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Submitted by Hustle on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 2:32 AM EST
 Good lookin out for the graphics work, Noc Bust Back Posted up on the main page, my work’s blazin.. my wordplay is immaculate and simply amazin.. You know the deal by now. Ya boy, Hustle, is back in the building. Pardon the swagger jack of Paul Wall, but I’m already in a Houston state of mind, thinking about WrestleMania 25, and how the H-Man is gonna run wild in H-Town. I’m telling you, people.. make the trip to Houston for the week, even if you don’t attend Mania itself. There’s still PLENTY to do. Besides, you get to kick it with me, and that’s a prize worth more than any ticket can provide you. As I’ve said before, holla at me if you want or need any info on anything. I got whatever details you’re looking for, please believe. Anyway.. welcome.. this is, of course, “Hustle Is Posting Right Now”, and I am your new hero.. your party host.. and, most importantly, the most charismatic showman to ever enter your homes via a computer monitor. Don’t you forget that. We might as well get to what you all came here for, huh? Shall I proceed? (Yes, indeed.) Less dew eet!! Run Yo Mouth Raise your hand if you remember Volume 1 of HIPRN. Wow.. 5 of you, counting me, huh? Well, then this’ll be a bit more “fresh” than I originally thought. In my debut column, I ran down the list of all the different types of posters that visit wrestling message boards on an at least semi-regular basis. Unfortunately for me, it was actually something that described the people that post at damn near all types of message boards, so due to the lack of legit wrestling content, it didn’t pull in the positive reviews that I had hoped it would. It wasn’t completely shit on and laughed at or anything.. don’t get me wrong.. just not as well-received as I would’ve wanted it to be. As a bit of a throwback, with a “new” twist involving actual wrestling this time, I’ve decided to go from message board posters to wrestling fans. I’m going to take a look at the fans of the “Big 3” companies.. their positives, their negatives, what you need if you would like to become one.. and we’ll have a little bit of fun with that. I’ll go through and list a bunch of character traits you’ll need to be a fan of WWE, TNA, and/or RoH, and then, for easy bookmarking purposes (and not to pad my word count.. no.. not at all.. I would never do a thing like that.. nope), I’ll follow that up with a Top 10 list (in no particular order) of the things I went over. First up on the agenda, we’ll be taking a look at the fans of Dixie Carter, Jeff Jarrett, alcoholic redneck wife beaters from Alabama, and Toby Keith’s absolute favorite wrestling promotion.. Bad Company  TNA If you’ve ever watched an episode of Impact or have witnessed a TNA pay-per-view, its difficult not to notice the TNA fans. Ahhh, the wonderful TNA fans. To say that they’re an excitable bunch of people would be an understatement of tremendous and perhaps even biblical proportions. When you have folks chanting “This Is Awe-some *clap, clap, clap-clap-clap*” during the introductions of the 1st match on the card, you have yourselves a.. loyal.. group of fans. I really hope, for the sake of avoiding potential lawsuits, that TNA springs for extra paramedic crews on site during their shows, because God forbid something happen during the event that is ACTUALLY awesome.. even sitting at home, you can hear the air being sucked out of the building as a few hundred marks gasp and wheeze in various degrees of asthmatic trauma. Kinda makes me glad I don’t attend the shows. I get mad at people when they try to steal my damn elbow room. Can you imagine how riled up I’d get if they tried to steal my oxygen? I may just stab someone to a bloody and painful death with the staples holding together the program for the show. Can’t have that, now can we? Nope. My fans need me. On top of being easily excited and amused, TNA fans usually require some sort of deficiency to be a part of their little group and to carry on, whether it be the occasional (frequent? constant?) delusional episode, the inability to see, or just general idiocy. Seriously.. “markness” is something exhibited by the fans of every wrestling promotion, from the biggest global phenomenon to the smallest backyard group bouncing around on old trampolines.. but some of the things that TNA fans defend absolutely defies logic and intelligence altogether. Remember the “Blindfold Match” and the amazing “Super Duper Electrified Razorwire Barracuda Cactus Centipede Broken Glass Thumbtack Rubbing Alcohol Teddy Bear Match” at last year’s edition of TNA Lockdown? Those matches were generally labeled as the worst matches of the year in all of wrestling, with a large percentage of people going so far as to say the matches were some of the worst they’d ever seen, period. With that said, there were still TNA fans, by the handful, defending not only the show itself, but those particular matches. Being faithful to a particular brand is fine. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. However, being a complete schmuck is where the problem lies, and that’s what those defenders had become all on their own.  When people go grocery shopping, some of them buy whatever it is they want or need, regardless of price. Some people, however, are more of the “coupon cutter” variety, and buy whatever is on sale, even if it isn’t a brand they’ve used before. Hell, some people that use coupons will buy shit they don’t even really use, simply because a really good deal for that item appeared in their Sunday newspaper. Fuckin weirdos. The point I’m trying to make is.. well, to be honest, there wasn’t an actual point there. I just wanted to make some sort of a comparison. Basically, the TNA fans are the hardcore “coupon cutters” of the wrestling world. Going for the cheapest possible (free) tickets, even though they probably wouldn’t use the tickets otherwise. The best part about all of it is when you watch the shows at the Impact Zone, and you start noticing that its the same people in the crowd every single time. Its like shopping at Costco or Sam’s Club.. since its a “club”, you might see the same people shopping there each time you go. (the whole “same people every week” thing is further shown by the fact that Impact has had the exact same TV rating every single week since 1986, but that’s off-topic a bit, and going off-topic is something that I, as well as the staff of HIPRN, just don’t do) Well, hell, while we’re discussing things that stay the same forever and a day without any sort of actual change, that’s another character trait that defines the typical TNA fan.. someone that enjoys repetition. I said someone that enjoys repitition. Enjoys repetition. Repetition. This is the same company that drags their storylines on entirely too long, whether it be teasing a heel or face turn for months on end before finally pulling the trigger on it, or just having people feud for far longer than is any good for the overall heat factor of said feud. Same fans every week in attendance, same fans tuning in to watch every week, and a company giving you the same matches on 15 PPVs in a row.. yeah, that’s a definite haven for people that are totally frightened by anything different. Repetition. To go “shopping” again, are you one of those people that enjoys buying brand knockoffs? I guess this could also fall under the “cheap” category, but hey, this is my column, so go along with it for the time being. Anyway, by “brand knockoff”, I mean instead of buying the Frosted Flakes with Tony The Tiger on the box, you buy the Frosty Flakes with Curtis The Cougar on the bag.. or you buy the fake-looking adidas shoes with an extra stripe on them. THAT type of thing. If you’re a member of that group, TNA is for you. There are people wrestling for TNA that are “brand knockoffs” of some other well-known people, whether its Jay Lethal’s “Black Machismo” version of Randy Savage, Shark Boy’s version of Steve Austin, or Kurt Angle’s version of a legitimate badass. They even have enough people on their roster that made a name for themselves elsewhere that they almost appear to be “WWE Lite” on occasion. Quite honestly, I often wonder about TNA fans. Well, actually, just the ones that are fans of TNA and TNA only. I mean, how bad does your life need to be that you’d subject yourself to such levels of punishment that willingly? I just can’t picture someone’s life being THAT bad. There’s suicidal, and then there’s “I watch TNA on my own every single week and even spend money to order their pay-per-views”. Yikes. I would think there are other options out there for these people. These are the people that wind up on the news because they died of auto-erotic asphyxiation trying to get that extra “rush”. Crazy bastards. There are storylines and match stipulations in TNA that, simply put, make no sense to me (and to everyone else I talk to, apparently). The entire drawn-out storyline with Abyss & Jim Mitchell went above and beyond the levels of stupidity that most people should be dealing with, out of fear for their own good. Earlier, I mentioned change.. well, when TNA DOES try to change things up, they fail miserably. Whether its Battle Royals that start outside of the ring, Ladder Matches that involve people climbing up the ladders to hang things instead of