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Submitted by Morpheus on Saturday, June 17, 2006 at 7:50 PM EST
 Hello everyone and welcome to a special COTM edition of Pulp Wrestling, the only column brought you semi-regularly by myself the one and only Julius. I hope that life has treated you all well since our last meeting, but whatever state you are in, I welcome you anyway, just because I’m a damn nice person. Before we get into the main topic today I’ve decided to use this special COTM spotlight to unveil a new section called ‘Shooting the Shit’. In this section I will basically let loose on the major topics of the day/whatever the hell else pops into my mind. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and hopefully it will be as much fun to read as it was to write. So now, I’ve remained silent on the big news in the wrestling world long enough, and it’s fine time you all heard my side of the story. So without any further hold ups, here it is....  Alright, enough of that rambling, on with the column... Some of the earliest memories that I have retained to this day involve me at the tender age of four sitting on my living room floor in front of our ancient television set with my father in the background watching old VHS tapes from Coliseum Home Video. For those of you too young to remember Coliseum Home Video was the American media company that used to handle all of the World Wrestling Federation’s video releases. It was during this point that I first began my life long obsession with the sport of Professional Wrestling. For hours it seems I would sit there spell bound gazing at the amazing feats performed by these men whom I regarded as honest to goodness heroes. The man whom everything revolved around back then was called Hulk Hogan. He was a fierce, rugged looking individual who rumor has it had orange glow in the dark skin. Glowing epidermis aside the Hulkster back then represented everything that a father would want to pass on to his son. He was in his purest essence a children’s character. His mottos were of course as I’m sure you all remember, “Train hard, say your prayers, eat your “vitamins” and be true to yourself (insert BROTHER here).” He was I said the ideal role model for any little tyke at the time. Likewise looking over the entire product back then it was very rare to see anything above a PG-13 rating at all. The most disturbing thing in fact that I can recall is the instance when Jake Roberts stuck his pet Cobra on Randy Savage’s arm and they showed that vile close up of it ripping Randy’s arm to shreds. Which looking back on it, still with all the extreme stunts performed since then just may be the most gruesome thing I have ever seen on a wrestling program. Flash forward a few years later, Hulk Hogan has departed and taken his glow in the dark orange lumps with him, and the man who has seemingly taken his spot is Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart. Now despite what that nickname may imply, The Hitman was not that far removed from Hogan character wise, in that he rarely cheated and always stood up for truth justice and the Canadian way. Even his archrival at the time, Shawn Michaels wasn’t a full blown heel at the peak of their rivalry. During the build up to their legendary showdown at Wrestlemania 12 they were both pushed as faces, the first time such a thing had been attempted since Hogan Vs Warrior six years prior to that event. That was the beginning of 1996, and it was a year that professional wrestling was to receive a monumental change in the way that business as usual was to be run. On Labor Day of that year former World Wrestling Federation star Scott Hall jumped ship to World Championship Wrestling and planted the seeds for one of the most influential and imitated storylines of all time. That storyline would fully blossom at that years Bash At The Beach Pay Per View which saw the heel turn of one of wrestling most beloved babyfaces, yes that one, the Immortal ‘Hulk Hogan’. Thus began the stable of the New World Order, a group of heels that were so revolutionary for their time and place that they were ten times more over than any babyface in the company at the time. Speaking of heels that got over, a little later on that year also saw come to fruition the metamorphosis of former World Championship Wrestling mid-carder Steve Austin from underrated mid-card wrestler to the classic cult figure ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. In the speech, he gave after winning the prestigious crown he uttered a phrase that would soon be inscribed on literally millions upon millions of T-shirts and fan made signs worldwide. What he said that night was directed at Jake Roberts and went ‘You can talk about your psalms, talk about John 3:16…. Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass!”