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Submitted by Degenerate on Tuesday, June 5, 2007 at 7:46 PM EST
Hey y'all, nice to see you here again! I'm your resident Boriqua, Degenerate, here bringing you another fun-filled edition of Struggle For Power. Again, I'm glad to be able to offer this up to the readers of LordsOfPain.net, the best damn wrestling site anywhere. Yeah, that was a free shill, just like those guys on TV who are "satisfied customers" of the newest weight-loss program. Liars, all of you. Except me, of course. My shill is real. Thanks for everyone who took the time to write a little something to me last week. It's cool getting E-Mails from others, just to talk about wrestling. I'd also like to thank my peeps down in the Columns Forum for forgiving me after deceiving them. For those not in the loop, in Struggle For Power #50 I said I wasn't going to write again after two years of being a fixture in the place, knowing that I would pop up here soon. Tears were shed, lives were almost taken away by suicide, and psychiatry bills accumulated. Luckily no one was hurt in that entire ordeal. Yeah, yeah, I know 95% of you people don't want to listen to my boring ol' stories. We're gonna jump into the whole wrestling thing now, okay? * We had our yearly One Night Stand this past Sunday. I actually don't feel dirty for disappearing afterwards. I did leave her 40 bucks, though. That doesn't make me a bad person, right? Anyway, nothing spectacular happened during the night, officially killing what was supposed to be a special night to those from ECW past. I mean, come on, not even a peek of Paul Heyman? I would've been totally happy with a far-away shot of his ponytail. Instead, we get the possible send-off for one ECW Original, and a night full of WWE originals. I would suggest just changing the name of the damn show already. We know it's not a one night thing anymore. And I still don't agree with the Pay-Per-View format change either, with stars from all three brands. Well, then again, we could've probably had a repeat of last year's December To Dismember show if it was ECW wrestlers only... Bravo WWE, for changing the format! Yeah, I'm a hypocrite, but you wouldn't want to sit through three more hours of that crap like last December, either. * We have a maniac on the loose! Vince McMahon has officially "lost" it... again. Remember back in 2002 when he decided to bring in the nWo to "poison" the company? The version of the nWo that had Hulk Hogan turning face within two months? The version of the nWo that Shawn Michaels and Booker T joined, albeit for a quick spell? The version of the nWo that died when Kevin Nash blew his quad by just walking to his partner? If you don't remember, I don't blame you. I really hope this stint of McMahon Madness (or "McMahon-iac", as the not-so-brilliant minds of WWE.com put it) isn't a long-term thing. It was cool this week, but I don't think it has legs to go on for a while. * The Rock has finally... separated from his wife of ten years. It was announced in People Magazine. Wait a damn minute... People Magazine? I think this is actually a first - People Magazine reporting on something wrestling related! Stop the presses, wrestling is mainstream again! Not really, but it is kinda shocking that there's an announcement from People Magazine in LordsOfPain.net. I don't have the slightest clue on what happened with the separation. Maybe the Hollywood schedule isn't too good to raise a family, or who knows, maybe The Rock is a playa after all. You know the amount of poontang available in those places. By the way, wasn't Hulk Hogan the one who was supposed to be divorcing soon? I bet The Rock took wind of that, and thought "Hogan's divorcing? I can't let him do that before me!" In all seriousness, I hope the split was amicable, for the kid's sake. It's never cool when a child is involved. * I can't help but laugh at how blown out of proportion the entire John Cena / Ron Killings debacle has been thus far. It all starts with some news that Cena saw Killings at an airport somewhere, they stared each other down, and that's it. Then Killings proceeds to sob on his keyboard and post emo-like messages to his MySpace page, which is something I would expect a fifteen-year-old teen to do. Whether the stare-down was real or not, I think Killings is the one who has everything to lose here. His posts weren't the most legible out there. Still, whenever this happens, I get pissed. If I were there, I would get in between these two and say "Damn, you guys are grown men, solve it like adults" and then step back and wait to see who throws the first punch. Not really, but grown men shouldn't resort to this petty bullshit. * Christian Cage apparently signed a shiny new contract, ensuring that he stays in TNA for the next two to three years. I say good for him that he did so. This way, it proves that the WWE is not the only viable alternative around, and I'm okay with any competition to the WWE. Without competition, the WWE will most likely get stale, as witnessed shortly