pulling things down, or rings with 28 sides to them.. its all just ridiculous things that don’t add up. Some people live off of their intelligence.. and then there’s the people who write for TNA. Yes, I came up with that one all by myself. Are you tired of non-wrestling “celebrities” on the level of the 2008 United States Presidential Candidates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Floyd “Money” Mayweather, and Zeus? If you are, TNA has the solution.. who needs big name celebrities, when you can bring in pro athletes that are 2nd-stringers on mediocre teams, NASCAR drivers that nobody knows, and country music singers that even country radio stations don’t play? Sure, it could be said that TNA can’t afford the bigger celebrities out there to be a part of their show, but really, wouldn’t it make more sense to view it as TNA knowing how to conserve their money and use it elsewhere.. like on adding extra weapons and stipulations to the “Super Duper Electrified Razorwire Barracuda Cactus Centipede Broken Glass Thumbtack Rubbing Alcohol Nail Gun Fire Ant Chainsaw Syphilis Teddy Bear Match”? Sometimes you just gotta know where to throw your money around, ya know? When I first heard that the company was going with a name like “TNA”, I rolled my eyes as I expected a lot of goofy sexual puns and innuendo to pull in the impressionable teenage male fans.. as well as the asshat virgins living in mama’s basement. (there’s some sort of Austria joke to be made there, but I’m gonna be the better man and avoid it) On the bright side, it wasn’t initially as bad as I expected it to be, which is pretty goshdarned bad. Then, as time went by, they started changing the names of the women in their company, turning most of them into lame-sounding stripper/porn star names for no real reason whatsoever (thanks for bringing that to my attention, Colibri). I think they’re still trying to reach out to that lonely teen male demographic, as a matter of fact. Any week now.. I can just see it.. Awesome Kong will be taking on Jacqueline in some sort of a KY Jelly match involving whips and leather. Be there or be square, folks. Damn.. Awesome Kong, Jacqueline, S&M, and KY Jelly? Spectacular. Put me down for 2, please. Let’s take a look at the Top 10 character traits of the typical TNA fan: 1. Easily distracted by bright lights and/or shiny objects 2. Dropped on their heads as children, or are still children, mentally 3. There never is a three 4. Cheap bastard 5. Is afraid of legit change 6. Willing to buy a $5 “Rolex” on a New York City street corner 7. Would rather not live anymore (*insert “MySpace Blog” joke here*) 8. Isn’t always swayed by things like “common sense” or “intelligence” 9. Prefers C-List celebrities to the more top-notch ones 10. Keeps thinking and/or hoping that “TNA” stands for something else Moving on from TNA, let us now take a look at RoH and the beginner’s guide to being a fan of the company that some people argue could actually be the REAL #2 promotion in this country (yeah, right.. without a TV show? psshhaww).. On Fire  RoH Ring Of Honor fans are a truly interesting bunch of people. On one hand, they want their company to be the biggest and best that it can possibly be, but on the other hand, they don’t want just anybody to start watching the events. Its almost as if you need to pass an aptitude test before getting into RoH. Remember back in high school, when there were “cliques” all over the place? Maybe groups like the jocks, the goth kids, the thugs, the band geeks, the sluts, and things along those lines? With RoH, its a strange situation, because it would be like if the folks that weren’t “good” enough to be a part of the other groups decided to get together to form their own little “cliques” and start turning people away, as well, and they just go through some sort of strange transformation. Have you SEEN some of these RoH fans? These are, quite frankly, some of the goofiest looking people you’ll see outside of a Simple Plan concert.. and yet, watching and listening to them interact with the wrestlers and valets is an experience like no other on earth. I’ve never heard so many expletives tossed about as when a heelish RoH wrestler is walking to the ring and the RoH fans call out to him. If you don’t like the words “fuck”, “faggot”, “bitch”, “asshole”, or “cunt”, then RoH definitely isn’t the place for you. Nothing like watching a 15-year-old emo kid who only stands shoulder-high to Rey Mysterio (when he’s on his knees) yell out “fuck you, you fucking faggot” to a wrestler like Takeshi Morishima, who stands at 6’3” and weighs over 300 pounds. That isn’t the funniest thing, either. What’s even funnier is watching these fans talk