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Submitted by Xan on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 at 8:20 PM EST
 {Author's note: The quotes in the column below belong to Big & Rich and their song "Real World". This is the conclusion of the five-part series "Freak Parade," and you'll find that it's quite a departure from the rest of the series, yet I think it wraps things up quite nicely. In case you haven't read the rest of the series, they can be found at the links below, but if you haven't yet and don't want to take the time to give them a look, I think this stands plenty well on it's own. To those who have sent me feedback to the last one, I apologize for not getting back to you. It's been a busy few weeks, but I will get back to you shortly. Part I Part II Part III Part IV} "But in my real world, things don't always turn out so good, like you wish they would." In five days, the WWF will put on its biggest show of the year, and they can play the song "Big Time" all they want to for it, but I'm not excited for it at all. I'm actually not expecting to be able to watch it, since the boss at my second job has inexplicably started scheduling me to work Sunday midnights on the weekend that the event falls on, and I have to be there at 10 so would be unable to finish the show. If I don't have to work, I will probably order the show, but it's not because I expect to be thrilled by it the way Wrestlemanias are supposed to thrill people. It's more like the way I went to see Revenge of the Sith last year, even though I wasn't really expecting to enjoy it. I have to see Star Wars movies in a theatre, and I always order the WWF's "Big Four" PPVs. As some have pointed out to me, I'm just feeding into my disappointment by doing so, and allowing the organization to continue to produce substandard fare, but bad habits are bad habits because they're bad habits. I'm no less addicted to wrestling than I am to poker, or than my wife is to cigarettes. She has to smoke while she drives or chats on the phone, I have to watch wrestling when it's on. Like most guys, I'm into sports. Unlike most, football's not the one I'm passionate about, though I do enjoy a good game on the gridiron. College basketball is where it's at, as far as I'm concerned, and baseball's a close second. Next weekend, as usual, the three sporting events I love will all be contained over a single weekend. The Final Four will occur on Saturday and Monday, with Wrestlemania and Opening Day squarely in the middle. As far as Xan the Fan has been concerned, thus has it ever been, and thus shall it ever be, but right now I'm not really feeling it. My favorite team, the Oakland Athletics, have let most of their stars go over the last few years and it kills me to see Huddy pitch for Atlanta, Giambi kick-ass for the Yankees, and Tejada rule the roost of the Orioles. I'm a Duke guy, and they were one of the premier teams in the country this year, but after pulling within 1 point of LSU they just fucking gave up, and I was more disappointed with the Devils than I've ever been in my life. That's a horrible way for Shelden Williams and J.J. Reddick to go out, but more importantly, how could Coach K have let his team play with that kind of attitude? They were in an NCAA tournament game for Gods sakes, not in pre-season!!! These two things, along with what I consider the WWF's horrible booking for Wrestlemania, are having me feeling pretty blah about a weekend that I'm normally jubilant for. The basketball and baseball teams I mentioned have their own problems, but I keep wondering where I, as a wrestling fan, draw the line. Apparently not when one of the best wrestlers ever gets screwed by the owner of the WWF, or when his brother dies dropping from the ceiling because he doesn't have the proportionate abilities of a spider, or when a man is show supposedly fucking a corpse on network television. All the larger than life characters I grew up watching are gone--Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Andre, Jake the Snake, Mr. Perfect, Ravishing Rick Rude. They're either dead, retired, or haven't realized when it's time to quit. Sure, the Attitude Era was a hell of a lot of un, but now we've got something that can't compare to either of those two, and every time one believes they're coming out of their doldrums, something like this stupid McMahon/Michaels feud happens, or John Cena gets the WWF Title back. What's worse is mistakes are made by making the mistake of not admitting there was a mistake made in the first place, so the downward spiral continues and continues with brief peaks of what should be, and no chance of anything ever changing because Vince McMahon doesn't see the problem. Ratings are down, gates are