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Submitted by Al Boo Boo on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 2:09 PM EST
Don't get lost in heaven They got locks on the gate Don't go over the edge you'll make a big mistake It’s weird when you realize something about yourself you didn’t necessarily know. It comes as a shock because for one, who should know you better that yourself, right? I’m sure it has happened to all of us at one time or another. And our feeling was probably the same - “no, that doesn’t sound like me”. I’ve actually been doing a lot of it outside of my wrestling life. But In my wrestling life, I did this not too long ago. I realized a style of wrestling I like that wasn’t something I was used to. It was actually something I had no idea existed less than a year ago. You see, as most people I grew up watching the good old WWF, with occasional stops in WCW. Being on the West Coast, I didn’t know anything of ECW. I was the kind of kid that knew wrestling wasn’t exactly real, but really wanted to believe it was. I always agreed with what WWF did when I was a kid. I never questioned it. That was until I was introduced to a thing called The IWC, or Internet Wrestling Community. Then, I was hooked. I found out there was more wrestling outside of just Vince-Land. And one of these promotions made me do exactly what I mentioned earlier, learn something about myself. I learned that I had a deeper enjoyment of wrestling. And I mean the sport of wrestling. The wrestling without storylines and gimmicks. The wrestling that was pure. This promotion had a fan-base similar to ECW, something I was really into at the time. It was one of those things in wrestling that was talked up so much; you couldn’t sit another minute without seeing it. For me, this thing was a promotion in Philadelphia named Ring of Honor. Weird enough, the single thing that made me really want to see Ring of Honor, or ROH, was a guy named Samoa Joe. I had read things on him and seen him on TNA and was curious to see this guys work. Since he didn’t have much to offer in TNA, I was told to download some of his work from his championship reign ROH. It was said to be loads better. After speaking to almost a dozen people, looking for recommendations on matches, I downloaded a match between, if I remember correctly, Steve Corino, CM punk, Chris Daniels, and the man himself, Samoa Joe. A couple things stuck out in my mind while watching that match. The first thing I noticed was the Ring. Now, I don’t know the exact size. But the Ring of Honor wrestling ring seemed larger than that of the standard WWE ring to me. Of course, it is the normal Four-Sided shape, but something about it makes it seem bigger. My first guess was the Red Stripes around the edges. The stripes add something to the matches in itself. I may be looking at this to deep, but to me it adds a sense of majestic-ness to the ring. Like it’s a sacred mat that only the best in world are allowed to grace. The other thing that appealed to me was the crowd. It was a small crowd and you could really here every “Whooo” and “Yeaaah”. You could tell them apart all so distinctly because the crowd was so small. During the duration of the match you could hear that guy in the back that’s had a couple too many “Beers of honor” trying to be a smart ass at least three or four times throughout the show. This makes the shows so much more personal because it gives you a feeling that you are actually there watching it. It is eerily similar to the old ECW in the early nineties. Except less people, and less hickish. And less people means more crowd interaction. This makes for a more enjoyable show since its obviously easier to sway an audience of three hundred than an audience of Twenty or Thirty Thousand that the guys on Raw try to do every week. The thing that goes hand in hand with the small crowd fact is that it seems like the crowd is so close to the wrestlers. As if the wrestler in the ring is their friend and he is hackling him as one would do to a friend in a play or a basketball game. It may seem weird but it made for a more “inviting” environment. As if non-verbally the wrestlers and fans were saying “See, we’re friendly, even when we make fun of each other”. Kind of like a more sophisticated ECW. It would be to the point that, as an example, CM Punk would be delivering a promo in the ring, and the aforementioned guy who had a couple too many “Beers of Honor”, yells out “Hey Punk, You Suck!” And the whole crowd starts busting up. Punk included. This, and the fact the only way to see it besides waiting for the DVD and/or the download to come out, is to be there live gives you a real desire to be there. The only negative I found in this company was the announcer. Dave Prazac, although having the ability to tell you the name of any maneuver Bryan Danielson can throw at him, just annoys the fuck out of me. The guy just screams random fanboy #9. The only redeeming quality to the Ring of Honor announcing team was a man who would fill in from time to time. A man so involved in ROH, I’ve already brought him up once in this column, CM Punk. God I’m turning into BenBeeach (Hi Ben!). Punk on the announcer’s mic is even better than CM Punk on the mic in a ring. The guy’s charisma just oozes through the TV, or computer, screen