to the women in RoH. I’m not saying that every single woman that has ever appeared in the company is drop dead gorgeous or anything, but they’re definitely heads and shoulders better looking than any girl that these fans could get.. well, if all of them went after girls, that is (uh-oh, your secret’s out.. you know who you are). There’s just something entirely entertaining to me about listening to people who would only be able to lose their virginities with prostitutes of the fugly variety telling these women that they’re “sluts”, “crackwhores”, or some other charming name along those lines. Even funnier still is the fact that they can’t even get that right from time-to-time, as evidenced by the current feud between Lacey and Tammy Sytch (aka Sunny, of 1990s WWF fame). Because Lacey is the heel, she’s the one who gets the “she’s a crack-whore *clap, clap, clap-clap-clap*” chant tossed in her direction. Meanwhile, Ms Sytch, as the face, gets the cheers.. even though she’s the one that happens to ACTUALLY be a dirty crackwhore. Go figure.  Something you’ll enjoy as a RoH fan.. short people. Perhaps you happen to be a short person yourself. Either way, this isn’t the right company for the Great Khalis of the world. No way, no how. This is the place where the best wrestler in the entire company, Bryan Danielson, stands a mere 5’9” (5’10” on a good day), and he’s actually a bit taller than many of the other wrestlers that are, or have in the past been, on the roster. This is the type of place that Hornswoggle could step into and only be at a slight bit of a disadvantage against most of the roster.. but it would still come across as more believable than it happened to be when Rey Mysterio became the World Heavyweight Champion. Oooh.. yet another Rey Mysterio joke. You’d almost think I dislike the little guy or something with how much I always clown him. Seeing as how most of the venues RoH holds shows in resemble your average high school gymnasium, it would probably be best that, if you’re gonna be a fan, you didn’t get molested in the showers or something. Good luck explaining that to the stranger sitting next to you when you start bawling like a little girl upon seeing the basketball backboards raised to the roof on either end of the building. No shower molestation, no bleeding anuses due to excessive wedgies, and no shit flakes in your scalp from the continuous swirlies. You know, something tells me this is the first column on the LoP main page to mention high school ball rubbing in the shower, bloody assholes, and pieces of old, dried doodoo in people’s hair.. and I did it all in the same sentence, which was followed by another mention of each thing in the following sentence. Wow. Have you ever been around someone who has Tourette’s Syndrome, and they say and do things without really being able to help it? Sometimes its only something small like making weird noises for, seemingly, no reason. Other times, its random curse words at inappropriate times, or even banging on things completely out of nowhere. They all scare the shit out of me from times. I know I shouldn’t say that, but hey, honesty is the best policy. Your typical RoH show would be perfect for these types of people. They’d be able to start random chants that make no fucking sense from time to time, bang on the railings until their hands bleed, and just toss out a curse word here and there.. and they could do it without worry of being ridiculed by “normal” people for their unfortunate situation in life. Bless their little spaztastic hearts. Why nobody else has thought of this is really beyond me. It almost makes too much sense, if you ask me. Someone from the Tourette’s Syndrome Fuckshiitttttt Association Asshollllllllle Of Cuntcocksuckerrrrr America give me a call, and we’ll see if we can work something out as far as a deal goes. Is anybody out there a fan of the suplex (or, suplay, as the late great Gordon Solie pronounced it)? If so, I have some good news for you as far as RoH is concerned. RoH matches are chock full to the brim of all sorts of different suplex variations.. German Suplex, Brainbustahhhhh, Backdrop Driver, Superplex, Snap Suplex.. the list goes on and on of all the many different versions of the suplex and the different branches of the “suplex tree”. Its like porn for suplex fans, really. Really really strange porn that involves 2 sweaty guys wearing some sort of spandex rubbing on each other and throwing each other around the ring, but hey.. browse the stands at a normal RoH event.. a lot of those folks won’t mind that type of porn whatsoever. Going back to fan chants for my final trait for RoH enthusiasts, you’re going to need to have a passion for wanting to