down, his fan favorites don't get near the cheers their predecessors did, nor do his heels the boos, and his WWF Champion couldn't out-wrestle Hulk Hogan, but he's happy with all of that, so we're just supposed to lick the shit he provides us for sustenance off the floor of our coops. "No one's got a name for the brain in a scarecrow. How can he believe all he sees on the TV, nothing but extreme overexecuted fantasy?" None of these are new sentiments from me, as I addressed them in a much longer fashion in "Lock and Load", and since then I've let you know which wrestlers should be pushed to help turn everything around, but I don't think it's going to happen, because Vince just won't let it. For whatever reason, he thinks Randy Orton and John Cena are his cornerstones, and I think we'll see just how fervently he believes that in a week. If Orton wins a match he shouldn't even be in and Cena retains against Triple H, this might be the darkest time in the history of the promotion, and we might be looking for our own Jedi to come in, wipe out Vader McMahon and his evil horde, and set all things to right. We will, however, be looking in vain. Despite the fact that professional wrestling is basically entertainment, this is real life, and in real life there's no one that's going to ride in and knock Vince McMahon down a peg. The feds couldn't do it, Ted Turner couldn't do it, and neither could any of his side business failures. The man's as invulnerable and untouchable as he is oblivious; if he was of Cena's ilk he'd say we couldn't see him. It's a shame that a once giant empire is crumbling because of--and at the feet of--the man who created it. I know there are those of you that will think I'm playing the role of Chicken Little, but the fact is that everything is down for the WWF, none of the "superstars" they are trying to push really connect with the audience, and they are making their product less and less appealing to children, which is a demographic that they shouldn't be alienating. If my son had been watching RAW with me when Shawn Michaels threw his piss in Vince McMahon's face, I would at the very least have screened any future shows before letting him watch again. While I may think it poetic justice for Vince to truly be pissed or shit on for what he's done to us fans, that doesn't mean I want my 9-year-old viewing it. I imagine other parents feel the same, and I also wouldn't let him watch all the stuff about Candice Michelle's Playboy. It's all well and good that the WWF is getting a little additional income from having one of its employees within those pages, but there's no reason to have her strut around in the same outfit that's on the cover--or for women to constantly get stripped down to their bra and panties. I don't consider myself a prude, but this is supposed to be a wrestling show. If I want to see women in various stages of undress I'll watch Skinemax, the Shield, or the Sopranos. They have no place in wrestling, and of course, that's been the problem for years with McMahon's company--it isn't really about the wrestling. I get tons of people asking me why I still call it the WWF, and lots of people assuming it's because I want to "stick it to the pandas," as if anything I say or do is ever going to change the settlement agreement. I may think it's stupid and wasn't even worth an argument by the company who's now not even known as the WWF themselves, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, but that's not the reason, and it's not to use as some stupid gimmick the way others suggest. I didn't grow up on the WWE, I grew up on the WWF. Bret Hart is not a 5-time WWE champion, no matter what anyone claims. He never held that title and neither did Hulk Hogan. These guys were not great "WWE" superstars, and the "WWE" hasn't existed over 50 years. I know it's all semantics, but it pisses me off. Those who do not acknowledge their past have no knowledge of their present, and cannot really prepare for the future. If you don't think Vince is proving that right now, you aren't paying attention. He's re-written everything to be the WWE, even going so far as to blur out the words "World Wrestling Federation" and the initials "WWF" from all of the recent DVDs--even from THE TURNBUCKLES. It's ridiculous revisionism, and it pisses me off. "I'm a rock star, I'm a cowboy, everybody loves this song. I'm a rock star, I'm a cowboy, everybody sing along." The organization shouldn't be running from their past, they should be embracing it. Sure, the Stone Cold phenomenon saved their company, but the trait that put it on the map in the first place--other than Vince McMahon's legendary ruthlessness--was its cartoonishness. Okay, that probably isn't a real world, but let's just roll with it for