. And so a legend was born. It seemed from that moment on things began to change regularly in the wrestling business. But it was not just in the way it was being produced however, but also in the way it was being viewed. In the days of Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart watching wrestling had been one of my families favorite activities. My entire family would spend numerous evenings together in front of the television set being entertained by the product being presented to us by Vince McMahon. Now while I still watched and enjoyed wrestling once the general change in tone and content occurred, it became much less a family event and more and more of a private aphrodisiac. Wrestling became in a sense like reading a borrowed edition of Playboy. It was very enthralling and captivating to a kid my age, but it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you wanted to be caught doing by your immediate parental figures. I was lucky in a sense that the aforementioned wrestling change occurred about at the exact time that my own personal change happened. Growing up during the Hogan era I had been just young enough to be drawn in by the cartoonish characters of that era, and the following ‘New Generation’. However, by the time my teenage years started to set in I had become just a little bored with all of that stuff, to say the least. Now however instead of wrestling clowns, and garbage men, there were mock street gangs that would douse their opponents with graffiti after having disabled them in the ring, and renegade outlaws who would say or do anything they wanted with no fear of the repercussions that might face them. It was in a sense an era of ‘cool’ and it caught on bigger than nearly anything before or since. For the only time in my entire life that I can remember it actually became socially acceptable to discuss the faux sport of professional wrestling with my classmates. Aside from the conversational freedoms it opened up there were also wrestling T-shirts and other assorted apparel being worn all over by people who wouldn’t have dared to dawn such risky attire in previous years. In a sense, by distancing itself from its cartoonish past and becoming more of an adult natured entity wrestling became the most popular children’s show of all time. While wrestling was becoming the new ‘it’ trend of my generation with my peers though, it also became a target for countless parental groups and censorship organizations. Apparently, it seems, some adults don’t believe it’s so keen that their child would go to school point to his crotch and tell his administering teacher to ‘suck it’. Who would of have believed it? That notwithstanding though, professional wrestling was experiencing a boom and wasn’t about to shift gears any time in the foreseeable future, especially not in the in the obsolete and archaic name of something such as ‘morals’. It was during this time that the World Wrestling Federation began to kick things into full force with their ‘Attitude Era’. Raunchy characters such as The Godfather, Val Venis and newly revamped Degeneration X were pulling in record ratings. All the while at the helm of this revolution were the aforementioned Steve Austin, and Vincent Kennedy McMahon. The fictional war they waged with each other in 1998 and 1999 not only helped the World Wrestling Federation over take Ted Turner’s rival World Championship Wrestling in the ratings, it also gave birth to an entire new generation of wrestling fans. Even more so than the previous boom that had been experienced during the birth of the New World Order. Wrestling now more so than ever before had become big time. With increased exposure though also comes increased scrutiny, and eventually to all good things will come an end. Before we get to that though there is the issue of who was to blame for all of this newfound ‘Sex, drugs and Rock n’ Roll bravado that was taking over wrestling. Not being around to witness the exact dynamics of went down, I can’t exactly say, but many an accusatory finger I’m sure has been pointed in the direction of Vince Russo.When Vince Russo (who had been the WWF’s head writer during its peak years) jumped ship to WCW it must have seemed like the coup’ of all coups. Here finally was the man that could not only bring WCW back into respectable competition with the WWF but also help to over take and drive them right out of business! Or so they thought. Russo in the following years would bring his fast paced ‘Crash TV’ style to WCW. It might have worked, had it not been for him getting a little bit too big in the britches and using his newfound airtime to basically take jabs at anyone and everyone who he felt had disrespected him in the past. Characters such as ‘Oklahoma, ( A spoof of Jim Ross) and Buzzkill, ( A direct rip-off of the Road-Dog of all people) were introduced to television in what I guess was an honest attempt to create some sort of buzz about WCW. All it did though was make people even more eager than they had been before to turn the channel over to the WWF, to see what was going on, on the A Show. With Russo’s sexually driven style of Sports Entertainment doing more harm than good to WCW’s already ravaged reputation it seemed as though the era of wrestling being the primary show for young adolescent males was slowly but surely, coming to an end. If we were finally getting to the point where rampant sexually driven storylines such as ‘Viagra On A Pole’ matches couldn’t sell Pay Per Views then I suppose there wasn’t much else that could have been done prevent this era from dying in retrospect. As the Attitude era also came to a close in the WWE a new era began to emerge, one that has yet to be given a name. That’s the trouble with eras I guess, no one is ever around to name them when the damn things are actually happening. I believe the official end of the aforementioned Attitude era was at Wrestlemania 17 when Steve Austin aligned himself with Vince McMahon in one of the most perplexing heel turns of all time. Since that time we have seen a decline in the over the top angles of that previous era, such as wrestling porn stars, and pimps, but still there have been at the very least some questionable storylines since then. Not to get off on a rant but a few of the more offensive ones that come to mind right now are, a