put yourself over. I mean, really, why would I want to watch a RoH DVD for the wrestling when I could watch for the fans chanting, pounding the railing, yelling, screaming, and acting a general monkey instead? I actually wonder how close we are to an entire RoH-produced DVD that features the ring set up completely, with the fans packed into the building and doing their thing for the entire 3 hours.. only the wrestlers never come out. For anything. The fans wouldn’t miss a beat, trust me. “Fans Of Honor” has a nice ring for the name of the show. Cary Silkin, drop me a line and we’ll discuss the entire thing. I won’t even ask for that much as far as royalties. If anything, we’ll talk about it when you guys get back to Orlando in October. I’ll meet up with you after the show again or something. Here we go with the Top 10 character traits of the typical RoH fan: 1. Elitist people that really really shouldn’t be elitist 2. Social outcasts 3. There never is a three 4. Anger issues, especially towards women 5. Easily confused, especially during own chants 6. Intimidated by tall people 7. Don’t have traumatic memories of high school gym class 8. Have Tourette’s Syndrome 9. Enjoys the suplex 10. Feels the order of importance is as follows.. #1, Fan.. #2, Wrestlers We’ve discussed TNA and RoH, so we only have 1 company remaining. Here’s the beginner’s guide to being a fan of the biggest name in the wrestling world.. The Hardest  WWE First and foremost, the typical WWE fan is like those fans who have only recently come out that they’re fans of the Boston Red Sox in the last 4 years. You know the ones.. as soon as the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, they went out and bought one of those distressed-style caps so they could tell people it was an old one and that they’ve been members of the “Red Sox Nation” since they were little kids growing up in Boston, even though they’ve lived down the street from you in Denver since the days of pre-school. THOSE people. Yes, the typical WWE fan is obviously attaching themselves to the company because its the biggest, most successful, and the most well-known.  Something else that is generally a requirement of being a WWE fan (and something that would probably be overlooked by a lot of people) is the fact that you must enjoy signs. Hell, maybe you’re in charge of billboards for a living. Maybe you’re the guy who carries the double-sided “Eat At Joe’s” sign up and down the sidewalk in your city’s downtown for a few bucks an hour or in exchange for free meals at said establishment. Maybe you’re just one of those crazy fiends that likes getting high off of the fumes. Fuckin lousy delinquents. Either way, its apparently a rule that every third person in attendance at a WWE live event has to hold a sign up, and for televised events and PPVs, that number jumps up to every other fan.  You’re also going to need to be hateful towards minority ethnic groups, or at least be a fan of it when other people do it. You need to understand that every Samoan on the planet is a wild, uncontrollable savage of some sort. Every African-American on the planet is flashy, cocky and speaks in ebonics of some sort (or is only intelligent enough to utter “DAMN” week in and week out). Every Asian on the planet is some sort of wicked martial arts expert. Alright, so that last one is actually true.. strike that one from the record then. The point still stands, however. Its rather difficult to be a true WWE fan if you’re not, at the very very least, financially comfortable in life. Ticket prices, merchandise, PPV prices, and the price of batteries from wearing your TV remote out trying to figure out what station Smackdown is on this week.. it all adds up, and none of it is cheap. You need money, or else you’re gonna wind up missing out on so much. Tough luck, Calcutta. Probably shouldn’t spend all your money on spices for your curry, I guess. Yikes. There’s the racist in me coming out, I guess. My bad. There’s a guy in WWE who is supposed to be playing someone who is deceased, and has apparently been in that state of aliveness for the better part of 16-and-a-half years (except for the period of time when he was a motorcycle enthusiast and was alive, I guess). If that wasn’t strange enough, he now seems to have picked up on mixed martial arts, as his fighting stance is that of a UFC fighter, and he uses a poorly-executed submission finisher that is, seemingly, unfitting for someone of his stature to be using. You’d think a 7-foot-tall zombie would be able to beat people in a different form than Nick Diaz, a 6-foot-tall very much alive MMA fighter, does. Maybe that’s just me and the way that I, personally, look at things, but if you