and he doesn’t even have to be on camera once. Just his voice makes you like him. Plus the shit he says is just comedic gold. “The only thing Joe and Japanese Puroresu have in common is that Joe owns a rice cooker” Now that might not be the exact comment, but that’s somewhat similar to the line that made me absolutely start to love Punk. CM Punk, Samoa Joe, and Other characters such as Homicide, Julius Smokes, Prince Nana, Bryan Danielson, Double C, Delierious, and the Briscoes made me fall in love with Ring of Honor. These men helped me realize my liking for the “Pure” wrestling style that ROH coined themselves. It made me realize that there is more out there than WWE. It introduced me to the Indies, thus introducing me to a whole new gateway of wrestling. Whether this was a good thing or not… I’d have to wait to see. You see… after single matches, I wanted whole shows. I wanted the DVDs. I downloaded DVD after DVD until being told that by downloading these, I was actually hurting ROH because most of their money was made by the sale of DVDs and merchandising. Upon hearing this, I can honestly say I didn’t care. And I did the selfish thing and kept downloading full DVDs. Ignoring the warnings that I was hurting the product I love as a smoker ignores the surgeon general warning on a pack of cigarettes. I didn’t care. I was getting my Fix. I was getting my daily dose of pure wrestling. And I didn’t care whose check I was chipping off of. But then something happened that made me slow down. Something that resembled when a drug addict realizes that his life is nothing without his drug of choice. I realized that if it wasn’t Ring of Honor, I wasn’t enjoying it. Raw started to become stale because I wasn’t seeing a Thirty-Five minute, Four and a Half star match every single week. I wasn’t seeing that Black Canvas with Red lining. And I wasn’t hearing the distinct voices in the audience. What I WAS getting was Three to Four minute matches, on a plain light blue canvas, with thousands and thousands of faceless people in the crowd, all screaming the same thing in unison. To me, it seemed like a bad thing. And because of it, I wasn’t enjoying the number one wrestling show in the whole world. The thing that bothered me the most is that I had seen this happen before. I wrote a column less than a year ago that I called “Enjoy” where I spoke on not watching the show from a “smark” point of view and how ever since I learned the lingo and ins and outs of wrestling, its magic had been lost. And how I wasn’t enjoying the show because I would condemn and try to break down everything they did on the show. I wasn’t watching as a fan anyone, but more as a critic. When I realized this was happening to me again, I knew I had to stop it before I fell victim to the same circumstances that I did before and miss out on some good wrestling. So I lowered my Ring of Honor intake, and upped my markiness. And it worked. I started to watch Raw as the fan I truly am. And as for Ring of Honor, I still watched it. Just less. I stopped downloading full shows. Went back to downloading single matches. Hell, I even ordered a couple DVDs. It’s still that way, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sad to say… I’m one of the lucky one’s. You see, there’s a problem plaguing the IWC right now that I couldn’t help but write a column on. I couldn’t help but discuss it because I think it’s a huge problem that people need to really get over. Because it will ruin this sport that we all love for you in an second. The problem is similar to what we see in the real world. People favor there kind. At my school I see it all the time. It’s called discrimination. Whether it’s racial or not doesn’t make a difference. The Latin’s hang out with the Latin’s. The Rockers eat lunch with Rockers. The Blacks all sit at the Oak tree together. And the Math geeks chill in the library. It’s the way the world works. People trust their own kind. They trust people who like the same things that they do. Most people see it as “discrimination” I see It as “Hey, people do what they want”. But in this case, it can’t be that way. In this case, it’s only hurting each other. I’m talking about discrimination in wrestling. I know… Oh God, another “Is WWE racist column”. No, not at all. This column is about us. Actually, this column is about you. It’s about YOU discriminating a promotion because it doesn’t do exactly what you want it to do. What am I talking about? Let me give you an example. I’ve found that for my tastes… my perfect wrestling show is Ring Of Honor. To relate it back to the name of this Column, it is my “heaven”. It has fantastic, pure wrestling. Along with great characters that are not over the top, and don’t lack charisma. They deliver exactly what I want. Good matches. Good promos and storylines, while still staying true to the sport of wrestling. And it’s all served up in even portions. I love it. If I could, I would watch a show a week, but unfortunately, I’m thousands of miles away from the closest Ring of Honor show. So I have to wait for the DVD or download. Sucks. But that’s life. I deal with it. Now… ROH… being my “Heaven” promotion, is of course my favorite. I would choose to watch ROH over anything else. But does that mean it should be the ONLY thing I watch? Does it mean that since I don’t