now. People decried the WWF as having a "circus-style" atmosphere, but deep down wasn't that what we all loved about it? Among those of us who have been in it for the long haul, who hasn't loved Hulk Hogan at some point? Or Macho Man? Jake the Snake? The Hitman? How about the Undertaker? Oh yeah, so-called smarks love to rip on The Dead Man, but no one would dispute that he's a legend and he's earned every bit of it. Yeah, Triple H, Mankind, Rocky, Shawn Michaels, and Stone Cold all have their own followings, of which I'm also a part of, but there's no way they are ever going to resonate as strongly in my memories as the more cartoonish characters of my child-hood and they sure as hell aren't going to with a lot of today's children because a lot of their actions have not been fit for a child to watch, as I mentioned earlier. It's all well and good for people to praise the WWF for going to more adult entertainment when they had to make a move to compete with WCW and ECW, but they no longer have those companies(or any others, really) to compete with. It's time for this organization to get back to basics. While John Cena has basically been Stone Cold dressed up like a street thug for the last couple of years, his character is exactly the type the WWF should focus on. Other strong examples: The Big Show, Rey Mysterio, Chris Masters, the Boogeyman, Paul Burchill. These are the guys that hearken back to the old days of the WWF, the days when it first caught on with the public. Vince McMahon first made his organization a success by bringing to the game a "3-ring circus" mentality. In other words, if you don't like the acrobats, you'll love the lions, and if you don't like either of those? Well, look over there at the clowns. I think the problem with the WWF is everything they do seems the same. Variation is the key, and right now not even the cruiserweights are allowed to vary from the WWF formula of kick-punch-bodyslam-spinebuster, etc. How do you draw interest in an individual wrestler's performance when each one of them looks basically the same? Gregory Helms is finally getting a decent push in the WWF--something that should have been continuous since 2001--but it's without the aid of the greatest finishing maneuver in the history of the business--The Vertebreaker. Paul London and Frankie Kazarian were both kicking ass on Heat and getting the fans excited, but the WWF ordered them to tone down their move-set. Kid Kash is now in the majors, but he just isn't the Notorious K.I.D. any longer--he's just another victim of the cookie cutter that creates the WWF offense now. Everyone I mentioned in the above paragraph, along with Rob Van Dam and the two men I endorsed as the future of the company in recent "Star"s, Shelton Benjamin and Ken Kennedy, could be cornerstones in a WWF taking its cue from the legendary phoenix. That is a WWF that would be worth watching. One that doesn't endorse pushing guys who's only claim to fame is their dad was pretty damned good in his time or that they fucked their best friend's girl. Everyone talks about how wrestling is cyclical and eventually will become popular again, but the truth is that right now inertia's doing a damned good job of holding the wheel in place because there's nothing providing an impetus to bring it back around. We've got too many PPVs, too many stars, too much emphasis on trying to be real or edgy or whatever you want to call it. What we need is fun, what we need is excitement, what we need is for the WWE to live up to the last letter of its acronym. See, there's another reason I can't refer to the WWF as the new-fangled "Get the 'F' out" name. Wrestling is entertainment, just as every other sport or television show is supposed to be. When Vince, his bookers, and his writers finally get around to figuring that out and stop trying to top the most disgusting or shocking thing they've ever come up with, they'll be on the way towards the latest "up" period for the sport of kings. Until they do, though, they're going to keep being stuck in a rut and with their wheel spitting mud and who knows what else all over us. Not quite what I'd call entertaining, though I certainly hope it gives you some food for thought to wrestle with. go check out The Project for some original non-wrestling related writing. This will conclude today's voyage on The Northern Star, but please go check out The Project for some original non-wrestling related writing. Send any feedback to for today's column to XanManX@hotmail.com, with the words "Northern Star" or "feedback" in the subject line. The Northern Star will rise again. Until then, Long days, pleasant nights *NEW GALLERY* MUST SEE! Very Rare Photos of KAREN ANGLE Over the Years!
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