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Submitted by Hustle on Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 5:31 AM EST
 Good lookin out for the graphics work, Noc "There's a certain mystique when I speak that you notice that's sort of unique, cause you know its me.." The baddest columnist in all of LoP is back. For you old school hip-hop fans, that's not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good (although some of you out there will disagree with that one). Word motherfucking life, ladies and gentlemen.. ya boy, Hustle, is, of course, back in the building. Fresh off of eating some chicken wings (I'm quite fond of chicken, you see), I present you something a bit different as far as wrestling columns go. Not only will I be discussing the usual wrestling jibberyjoo and all that jazz, but I've also included a "How To" guide within for those out there in ReaderLand that are going through tough times in their lives as far as being "cool" goes. I'm all about helping people whenever I possibly can. Hustle.. changing lives one person at a time. Let's get it poppin and rockin like.. well.. like some Pop Rocks, I guess. Shall I proceed? (Yes, indeed.) Less dew eet!! Swagger. Swagger is somewhat loosely defined as "how a person carries and/or presents themselves to society". Don't listen to the dictionary's definition, as the folks who work for Merriam-Webster, etc, have no real idea of what's going on with the "younger" generation, only adding their slang long after it has lost all relevance. Your swagger could be the way you dress and the clothes you wear. It could be the way you talk. It could be the way you walk. It could be the look on your face when you step into a room that's full of people. Whatever it is, it's tremendously important in life to make sure your swagger is with you at all times. Some people just don't understand how important their swagger is, especially when it comes to the way you're looked at by other people. I'll get into that more as this column goes on, but I guess we need some wrestling-related talk here before people have a conniption and start foaming at the mouth like rabid bitches.  The Rock. Throughout the entire lengthy history of pro wrestling, perhaps there is no better definition of "swagger" than The Rock, as far as the complete package goes. With natural charisma like none of us had ever seen to that point, he was able to control an arena full of people like he was born to do it. As soon as he turned heel, going from the bland Rocky Maivia to actually becoming The Rock, the change in how he carried himself was amazing. Everything changed for the guy. Gone were the plain wrestling tights. Gone was the vanilla theme song. Gone was the single happy facial expression. Gone were the incredibly awkward and scripted-sounding promos. Now he was out there wearing his "$500 shirts" with slacks and some fancy dress shoes. Now he came out to the ring after "Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?" played through the arena. Now he was in the ring, cutting some of the funniest promos any of us had ever heard, and they all sounded as if he was making them up on the spot. It was a pretty wild transformation, and one that, if you listen to what Rock had to say, happened because he was allowed to be himself and not a character that tried to play to the crowd as a plain, white-bread face. Wait.. you mean to say that once they let Dwayne Johnson actually be Dwayne Johnson, and not some overgrown Boy Scout like the company wanted him to be, he set the wrestling world on fire for several years? That's exactly what I'm saying, and that's exactly the way that it should be. Look at it this way.. for a grown man to stand in the middle of an entire arena that is mostly filled with other males and continuously talk about shining things up, turning them sideways, and shoving them up the asses of other men.. and STILL get cheered for it.. that's just insanity. Without doing an impression of Rock, I dare you to walk around your school or your job and talk about shoving things up other guys' asses. Chances are, you'll wind up having my next column read to you as you're up in Intensive Care. It just isn't going to work for a "normal" person, but with the right amount of charisma.. with the right amount of swagger.. it can be done, amazingly enough. Swagger Tip #1: Find Clothes That Are "You" It really is a simple start, when you stop and think about it. Whatever style of clothing works best for you, go for it and go for it hard. Maybe it's the "preppy" look. Maybe it's the "thug" look. Maybe it's the "goth" look. Maybe it's the "designer" look. Whatever the look is, just be yourself. Don't go with a look for other motives other than it happens to be "you". You can have swagger in a plain white t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of clean white kicks, so it doesn't need to be anything overly complicated. Name brands aren't really important, either. Again, you need to do this for you, not for other people. Find what works and goes best with who and what you are. If you're tall, go with that. If you're fat, go with that. Don't spend so much time worrying about what other people might think about you. Fuck what they think. This isn't their swagger that we're talking about, it's yours. Remember, folks.. if you look good, you feel good, and that's the first step on the road to being good. It may sound a tad corny, but it's the truth.  