after WCW closed down. In any case, TNA has treated Christian Cage well since his debut in November 2005, making him one of the company's main stars, and multiple-time World Champion. I had said previously that the signing of Monty Brown / Marcus Cor Von would be a key factor in getting more TNA stars to jump to the WWE. Just imagine if you were a TNA wrestler, whose contract would expire soon. You look at how the WWE treats one of TNA's former stars. If you see that wrestler gets a fair shake in the WWE, then you can consider jumping. But if you know you'll be stuck in the mid-card, or even lower, for the life of the WWE contract, then you know you can stay put, because you'll most likely be treated better in TNA, even for less money. * Another year, another Draft Lottery coming our way. If this were 2004, I would be excited. But now in 2007, I don't even feel a hint of excitement. Why, you ask? Because during these past years, there has been so much shuffling of WWE stars to all different brands, that it just lost all major significance for me. If you do something too much, you just get used to it and it doesn't feel special anymore. Remember the first Draft Lottery back in '04? That night felt special. After about two years of both brands engaging in war, stealing each other's stars along the way, this draft was the first time in two years that a high number of stars would be changing brands and appearing on a different show than we already got used to. Now, it'll just be exciting if something shocking happens, like a major tag team splitting up, or one of the World Champions being drafted to a different show. That remains to be seen, and I'll be waiting without any tingly feeling like I had years ago. Come on, don't deny it. If you were born in the mid-70s or early-80's, like myself, we all had a common hero - Hulk Hogan. No matter how much smack people talk about him now, about his ego-centric escapades backstage, or his immense hunger for ever-lasting power in the wrestling world, we all looked up to him as children. We were all vitamin-takin', prayer-sayin' kids, blindly following every single word the man said. We all cheered his victories, and damn near cried when he was beat up. No matter how lame or dumb that may sound to us now as adults, I think of it as a fun period in my life. It was cool to have someone to look up to, even if that person was a fictional, made-up character in a television show. And the fact that The Hulkster actually acknowledged each and everyone of us every time - his Hulkamaniacs - was just plain cool. We had a role model who always did good, and always defeated evil wherever it roamed. Hulk Hogan was the epitome of the word "hero", in my eyes. Personally, in anything I do in life, I always try to look up to certain people for inspiration, and for setting the goal to be just like them, possibly even be better. In my job as a software developer, I have certain personalities from the world of programming to look up to and strive to do what they've done for the industry. Even as a columnist here, I have people that I look up to. I consider myself a great writer (what am I doing here, after all?), and many think I don't need to look up to anyone. But I do. I like to set up goals for myself in everything I do, and part of those goals is to be as good, or better, than those I look up to. The reason I look up to these people is because in a world where wrong seemingly appears everywhere and nothing seems right, it's cool to have your own "heroes" there for you. These people bring out inspiration in you, set you on a path of well-being, to let you be the best you can possibly be. Of course, these heroes aren't there always with you. Most of them you've never even met, and will most likely never meet in person. Still, they can provide encouragement to get through any situation. In wrestling, I have had many different heroes when I was a child. The biggest were the aforementioned Hogan, Randy Savage and Bret Hart. These people, to me, were the embodiment of good. They could never do any wrong, and they always made the right decisions. Even in defeat, they were still larger than life. In fact, I actually wanted to always be a "good guy" who always did the right thing, and follow the straight path that these people portrayed on television. However, in this world of information, one of the side-effects of having access to previously-forbidden backstage news is that you find out things that make these "heroes" rapidly become "zeros". I remember how bad I felt when I learned about Hulk Hogan's backstage antics, and how he was really just a politician back in WCW, securing his spot without any care for the rest of the company. I sort of didn't want to believe it myself at first. The same happens when I read about how bitter guys like Savage and The Ultimate Warrior - guys I looked up to - really are now. It seems that every time I have a better look at those "heroes", I find something that makes me want to slap these people and tell them how much I thought of them, and how