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Submitted by Randomguy#5 on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 7:21 PM EST
Who Exactly is Vince Striking Back? Welcome back to the column says “Hell, I‘m your martyr“ and hopes you‘ll be it‘s gangster The Nosebleed Section. I am the One Called Random and yeah, I’m ripping off Evan’s Blue songs for my opening now, it’s been that kinda week. Actually, for the kind of week it’s been you’re lucking I’m not quoting Matchbox 20. That’s when you know my usually metal ass has had a long, long emo-week. “I’m not crazy..I’m just a little unwell….” **smacks himself- “STOP IT!”** Anyway those of you who frequent my column, both of you, will remember that I was sort of in the middle of a series looking at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of each of the major wrestling shows. Well, I decided to scrap that. Why? Because I think it sucked, that’s why. It’s tough to look at something you produced and say “Yeah, that’s ‘ok’ but it’s not so much the good part” but that’s basically what I did. Most reader’s seemed pretty disinterested as well, so if you find yourself upset by this news, feel free to email and let me know and if enough people seem to want me to finish it (Smackdown and Raw were the two remaining) then I’ll give it a go. If not, then I’m gonna move on if it’s alright with you. A little birdy told me that I’d lost some of the edge in my writing that I used to have, so I’m gonna see if I can’t find some of that-if I don’t please don’t tell me. I live in a fragile card house waiting to come crumbling down…. Hence the Matchbox 20. --I am seriously digging the new Kurt Angle. This guy is making me want to not miss TNA, which is an impulse I’ve not had since LAX first debuted. Angle right now finally quit doing the tweener crap he’d been doing for years, and seems to have actually made himself an uber-heel in TNA something that company could use a bit more of. His attitude is so over the top, even a seasoned wrestling fan like myself is forced to watch an say ‘Damn…this guy’s an ASS!” Throw in a very worthy and perhaps overdue challenger in Samoa Joe, and TNA has at least one feud worth watching. --Which variation of Triple H do we get upon his return? Is it DX HHH? Is it Hollywood Heel Evolution H? Is it the heel King of Kings? Or is it, as my Monday Night Countdown co-host Morpheus suggested last week “Jeans and Leather” HHH with a splash of King of Kings? Must be nice to have multiple character to choose from, all variations of the same gimmick and all insanely over. Somebody should borrow two or three from Hunter and try and find Bobby Lashley one to come back with. --Speaking of Monday Night Countdown, sorry but they’ll be no show this week. If you missed last week’s show you can pick it up at the bottom of this column. Keep an eye on www.Mondaynightcountdown.net for all your Mencee news, including some FREE special editions coming up! --Also on that website you can check out a bunch of emails I received regarding my Chris Benoit column about a month back. I got some great responses, some awful ones, and some that were just pure hatred. I wasn’t able to respond to all of them and I’m sorry I got absolutely hammered flat by feedback that week, but everything was (as always) read and I replied to a lot of them and a lot more publicly in my blog, check it out if you’re interested. Nearly two months ago the wrestling world was rocked when the quintessential “male soap-opera” known as WWE pulled the classic “soap-opera” move and killed off one of it’s main characters. Of course fans of the product note that they didn’t just kill “a” main character but rather “the” main character, Mr. McMahon himself. The event rocked the wrestling world and a plethora of news bits on the storyline were sprayed across the internet. Creditable sites, not-so creditable sites, and some of the downright nonsense dot-coms were all over it, each claiming to know the root of the storyline (which reportedly dated back to some two-three years ago) as well as who had been responsible for the apparent murder. Everybody had a theory. Approximately one-thousand eight hundred and seventy-six columns were written on the subject, each columnist with their own two cents on the subject. Hell, that damn storyline somehow managed to pull Zuma ten thousand hits, which nothing short of a browser-refresh JavaScript should have been capable of achieving. Some people hated it the storyline from the very moment the mysterious second foot stepped into the limo and the vehicle blew up like Barry Bonds’ steroid inflated head. They claimed that it was too “sports-entertainment” and too “soap-opera.” They claimed that it distracted from the in-ring product and was proof (as if such were needed) that the modern-day WWE was entirely too focused on theatrics, and not focused nearly enough on the description on the marquee outside: “Wrestling”. Still others like myself jumped all over the storyline, not as an example of all that is wrong with the wrestling business but as the paradigm of all that is right with it. Sure pro-wrestling’s not what it used to be, and yeah, that sucks at times. But c’mon, if all they did was parade out a bunch of grown men in under where, would we really watch? No-and regardless of how many of you reading don’t want to admit it, the number of wrestling fans who mark out for the “sports-entertainment” theatrics outweighs the number of people who bitch and moan in their blogs about it. Personally I feel the WWE would be better served to strike a balance between the two, but that debate is beyond the scope of this column. The point is that the WWE knows through market research and roughly 25 years of trial and error that the “soap-opera” storylines sell a lot of tickets, move a lot of T-shirts, and tune