The Undertaker's entire entrance, in whatever variation, is the epitome of having swagger on your way to the ring. It has been mentioned by all the wrestling announcers on air for years, but just with Taker's entrance alone, it's almost as if he already has his opponent beaten. He's gotten into their head as soon as the bell goes off to start his entrance. Now THAT is swagger. If you can own a room before you've even stepped into said room, you can write the pamphlet on swagger, ladies and gentlemen. Not to take anything away from the guy's in-ring abilities, but his entrance has always been the defining thing about his run with the WWF and WWE, whether it involved a hearse with a live vulture riding atop it, druids, fire, caskets, lightning, a 2-week old bundt cake, atomic bombs, the ebola virus, a white hamster named Maxwell, and whatever else he's used through the years. Entrances just don't give the goosebumps and the chills that his entrance has given people through the years. Well, other than when Kennedy makes his entrance, and the chill runs up my spine as I realize that means I have to deal with him again for the next several minutes, but that's a different story. When people discuss mic skills through the history of wrestling, there are a lot of people that come to mind, but The Undertaker is never one of them, although I feel he should be an honorable mention of sorts. People think of some of the best and most effective promos of all-time, and we could sit here all day long discussing them, but how many of them were effective with a real minimal amount of actual words being said? For the first few years of his gimmick, the man didn't say anything more than "Rest In Peace" during his promos, and that was more than enough to get the point across. Even as the years went by and the man's character evolved repeatedly, it's not like he was out there cutting 20-minute promos to start the show each week. Come to think of it.. when the hell was the last time he cut any sort of a promo at all? Well, other than when he recently got his P.I.M.P. on by saying "Look at me, woman!" to Vickie Guerrero on Smackdown. Further proof of The Undertaker's swagger is the fact that he has conned his boss into giving him the ability to avoid all public appearances, from autograph signings to Wal-Mart grand openings and everything that falls in between. He'll never make appearances at the Hall Of Fame ceremonies every year, at least not in the crowd and on camera. You won't even see him defending his workplace on CNN, Fox News, etc when various people are shitting all over wrestling, wrestlers, and the people involved in any way. Maybe he has incriminating pictures of Vince McMahon taken from some company Christmas party through the years. More than likely, though, it's the swagger that has allowed him to attain such untouchability, and yes, folks.. I did, indeed, just say untouchability. That untouchability was what made it extra amazing that he came out for Ric Flair's farewell address on Raw the next night after WrestleMania this year, even if it was after the TV cameras stopped rolling. Swagger Tip #2: Keep Yourself Clean This one should be more common sense than anything else, but as you'll soon learn about wrestling fans with the more live events you attend, this isn't a tip that is followed quite often enough. Shower at least once on a daily basis. Find the right combination of shampoo & conditioner, soap (or body wash), and deodorant for you. Things like cologne, lotions, baby powders, and objects of that nature aren't needed, but can be very nice accentuates if used the right way. Again, you need to find the right combination, though. A "fresh" scented soap doesn't necessarily blend well with a "woodsy" scented cologne, especially if you're gonna be throwing on some sort of fruit-related lotion to top it all off. People can keep it simple and have their swagger show off nicely.. perhaps use some sort of a scentless deodorant as a base, and normal Dove soap with no colognes or lotions, allowing you to experiment with any combination of colognes and lotions that you want. If you'd like to go down the "fresh" route, allow me to make a bit of a suggestion.. Irish Spring Sport soap, with the matching deodorant, and Polo Sport cologne. Or, you can just be fancier (and more expensive) and go with the Polo Sport gift set, which includes the cologne, deodorant, and the face scrub. Whatever it is, just like with the first tip, find what is "you" and go with that. Women dig the fact that you can care about your hygiene. I'm not saying that you need to be the one to spend 90 minutes in the shower, and then another 30 minutes blow-drying your hair. No, they generally hate that shit, and that just makes it difficult for them to get ready. Just make an effort to present yourself as cleanly and as pleasantly as you possibly can. That's really not a lot to ask for.  Ric Flair, the single greatest performer that wrestling has ever seen, is a man with swagger that should be bottled up and sold in stores across the globe for steep prices. He was never the best looking guy in the business, never was in the best shape, never had the largest arsenal of moves, never had the flashiest finisher, and didn't need an over-the-top gimmick. Yet, with that said, he still took everything he had, packaged it together, and then he created his own legend from the bottom up. Like The Rock, Flair was able to command attention whenever he had a mic in his hand. Like Rock, Flair was able to draw people into his matches. Unlike Rock, however, Flair was a great wrestler. Rock used the "electricity" to get people into his matches, while Flair used his God-given ability to do the same. The old joke used to be that Flair could wrestle a broomstick and carry it to a 4-star match, and that's only somewhat of a stretch, really. I'd probably give it a 3-star rating. The man could go. I got through this entire section without even mentioning Flair's days in the Four Horsemen, where "swagger" may not have even been a strong enough word to describe it. The fancy suits, the Rolex watches, the women.. it all just looked cool as all hell to those watching at home on television or live in attendance at the shows. There have been guys in wrestling through years that have said the reason they got into watching wrestling in the first place is because of how cool they thought it would be to have some of what Ric Flair had on television every week. I think its safe to say that's uber-swagger. The rare type of uber-swagger that only a very small amount of people possess, probably enough