they have let me down. And it's not only with wrestlers from the past. It's happening now, with fellow columnists I used to look up to. After trying to follow in their footsteps, I see things they do now, how they basically stopped caring about doing this column writing thing, and I just lose the respect I had for them as a fellow writer. It makes me wonder if having so much information accessible on the Internet is worth having some illusions shattered. But then I think about the things that I wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the Internet. For every Hogan, Savage and Warrior I lose respect for, I gain respect for others. Guys like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Shawn Michaels deserve everyone's respect. The best part of it is that the respect I have for them was gained for what they did outside of a wrestling ring, not inside like the others. Instead of relying on what's fed to me on television, I know I can trust that my respect is well-placed in these men because of things they have done, and continue doing. If it weren't mostly due to the news on the Internet, I wouldn't have known most of the true stories of these guys I mentioned before. Even though DVD's and books have been released about Guerrero, Benoit and Michaels, and their situations played out on TV, the Internet proved that these stories were actually true. Guerrero proved that you can hit rock bottom in life, and still bounce back to unimaginable heights. Benoit showed that with hard work, you can prove all your naysayers wrong and be considered the best in your field. And Michaels proved that when life is spiraling out of control, you can still gain control of your life and steer it towards the right path. These are the types of people I look up to nowadays. Notice that I said "people", and not "wrestlers". I look at them as peers, knowing that I can turn out as good as they have in their life. Now, as adults, it seems that we can use heroes more than ever. We aren't too old to have someone to look up to. Think about your own life right now. Do you need a hero? I'm sure there are people who can provide some extra motivation to get you going towards the right direction. A little bit of inspiration never hurt anyone. Get it while you can. Like I said last time, I knew I wasn't the only person getting called up to this place. Little did I know that I had a whole room full of company afterwards! Still, each and every new columnist on this site has been deserving of being able to write here, all with their own unique style, and even nationalities. Now we have Americans, Puerto Ricans, Australians, Canadians, Welshmen and even a pair of Mexicans to round it all up. Mix 'em all together, and you have a tight-knit group of some of the best wrestling columnists anywhere on the tubes. Hey, if we made Randomguy#5 write a column this week, you know we're good. Before I leave, here are my top three columns I've read in the Columns Forum in the past couple of weeks. If you have a few minutes to spare, swing by and read some more. I know you won't be disappointed. aisce in Your Hole #8 - RIP Kerwin White By aisce We all remember what we were doing on November 13, 2005. That's when we found out Eddie Guerrero had passed away. However, have you sat down to think who else died that night? aisce brings us another spectacular column with this information. KWANG THE COLUMN : Why Edge Stands Alone By Jigga The God You can't deny that Edge is one of the top superstars of the WWE right now. In this column, Jigga back-traces Edge's history in the company, how he has fared since then, and why he truly stands alone. The Vault: Mr. Tito's Phat Daily Column By YourAyatollah This is not an original column, and it's not from Tito. This is a repost from an old Tito column by former Main Pager YourAyatollah, posted simply to show the classic columns of yesteryear to those who didn't get the privilege to read them in the first time around. For those of you who only know Tito from his "Wrath Of Tito" days, know that the man used to write columns on a daily basis - for about four years straight. If you're a columnist, you can fully appreciate how difficult that is. As always, my top three picks from the Columns Forum will be posted here, so be on the lookout for them. To those columnists from the Columns Forum, keep up the good work, so I can add more of you here! That's it for another edition of Struggle For Power. I hope you all enjoyed this one and that it kept you happy. If time permits, I'll be back next Tuesday with another column for your reading needs. For those who want to talk about this column, or anything else for that matter, just drop me a line at dennmart@gmail.com, or if you're a member of LOPForums.com (I wouldn't know why you still aren't a member yet), then leave a message at the feedback thread for this column. Everything will be responded to. Thanks for reading, Degenerate ***DIRECT LINK*** BRAND NEW Pregnancy Photos of a BIG Stephanie McMahon!
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