can believe stuff like that, you’ll be fine as a WWE fan. To be a fan of WWE, there are times when you need to sit and deal with some of the dumbest possible things that a wrestling company can put on the air. Whether its watching “Barack Obama” battle “Hilary Clinton” as “Bill Clinton” cheers her on, or whether its Katie Vick, or whether its Mae Young giving birth to a hand after Mark Henry knocked her up, or whether its a Ken Kennedy match.. you just have to sit back and deal with some ridiculously dumb things from time to time. Some people find certain storylines to be more entertaining than others, and I guess there’s nothing wrong with that at its very core, but they’re still stupid storylines, any way you decide to cut it. Are you, or do you know, someone who enjoys setting things on fire and/or blowing things up for no reason other than your own strange amusement? If so, remind me not to invite you over to my place for any BBQs in the future, but also.. I think WWE is something you’d be into on a serious level. The amounts of pyro, fire, and explosions that WWE packs into their shows is amazing, from the opening of their TV shows every week to various wrestler entrances. Just watching an entrance like Kane’s is amazing.. and I’m not a sick bastard with an obsession for fire and explosions. Get some help, fuckers. You need it. Vince McMahon. Shawn Michaels. Triple H. Ric Flair. What do these men have in common, you ask? World Champions? Well, yes, but I mean for the sake of this column and this particular column. Fans of expensive hair conditioner? Again, yes, but not for this particular conversation. Each of them have had their bare asses shown on WWE programming for one reason or another? Bingo. In all my years of watching pro wrestling, and all the different promotions I’ve seen from different places around the globe, I’ve never seen a single promotion show so much male posterior before. It almost makes you wonder just who’s in charge, doesn’t it? Pat Patterson, I think you’ve been outed. Well.. you know what I mean. Nevermind. Moving on.. whether its people who have to literally kiss the ass of their boss, or people pulling tights to get an advantage in a match, or a couple of degenerates telling the establishment just what they think of them.. there’s been a whole lot of gratuitous man booty through the years in WWE, and if you’re a fan of that, then that’s the company you’re gonna want to stick with, without a doubt. Here are the Top 10 character traits of the typical WWE fan: 1. Bandwagon jumper 2. Big supporter of poster board & permanent markers (or a drug addict) 3. There never is a three 4. Racist 5. Either a millionaire or someone who has no problem robbing banks 6. Not from Calcutta 7. No problem with suspending belief in things 8. Enjoy train wrecks 9. Pyromaniac 10. Enjoy male booty Wut's Good Hopefully, this all came in handy for a lot of you, whether you used it to determine just what company you’re a fan of, or whether you used it to figure out what your friends and family would be more into should you try and get them into pro wrestling. For those wondering, and I know that most of you are, here’s my tally as far as how many things on each list I match up with.. TNA: 2 RoH: 5 WWE: 4 Just which things do I match up with on each list, you ask? I’ll leave that up to the reader’s imagination.. for now. Just know that I’m, apparently, halfway to being your run-of-the-mill RoH fan, which frightens me a little, to be perfectly honest. How did all of you do? Did you find yourself listed under a promotion that you really dislike? Feel free to let me know in your feedback. Run Yo Mouth Well, that was all just silly. As another bit of “homework” for y’all, let’s see if anybody can figure out which parts of this very column had me being completely serious, and which parts had me being.. well.. not-so-serious. I wanted to do something a bit softer and a little more light-hearted, just to try and avoid a lot of the bullshit that came with the reaction to my last column, so there you have it.. Volume 12 of “Hustle Is Posting Right Now” is now in the books. I dunno about all of you and your plans for the near future, but in 2 weeks, I’ll be right back here with Volume 13 (oooh, unlucky 13~!), and I do invite you to join me for it.. same Hustle time, same Hustle page. Until then, I’m out like a title bout, nah’mean? Be easy, folks. From The Gunshine State, I bid you farewell. Aloha and Mahalo Nui Loa. Life is beautiful. Life is a struggle. Life is a beautiful struggle. Hustle HIPRNFeedback@gmail.com  ***DIRECT LINK*** The HOT TNA KNOCKOUTS Dressed Up as SCHOOLGIRLS!! Must See!!
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