think this of any other promotion, I should sit here and tell you why ROH is the greatest and you should watch it and only it? No way. I should still be very open to watching Raw, Smackdown!, ECW, Impact, JAPW, Hustle, CHIKARA, PWG, And all the other wrestling promotions that put on great shows. I should respect the work that they do parallel to the show that is put on by Ring of Honor. I shouldn’t look down on it one bit. Maybe it’s made for a different demographic than I. Maybe it’s made for a different kind of fan. But no matter what, obviously there is a group of fans that watch it, and even like me, think it is the best. If there wasn’t, the company would not still be putting on shows. Just because I think Ring of Honor puts on the best shows, does not mean I should dismiss the rest of the wrestling world. I shouldn’t talk down World Wrestling Entertainment. They put on the style of wrestling they want to put on. And quite frankly, they obviously appeal to more people than ROH. I shouldn’t “discriminate” against Total Nonstop Action because, just as WWE, they put on a different kind of show than I like to see, and I shouldn’t “discriminate” the bookers, wrestlers, or most importantly… the fans. This is the problem that really gets me. Loyal fans, be they Ring Of Honor fans, World Wrestling Entertainment fans, Total Nonstop Action fans, or any other walks of wrestling-life… seem to have this thought in their head of other fans: “They don’t favor the same promotion I do, so they’re stupid and don’t know anything about wrestling… Stupid Newbs” I cant tell you how many forums I’ve been to where the TNA, ROH, and WWE fans were divided. And within the forums argued and tried to convince one another that their promotion is stronger, or puts on better shows. And not even just the IWC anymore. It’s crossed over into the promotions itself with the recently ended ROH – CZW cross-promotion feud. Both of the owners behind these two “Monsters of the Indies”, if that’s not ironic, saw the aforementioned forum wars of who’s greater, and decided to capitalize on it. They put on shows together, had their champions fight. Fans were obviously digging it, but some fanatics, and I honestly shouldn’t even say some, took it way too far. Actually getting into fights with people on the street over it. It really became somewhat “Gang-Warfare”. With turf fights and people being jumped on the street because they were wearing a shirt of either promotion. What I am trying to do is call out to these people. Cry out to the people who say… “Promotion ‘A’ is better than promotion ‘B’ because ‘A’ puts on more consistently good shows. Therefore, I do not watch or support promotion ‘B’”. That’s it folks. THAT is what is tearing wrestling fans apart today. It’s wrong. It’s dumb. It shows a lack of loyalty as a wrestling fan. But most of all… Its discrimination. One shouldn’t base his whole viewpoint of wrestling off of one promotion. ALL promotions try and deliver a different product using the same bases. It’s the same thing in Rock and Roll. There is such an array of varieties in that one genre. This is the state of wrestling today. You can’t compare a Rock band to a rap artist. You can’t compare a Disney Cartoon to a Broadway play. Same thing goes in wrestling. You can’t compare two different promotions that put on two different shows. Whether comparing ROH – WWE, TNA – WWE, TNA – ROH, it’s all two totally different things. So how could you compare them? You couldn’t. So at the same token, you shouldn’t dismiss one as inferior just because it isn’t as your type of “style”. You see, when I found my Heaven, I got lost. I loved it SO much; I didn’t want to watch any brand or promotion. I was strictly loyal to Ring of Honor. But in being “loyal” to ROH, I was being disloyal as a wrestling fan. I had delusions that every other promotion was inferior because they didn’t put on shows that were as good as Ring of Honor. Now that I realize that I was wrong, I want to help people. Hopefully with this column that’s what I do. In my ongoing struggle to bring peacefulness and tranquility to the IWC, I have learned many things. People hate each other for stupid reasons, people will go too far to prove a point, and finally, writing a column can really open up your mind to the world. The focus of this column was something that I have experienced and want to prevent from happening to anyone else. It is something that will tear wrestling fans apart, and it is something that will ruin this magical sport for many. When you find your heaven, don’t get lost. Meaning, don’t give up on all other promotions. Don’t let your favorite ruin all the other entertainment by letting you think “we’re the best, all other promotions are inferior, watch us only”. Because when that happens, we stop supporting wrestling, and we get lost in heaven. They got locks on the gate Don't go over the edge you'll make a big mistake Well that’s it this week folks. Please Please Please send feedback if you read this. Email: fridaynightwrite@yahoo.com Positive, negative, professing your man love for me... I dont care. Drop me something. Until next time – stay up, stay strong, stay enjoying your wrestling. Peace ***DIRECT LINK*** Must See! MICKIE JAMES High-Def & UP-CLOSE! Amazing!!
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