wrestling terrorist, necrophilia, gay weddings, an old man being sexed to death, child custody battles, McMahonism, and who can forget, the Kiss My Ass Club. It seems recently though that as many ‘adult’ oriented storylines that have been presented there have also been an equal amount of characters that seem right out of the days of when the WWE was a straight up family friendly organization. Carlito comes to mind as a character who would have fit in perfectly back during those days ( Just replace Razor Ramon’s toothpick with his Apple and there you have it). His new ‘Spit Or Swallow’ shirt aside he is basically a character that I could really see kids getting into heavily. At least, kids like me that is. He even looks like a cartoon character to boot, and who wouldn’t want to spit an apple into their teachers face growing up? Also on Raw right now we have the five-man squad of cheerleaders known as the Spirit Squad. Aside from being just plain annoying they have yet to do anything would really make me take them as anything but your typical Saturday morning inept goons. On the Smackdown side of things, we actually have a wrestling pirate of all things, as well as leprechaun, a worm eating Boogeyman and a twelve-year-old kid named Paul London all competing for prestigious wrestling titles. On the contrary though we are seeing the resurgence of some very non kid friendly groups such as Degeneration X and Extreme Championship Wrestling. It seems as though the WWE is a company at odds with itself, being pulled into two or three separate directions at once. They are trying to recapture the success of the past while still keeping a keen eye on the future. How they will manage to pull off this precarious balancing act is anybody’s guess. I sense some of you might be wondering why I have left out the closest thing to direct competition the WWE has right now, in Total Nonstop Action. TNA still claims the heritage of the old National Wrestling Alliance, which I guess, might get it some points with some old school fans out there. (Like Civil War veterans) Also ever since their move to Spike TV I can’t remember seeing anything really risqué from them. ( Aside from a few disturbing spots involving stalking that is) Characters like Abyss and James Mitchell are too over the top to be taken as legitimately satanic in nature. Also in recent news I heard that TNA will not allow their wrestlers to be interviewed on any program that contains the use of foul language. So with all of that in mind they just might be the most family friendly wrestling promotion in existence right now. You might be able to get them on the violence thing, but in the end the name on the marquee still says wrestling ( or action ) and if you can show me a way to present it totally free of any major violence, then I’ll show you one hell of a boring show. Now whatever direction WWE or TNA takes is in reality no business of my own. That’s purely up to the discretion of their assorted owners and writers. However in the future should I someday be blessed with children of my own, I would enjoy it very much to be able to pass on the tradition that was passed on to me by my father and his father before him. There is just something magical about being able to sit and share a program with a loved one, especially a parent or a child. But having said that, I doubt social services would look very favorably upon me should I let my offspring watch a show that contained partial nudity, offensive language, excessive amounts of blood and violence and all that other fun stuff that we all love so much. So what’s the compromise here? Seeing as WWE has recently decided to start a third brand in the new ‘ECW’ promotion, perhaps they could just contain all of the raunchy adult natured storylines there, while allowing the rest of the roster to be more child friendly. That is not to say it should be a total kids show complete with clowns and lollipops, but I doubt I’d be lying if I said most of us probably wouldn’t miss the heavy soap opera like storylines involving sixty year old men’s bare asses, and other assorted nonsense that has no place whatsoever on a professional wrestling telecast. But then again, I could be wrong. Whatever they do though in the end I can hope for only one thing. That in some form or fasion professional wrestling will continue to exist on my television, so that my children and my children’s children’s children will all hopefully still be able to enjoy it in the future. Alrighty then... and now for your not-so regular dose of Pulp Wrestling's Ten Commandments... I. I am not just the coolest, I am not just the best, I am Justin Credibly lucky not to be working at Target anymore.. II. Thou shalt fire Kelly, and also make the Zombie the next Smackdown World Champion. III. Thou shalt not show any more male asses on a wrestling related program until the year 2906. IV. Thou shalt show however show off all of the divas lovely assets at any available time. V. Big Vito, since your new gimmick is a direct rip-off of The Sopranos, thou shalt call that retarded new finisher of yours the 'Big Pussy Smash' out of respect for those no longer with us. VI. Thou shalt lower PPV prices. VII. Metallica, for the love of God thou shalt stop being such friggin' stingy assholes. VIII. Thou shalt bring back the Nation Of Domination, and D-Lo brown... Sucka! IX. Thou shalt not wear extra clothing during a 'Wet and Wild contest! X. Thou shalt, be good to each other, always. That's all for now, take care peeps. E-Mail Jules
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