people to count on one hand and one hand only. To say that Ric had gotten a tad emotional in his latter years as an active competitor would be an understatement. There are countless times that he appeared to be overtaken by emotion in a wrestling ring, for one reason or another. Although I'm here to tell all of you that there's nothing wrong with a man crying, that isn't the most popular way of thinking with the males of the world. At least not outwardly, anyway. The same guys who try and act all tough on the outside are the same ones that watch The Notebook with their girlfriends and cry.. even after seeing the movie 40 times. The point I'm trying to make is that it isn't usually considered "cool" for a man to be able to express his emotions like Ric Flair did on several occasions, and yet, when Ric did it, people were right there with him. They were able to feel the emotion themselves, and chances are, even though they may not admit it to you, they even got a bit emotional, as well. In no way, shape, or form am I afraid to admit that I cried as I watched the end of Ric's match with Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 24. Looking around the stadium, I wasn't the only one crying. Not by a longshot. The next night on Raw was the same thing, although this time I was at a hotel, watching with fellow LoP'ers, instead of being in the arena. I still couldn't help the emotion from flowing, though. Showing people that it's alright to let your emotions out and not keep things bottled up all the time.. that's definitely full of swagger, in my own opinion. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to keep your feelings and emotions inside. It's a recipe for disaster. Swagger Tip #4: The World Is Yours Some people will mistake this for some sort of arrogance, even if they're just whiney fucks who don't actually understand what the word means. Don't mind those people. Don't mind them whatsoever. Confidence is something that everyone needs in their lives, and it's something that other people can pick up on quite easily if it's used correctly. Keep your head up and don't stare at the ground or off in the sky all the time. That comes across badly. Keep focused on what's ahead of you, and not have your eyes shifting around like you're shy or nervous. Meek = weak. Make real eye contact with people when you're talking with them. If you're shaking hands with someone, shake firmly, showing that you won't be dominated, even in a casual setting. Speak clearly, and with a firm tone. You don't have to sound like Ron Simmons.. or me.. but just find some sort of authority in your voice. People will take notice of it, and they'll pay attention when you speak. Don't know if you've realized it or not yet, but if you're talking and people are paying absolutely zero attention to you.. that's a bad thing. Simple.  Swagger isn't just something for the males of the world. While it may not immediately be associated with females, they can have as much swagger as anyone from time to time. They can also use that swagger for forces of evil, but that's for a different column, I guess. Through the years, there have been many different women in wrestling that have showcased varied amounts of swagger, from "Sensational" Sherri to Chyna to Stacy Keibler, and even to crazy ol' Mae Young. Powerful women, whether physically or mentally, are full of swagger, and they may not even realize it. I think back to when Chyna made her debut, and how, without even saying a single word, she got the message across that she meant business and that she wasn't afraid of the men on the roster, even though they were bigger than she was. She got involved, physically, on numerous occasions during the matches of Hunter Hearst Helmsley (that's just fun to type after all this time of referring to him as Triple H or HHH), even further showing that she wasn't afraid. Stacy Keibler has always owned a "model's walk", where it just seems like she's telling people "I know I'm the most beautiful woman in this building right now" every single time she did it. Looking at the picture above, it would be hard to disagree with that. Some of the more "current" women in wrestling are showing that same amount of swagger. Awesome Kong is travelling down the Chyna route, with the few months of domination she had over the rest of the women on TNA's roster, and then moving on to go toe-to-toe with the men a bit. The roster of the SHIMMER organization show younger girls and females that want to get into the wrestling business that you don't have to be a ditzy whore with thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery to do so. Those SHIMMER girls can actually wrestle, from Sara Del Rey to Daizee Haze to someone who, not all that long ago, got called up to the main roster in WWE, Nattie (Natalya) Neidhart. Showing females that they can actually be taken seriously in the world of pro wrestling? Swagger. Swagger Tip #5: Hustle Isn't Just My Name Whatever you do, do it big. Be the first to show up and be the last to leave. Get on your grind, and show people that you're going to get whatever it is you're trying to get out of life. If you're in school, stop slacking. Do your papers and get your grade game up, whether it's high school or college. If you work, then do just that.. work. Hell, to my brethren out on the corner, standing under the streetlight, getting your street pharm on.. you gotta put in work there, too. If you're half-assing that, you're not going to like what the end results are gonna be. All of you.. students, members of the work force, and snowmen of all levels.. you gotta find a way to fit 72 hours into each 24 hour day. Sleep? Sleep is the cousin of death. There will be more than enough chances to sleep when you're dead. For now, go out there and get that H-U-S-T-L E in. You can't have swagger if you're not keeping yourself really busy somehow. Trust me on that one. A lot of my low points in life have come when I didn't have anything to do. Don't make that mistake.  