in a lot of TV’s. That’s why they’re the kingfish of the industry, and RoH is busting their collective ass to catch up with TNA…much less the WWE. So leave it to Vince and the WWE, industry leaders and (for better or worse) purveyor of the modern male soap-opera known as “sports-entertainment” to pull the least “wrestling” storyline in the history of the business. Vince McMahon’s limo went kablooey, and the wrestling world stood in awe. Fast forward two months and in retrospect what was shaping up to be an interesting piece of television for wrestling fans and the driving storyline of the summer has been cast-aside as a mere afterthought. The Chris Benoit Family Tragedy rocked the wrestling world like it had maybe never been rocked before. At the very least it had been YEARS since the WWE was pulling the sort of negative publicity that ensued when one of it’s former champions had apparently killed his wife and son before taking his own life. The investigation that followed, and continues to present as Congress takes a look at the WWE drug testing policy, grabbed Vince McMahon by his thousand dollar lapels and drug he and his company through the mud. So what choice did they really have? With a pending steroid investigation, a dead superstar, and more media scorn than Michael Vick, certainly the WWE couldn’t continue a storyline that featured the death of it’s most prominent on air character. Such would have been in poor taste, and out of respect for the families and friends of Benoit, as well as to not further insult the fans or draw any further media scrutiny, the WWE dropped the “Vince is Dead” storyline and began acting as if it never happened. There were a handful of us (myself included) who felt that after an appropriate amount of time (two-three weeks) the WWE should have continued the storyline. It’s not as if they were going to somehow disrespect the name of Chris Benoit, who by his own actions had already tarnished his own legacy plenty. Had the WWE continued with the storyline, things could not have gotten any worse than they already were. Regardless of the memory of Benoit that your mind’s eye paints for you, that image would not be anymore tainted had the storyline continued, period. In addition, no further negative media attention would have resulted either. So CNN reports that three weeks after the passing of Benoit the WWE continues a storyline in which a character had died. So what? As far as I’m concerned the mainstream media would be better-served to gain a firmer grasp on what exactly is real and what is “fake” in professional wrestling. The days of kayfabe are long since dead and unfortunately for the industry and poor wrestling fans who get ridiculed for liking that “fake” sport, mainstream media can’t seem to handle it. This would have been a great opportunity for the WWE to drive a wedge into mainstream America and illustrate that what they’re doing is a combination of acting and performance art and that they are trying to legitimize with a somewhat dark and depressing albeit rich, colorful history. Point to the Wellness Testing, point to the expansion of WWE films, put some of your well-spoken and respectable performers out there to argue (Cena, Lashley) and argue that the what they’re doing is no more corrupt than American Sports (Vick, Steroids in Baseball, NBA referee scandal) and spin that attack around! For god sake fight back! The WWE could have used the opportunity, with the “McMahon is Dead” storyline as a springboard to a more accepted place in American (and global?) culture as opposed to being the black-sheep of the entertainment industry. Yes, admit the transgressions of the past, apologize for them, then show strides the company is trying to make to change all that. That’s what they should have done. Sadly, it’s not what they did. Instead, the WWE took a public relations beating at the hands of anybody who wanted to get in the ring and dish it out. All of that and they were forced to give up what was obviously going to be the storyline of the year for the WWE. Again, people laugh at that notion because of the absurdity of the storyline, but think for a second: The WWE effectively killed off it’s biggest name. Granted we all KNOW the Vince character was not actually killed off (ala Paul Bearer) but the mere notion of this and the ensuing witch-hunt for “whodunit” was easily going to drive the WWE through the dog-days of summer in much the same way that the revival of DX and the return of ECW had done the year before. Now, the question becomes, where exactly does the WWE intend to pick this storyline up? Beginning last week tomorrow night’s Raw has been billed as “Mr. McMahon Strikes Back” but to you I ask, “Strikes back against what?” We don’t know who killed Vince McMahon, and for that matter from a strictly kayfabe since we don’t know that he’s alive! My first guess is that Vince will not even acknowledge that the storyline ever existed, he’ll come out as if he’s just been off air for a few weeks and start ranting about needing to “shake things up around here”. Now, I could be wrong. Perhaps they’ll be some sort of half-asses explanation where JR screams “Oh my God! The Chairman of the WWE, presumed dead two months ago, is here alive and well on Raw!”