what keep the wheels turning and the fans hooked. These dramatic aspects of the product are what allow people to relate to and connect with the superstars they see on their screens every week, and sometimes those connections can be quite strong. However, these types of things can also be very cyclic, and many of the stories, rivalries, and characters that we see in professional wrestling today are merely reduced, reused, and recycled reincarnations of older versions of these same ideas. Over the past several years, we have seen many feuds that have centered around the simple concept of the Love Triangle, and oftentimes these end up being stand-out feuds. The first one of these I can remember seeing was the Miss Elizabeth/Randy Savage/Ric Flair triangle from the early 90’s, and not only was it one of the greatest feuds from that period, it actually sparked my life long hatred of Ric Flair, proving just how well this angle was done. It led to some great promos and even better matches, and was really one of the things that made me a wrestling fan at an early age. Fast forward and we see smaller versions of these rivalries develop between HHH and Marc Mero over Sable, The Godwinns and The Smoking Gunns over Sunny, and Kane and X-Pac over Tori. Granted, these were nowhere near as big or as good as Flair/Savage, but the basis was the same. Despite some lackluster efforts, there have also been some excellent love triangles that have rivaled the classic Flair/Savage in importance and quality over the past couple of years, including HHH/Stephanie/Kurt Angle, and Jericho/Trish/Christian. Another relationship-centered storyline that has seen many incarnations is the Wrestling Wedding. From Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth to Billy and Chuck, the wedding ceremony has a long history of being used in the WWF/E. Rarely do things go according to plan, such as Stephanie’s marriage to Test, or her renewal of vows with HHH, but these weddings are always entertaining to watch. There is also a long history of wrestling storylines crossing into taboo territory and calling upon a pregnancy to stir up the pot. We saw it in ECW with the Raven/Beulah/Dreamer rivalry, and in the WWE with the now infamous Mark Henry/Mae Young relationship which led to the decrepit old hag giving birth to a plastic hand. The Matt Hardy/Lita/Kane storyline managed to combine all three of these previously mentioned types of angles into one massive storyline, and is the prime example of something that has undergone all of the three R’s. First, we began with a love triangle that was in many ways a recycled version of the Savage/Elizabeth/Flair storyline from over a decade before. Then, the storyline transitioned into a pregnancy angle that was basically reusing the angle that we saw in ECW between Raven, Beulah, and Dreamer. Following the advent of the pregnancy, Kane and Lita took the leap into matrimony in a ceremony that was similar to when Savage and Elizabeth tied the knot, only with a lot more hatred and anger mixed in. Finally, we saw the pregnancy angle get reduced, as Snitsky came in and terminated it, through no fault of his own. So by pulling together pieces of past storylines, and reducing, reusing, and recycling, we ended up with one of the more complex and entertaining storylines of 2004. Even more so than storylines and feuds, wrestler’s gimmicks are quite commonly subjected to the three R’s. The list of characters that can fall under this heading is nearly endless, and major common elements can be found between most current superstars and wrestlers of yesteryear. You commonly see parallels drawn between Stone Cold and the Sandman, between Goldberg and Stone Cold, between The Hurricane and Nova, Simon Dean and Skip, etc. Some instances are more blatant than others, and many of them are can be seen on WWE programming right now. First, a prime example of reusing an old gimmick can be found every Thursday night on SmackDown! in the form of The Undertaker. After changing his character up multiple times over the last decade and a half, Taker has returned to his old Dead Man gimmick that made him famous. On the TNA side, we have seen Marc Mero take up the banner of his old Johnny B. Badd character again, reusing the role that he played early on in his career. These may not be considered a true instance of reusing a character since both are the same people playing the same parts, but they are clearly revivals of old characters from years past with little to no alteration. Another instance of reusing characters came back in the mid-90’s when the WWF had the fake Diesel and Razor Ramon for a short time. Perhaps one of the greatest examples of this, though, is Ric Flair, who took the Nature Boy gimmick of Buddy Rogers and ran with it all the way to becoming a Legend. For at least the better part of the last two decades, we have seen many different incarnations of the prototypical Anti-American gimmick. In the late 80’s the team of Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zuhkov, also known as The Bolsheviks, came to the WWF to show that the USSR was superior to the USA. Then, around the time of the Gulf War, we had Sgt. Slaughter align himself with the evil Iron Sheik to assert their dominance over the Americans in the WWF. Over the next several years, we had Yokozuna and Mr. Fuji hatin’ on the US, an anti-American Hart Foundation led by a pro-Canadian Bret Hart, and Lance Storm, Christian, Regal, and Test coming together to form the UnAmericans. Now, we have the latest version of this gimmick in the form of La Resistance, and it looks like Mohammad Hassan will be following in these same footsteps as well. While the specifics of each of these gimmicks, such as country of origin and number of people involved, have been different, each one of them recycled the same anti-American sentiments to be the backbone of their characters. Many people have pointed out the similarities in character and mannerisms between Carlito Caribbean Cool and the original Bad Guy, Razor Ramon. CCC in many ways appears to be an updated, smarmier version of the classic character that Scott Hall played in the WWF a decade ago. The major differences are the swapping of the greasy ‘do for the Latino Fro, and trading in “Chico” for “Mang.” I said jokingly in ETDR 11 that CCC and Thug Jesus are the new Los Boricuas, and though it was a joke at the time, they are starting to parallel that group more and more with each passing week, especially in Jesus’ style of dress. All they need is 2 more members of Hispanic Heritage, and we have ourselves a little taste of 1997 all over again. 2004 has been heralded as the Year of JBL by many people, most notably himself, and it is hard to disagree with that statement. He gave himself a complete character overhaul and became one of the mainstays of SmackDown! in the process. However, luckily for him, he had a template to model himself after in establishing his new character: the one and only Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. JBL recycled DiBiase’s old schtick and repackaged it with a 2004 twist and a dash of Bob Backlund for political flare. It can be seen not only in the way he presents himself, but also in the people he is surrounding himself with. We have Virgil 2004 in Orlando Jordan, and the beginnings of the new Million Dollar Corporation with the addition of his cabinet. It sort of makes me wonder if Ted sits at home watching this stuff, wondering how the hell this guy got the gold, while DiBiase himself was never given the same honor. Which brings us at long last to Evolution. Since this stable first appeared it has been quite clear that it was closely patterned after the old Four Horsemen of NWA and WCW fame. As time went on, Evolution dominated the RAW brand in much the same way as the Horsemen once dominated their roster. Then, this past summer, the ejection of Orton from the group changed the face of Evolution, and changed how the group operated. With that one simple alteration in membership, Evolution made the transition from the Four Horsemen to the new Triple Threat, and in the months since these parallels have become more and more evident. HHH is clearly filling the role of The Franchise Shane Douglas, while Ric Flair has become an interesting fusion of Chris Candido and Rick Rude, being the manager and mentor of the group while still an active wrestler. The parallels are clearest in the Big Man, Dave Batista, who traded in his role as Arn Anderson for the part of Bam Bam Bigelow. Now if we see Batista turn on HHH, and Maven join up as his replacement ala Lance Storm, you will know it’s ECW all over again! In a business like professional wrestling, it is difficult to keep coming up with all new ideas week in and week out, especially when everything must ultimately end up settled in the ring. In situations like this, where there are only so many ideas to go around, originality becomes a relative thing. The people who become the best at what they do are those who can put the best new spins on these old standards. If wrestling can teach the real world one lesson, it is the importance of the three R’s. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!  - It’s been a whole week now, but I still can’t get over how awful Armageddon was. I even went ahead and watched it again, thinking it couldn’t possibly be as bad as I said it was in my review, but I honestly have to say that it was even worse the fourth time than it was the first three. If the WWE puts out more pay per views that are of this quality, it could mean Armageddon for their buyrates. - There have been some people who have been defending the Mohammad Hassan gimmick over the past few weeks, and to a certain extent I can see where they were coming from. However, after the comments he spewed on RAW this past week in his banter with Foley, he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is just another anti-American character out for cheap heat, and has officially crossed