Vince McMahon. The infamous strut, the ability to take chances and laugh in the faces of those who doubt him, the fact that he knows how powerful he is.. all of those things, and more, contribute to his swagger. Hell, that strut alone would put him on this list. A man just doesn't become as rich and famous as Vince McMahon is without their swag on full blast. He wouldn't be able to take risks, to proclaim that his product is the best, speak his mind, or anything else without it. Confidence is key in life. If you don't think you're the best, how the hell is anyone else supposed to think that you are? They won't. A lack of confidence is quite easy to spot, and it makes people not take you seriously. Unless your plan is to become the Town Idiot, that isn't going to fly well for you. Nothing in life gets accomplished unless you know, deep down, that you can do it. Nothing, let alone turning yourself into a billionaire. For a man in his 60s to continuously go out in front of millions of people and make an ass out of himself willingly.. well, that takes something special that most of us aren't born with. He doesn't have to do the things that he does, but he enjoys it, and he knows he has all the power in the world to do so without consequence. He's amazing at what he does, thankfully, which is better than him going out there every week and killing his own product (shame on you to those that feel that's what he IS doing). Swagger Tip #6: Vag-tastic Voyage This one is almost strictly for the guys reading this (although there's gonna be some ladies out there who will pay close attention.. don't worry.. I won't tell).. fellas, we gotta take these Swagger Tips and apply them to getting you girls. Hell, at least one girl. We're trying to end the stereotypes once and for all, and the "virgin" part of the wrestling fan stereotype might be the strongest and most well-known part of it. Alright, so now you're dressed to impress. Now you've bathed and are rockin a nice scent of some sort. Now you've decided to not count the blades of grass on the ground when you walk. Now you've decided to make your presence known wherever it is that you go. Good. That's fine and dandy, but to go out and get the girls.. that takes another step all by itself. Some of you may not know this, but the female of the human species can be an extremely strange creature. They can go through complete 180 degree transformations at the drop of a dime, and as a guy, it's something we need to learn how to deal with and accept, because let's face it.. we'd be absolutely lost in life without them. They know that (REAL swagger), and we know that. Let's take a look at how to get at a girl, as they say in the streets, and we'll break it all down in steps for easy access.. 1. Make sure she's single. You need REAL swagger to waive this first step, and since we're working on the beginning stages with most of you, well.. you gotta walk before you can run. Thems be the breaks. 2. Make sure she has at least some sort of interest in you. It may sound like another batch of common sense, but I've seen too many people fuck things up for themselves and go after somebody who has shown absolutely zero interest in them. If you first make eye contact with her, and she rolls her eyes and looks away from you, that's probably a good sign not to pursue that particular girl. I'm just saying. 3. 4. Forget the corny pick-up lines. Don't ask her what her sign is. Don't ask if her feet are tired. Don't ask if her father is a thief. No comments about any of her body parts being "out of this world". Just talk to her like you're a human being, and treat her like she's one, as well. You have no idea how much they appreciate the little things like that. 5. I guess this could've gone with the last one, but just keep it simple. Don't give her a long soliloquy about how the shade of her left eye is akin to potting clay, while the right one is like Jif peanut butter. That'll just make you look really strange, and it screams "trying too hard". 6. Speak with your heart, not with your mind, and not with your dick. If you speak with your dick, you're only going to get in trouble. Again.. you gotta walk before you can run. If you speak with your mind, there's too much risk of you overthinking things, and then it sounds rehearsed. You don't want what you say to her to sound like you've said it to 8 other girls that day. If you speak with your heart, it shows, and again, they appreciate that. They really do appreciate the details, gentlemen. Well that was certainly something different, that's for damn sure. This edition of HIPRN was strange, even for my standards. However, not being afraid to try something different is all part of my ridiculously strong swagger. Dig that. Thanks, once again, for reading. For those of you who need to, don't be afraid to use the tips I've provided in this column. No joke, you'll notice things changing for you almost immediately. For those of you who have already mastered your swag, I salute you. Oh, and once again, I realize that the sections don't exactly match up in this column, so I don't need to be told that talking about The Undertaker and then talking about cologne didn't make any sense. They weren't really supposed to match up, and any time it did was purely coincidental. That pretty much concludes yet another column from yours truly. Of course, I'll be back in a week.. *wait for it*.. same Hustle time, same Hustle page. Until then, I'm out like Da Dirty Sout', nah'mean? Wow.. that was lame. I'm running out of ideas for that section of my outros. Sorry. Anyway.. from the apartment building where rent is $2000 a month, I bid you farewell. Aloha and Mahalo Nui Loa. "Life can change ya directions, even when you ain't planned it.. all you can do is handle it.. worst thing you can do is panic.. use it to your advantage.. avoid insanity.. manage to conquer every obstacle.. make impossible possible.. even when winning's illogical, losing's still far from optional.." Hustle HIPRNFeedback@gmail.com 
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