. That’ll suck. Or maybe not. Maybe Vince comes out and says that in lieu of the Benoit tragedy (remember kayfabe Benoit is dead too, see Eddie Guerrero) the investigation of his death was taken off television and he intends to continue it. Shit maybe Benoit’s doctor killed Vince McMahon, hell I don’t know. Maybe Santino Morella did it. Maybe it was Jeff Hardy as part of his “prankster” gimmick and that would explain his absence from TV, he was suspended for his shenanigans that accidentally almost killed the boss. Maybe it will still lead somewhere cool like we all hoped, prayed, and speculated before-the return of Triple H and his alliance with Stephanie, or the end of the brand extension (you believers in this theory astound me with your ignorance). Two months ago the WWE was setting forth on it’s course for the summer. That course has been detoured to say the least but the reemergence of the Chairman is more than just a ploy to salvage sagging ratings. It’s symbolic that the WWE is moving on-they’re getting up off the canvas in this fight for public approval. No matter how much people wish it to be, the WWE is more than a “pretend fighting league” now. It’s a storyline driven injection of machismo into an otherwise vanilla flavored television industry encumbered by coffee houses and the inner monologues of women at work. The return of Vince McMahon to television says to me that the WWE is through pandering for the approval of CNN and FoxNews, and they’re willing to move on with life in the face of Congressional inquiry. The show must go on, and up until now the WWE had been rolling out mediocre shows without some of their top tier talent. The talent is coming back now and as the leaves change color and the breeze gets cooler more talent will reemerge from the hospital bed as Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Bobby Lashley, Jeff Hardy, and Edge all slated to return before the end of the year and join Triple H and Rey Mysterio who’re already in the “return” process. Yet as they come back from injury it’s one man’s return from the dead that holds the most symbolism and the greatest sign of optimism for a wrestling fan. The WWE tried the “just throw them out there and have some matches” idea for a while, and to the smark’s dismay it was a colossal train wreck of a month for WWE programming. Rest assured though, the “sports-entertainment” is back, the Attitude is back, the Chariman is back-and he’s striking back! Of course we’ll never really know who or what he was supposed to be striking at, but hell, at least he’s fighting back now. Sanctimonious Son of a Bitch Santino Morella is a duchebag and a half. Don’t ask me if those feelings are for the performer or the character, I’m not sure I can decipher the two at the moment. He should make an awesome smarmy heel, particularly if he ends up leading some sort of nonsensical midcard faction (hello Little Guido!) but until then he makes the baby Jesus cry every time he appears on screen with my Maria. You didn’t hear? Yeah, I whipped Punk’s ass and won a “Maria on a pole” match. Now she’s booked for the next month in a “On Random’s Pole” match. God I’m lame. Cannon Fodder Sucks to be Konnan this week. After a ton of fund-raising the guy was finally able to get a much needed kidney transplant only to have his body reject it and his former employer not pick up a dime of the tab (which is why they’re his former employer. Rumor has it he’ll be landing back in TNA sometime soon, though apparently just to make sure he doesn’t end up on Real Sports with Bob Costas and drag TNA into the mud that WWE’s been wallowing in for months now. Horrible situation and I feel for the guy, truly. Cheap Pop While the contest will likely be over before you read this, as I type this the July Column of the Month contest is going on down on the farm in the Columns Forum of lop forums.com. “When In Rome“ by last month’s winner Rome_3:23 is locked in a serious race with “Hardtime“ by former main-pager RipBossman. Both are extraordinary works so check them out. The Power of Christ Compels You! Or something like that right Rome? And thus ends another famed edtion of the column sensation that’s sweeping the nation. Check out some of the links dropped below and throughout the column, I link a lot but only cool shit, or in some cases my own shit that’s really not that cool but you should click on it anyway because it’s mine. I earned it, admit it. (alright, probably not-but again, fragile ego). This was a fun column to write and it really just flowed though, so hopefully it comes off well and you enjoyed it. Of course a month from now I’m sure I’ll be standing beside everybody else bitching about how much airtime Vince takes up and how I wish he’d get off TV for a while, but for now I’m glad to see him back and think it represents a return to normalcy of sorts for the WWE. Again if you want to see the complete of that Good/Bad/Ugly series I’d begun, let me know otherwise it’s going the way of the Ayatollah and disappearing forever. Feedback is always appreciated via the email addy below so until the next Bleeder or the next ‘Countdown, au revoir and thanks for visiting The Nosebleed Section-but next time, get better seats. Click here to Email Randomguy#5!  Click above to visit the new MNC Website! Or click a link below to check out the latest show! Episode 30 -Hi-Fi Edition Episode 30-Low-Fi Edition --Hi-Fi Editions are slightly larger files and take longer to download but are better audio quality. Low-Fi are more dial-up user friendly.  Visit TheProjectLives.com and check out some great creative writing, social commentary, music downloads and pod casting including some familiar names you may recognize from Lop. Do some writing yourself? Jump in and give it a shot! Know somebody else who’d be better? Spread the word!  Free internet radio station ran by yours truly featuring all the best in hard rock and mainstream metal. If it seems like anything you’d be interested in listening to, give it a spin while you’re reading through some columns on Lop or The Project. We internet radio junkies may be in trouble so if you’ve got a few minutes to spare visit Live365.com and click on the “call your representative” link and try and help save Internet Radio. I’d appreciate it. *NEW GALLERY* Even MORE Hot Shots of TORRIE WILSON Tearing the Night Up!
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