the line of good taste. Still, it was entertaining to see Foley make Mo his bitch in their little debate. I miss Mick. - The net has been lit up by accounts of the backstage altercation between Ric Flair and Mick Foley, with Flair punching Foley in the face and challenging him in the ring, and Foley declining, saying he wouldn’t hit a 50 year old man. Flair may be “the man” because of his legacy in the ring, but in real life, hardly. Even in Naitch’s prime, Foley would eat Ric Flair for breakfast and shit out David Flair just in time for dinner. - Why did they feel the need to air the footage of the entire Street Fight between Jesus and Cena from Armageddon on SmackDown! last week? It wasn’t very good the first time, and sucked even worse in black and white. I guess they gave Pontius Cena the week off after crucifying Thug Jesus, and they needed to fill the weekly crap quota now that the Tough Enough “challenge” segments are no more. - Jeff Jarrett winning every match with a guitar shot was old back in 2000. Now, it farts dust. His whole character is more stale than a box of year old Triscuits. Somebody needs to either get this guy a new gimmick, or severely injure him to keep him out of action for a few months/years. Volunteers?  #2 – Nightmare On Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors This third installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street Series was definitely the pinnacle of the NOES flicks. The story begins with a young woman named Kristen who is suffering from nightmares of the Kruger variety. After a suspected suicide attempt, she is committed to a mental institution by her mother where she meets up with several other teenagers who had been committed for the same reason; these recurring horrific nightmares. Enter Nancy Thompson, from the first film, who has just taken a position as a research psychologist at this hospital. Nancy sets out to help these kids learn to defend themselves against Freddy on his home turf in their nightmares. She does this by helping them all unlock the powers they possess in the dream world; extensions and idealizations of who they are in real life, oftentimes with their real-life weaknesses becoming ultimate strengths in the dream realm. They each discover unique talents that they can use to fight against Freddy’s nocturnal tyranny, with none perhaps as important as Kristen’s, as she has the ability to pull other people into her dreams. Despite their best efforts, however, they begin to be killed off by the immortal Springwood Slasher one by one, until eventually one of them is captured by Freddy and held hostage in the Dream World. The crew enters the dream world together to get back their friend Joey, and to wipe out Kruger’s evil once and for all. Seriously, this movie kicks so much ass that I have trouble sitting down after I watch it. I don’t know for sure whether it is the concepts of the Dream Warriors, Freddy really coming into his own as a multi-faceted character, his one-liners, or the kick ass Dokken theme song that make this movie rule so much, but it is probably a combination of all of the above. Not to mention the scene where the hot nurse strips down for the mute kid and asks, “Do you like my body Joey?” Best moment of my young life, right there. This cinematic masterpiece is hands down one of the greatest horror films of all time, and belongs in the collection of anyone who considers themselves a fan of horror, or of movies in general. This film comes with the highest of recommendations from the Dream Master, so if you haven’t seen it, fix that, because you are really missing out on something awesome; and if you have, go out and experience its greatness one more time.  As you slowly return to consciousness, the last whisperings uttered from the lips of the Dream Master encourage you to check out four particularly outstanding columns in the forums: XanMan – The Northern Star: Could It Work? Brochio66 – Women’s Wrestling Update #17 CanadianKid – The Kid’s Playground #8: My Christmas List Sheepster – Under The Fleece Episode XX: Just Another Episode This brings to a close this special LOP Main Page Edition of Enter The Dream Realm. I hope it has lived up to the expectations that seem to have surrounded it. Any feedback you have, as always, would certainly be greatly appreciated and can be sent to me via email at morpheusreturns@optonline.net. Thanks again to everyone who has been supportive of this endeavor over the past few months, and to all of the people who are checking this out on the LOP Main Page for the first time. It’s been an honor and a privilege to be able to post this here, and I hope that some of you will take the time to check out some of the great writers we have in the LOP Columns Forum. I guarantee it will be time well spent. Thank you all again, and until next time, sleep well, and I’ll see you in your Dreams! *NEW GALLERY* Very HOT and Up Close Shots of the WWE Divas! WOW!
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