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Submitted by Hustle on Saturday, November 1, 2008 at 3:23 PM EST
 Good lookin out for the graphics work, Noc Writer's Note: I wanted to take this time to apologize to anybody who is upset/disappointed over my actions in my previous column. I took some shots at people, and I should've just let everything slide. I have an apology posted over at LoPForums.com, but this is for my readers who aren't members of the forums. You don't need to know any details, but just know that I should've handled the situation in a better, and more mature, manner, and I'm sorry for that. "Me, Human Crack in the flesh.. I'm the last of the best.. one word to describe me? 'Spectacular', yes!.." Juelz Santana brings us this edition's intro lyric. I'm feelin good, feelin right, feelin locked and loaded. Ya boy, Hustle, is back in the building once again, welcoming you to the very latest HIPE. As a bit of a change, I'll be dropping a regular column today. Of course, "Ask Hustle" will be back, but I wouldn't have felt right if I dropped a question-and-answer column seven days a week. I think it's about that time, people. Shall I proceed? (Yes, indeed.) Less dew eet!! Failure. Failure is defined as "the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective" and as "the opposite of success". It's something that everyone deals with in life eventually, some more than others. Some people are just destined for failure, while others are blessed enough to rarely have to deal with it. It's more important to see how people handle failure, though, and how they bounce back from it when it does happen. There's all different types of failure, from minor things that aren't really all that bad to the internet-favorite "epic fail". Let's get into some of the various levels of failure in the world of pro wrestling, shall we? Vincent Kennedy McMahon. If you don't recognize that name, you've probably stumbled onto the wrong URL and are looking for a different site altogether. He's the man that made pro wresting into what it is today, for better or for worse. A self-made billionaire, he was able to take his family-run promotion, handed down by his father, and turn it into a global phenomenon like the business had never seen before, nor could've even dreamed of seeing in the first place. You can't succeed in life like Vince McMahon has without taking chance after chance after chance. Of course, the downside to taking so many chances is that, from time to time, those chances don't quite work out, and before you know it, you've witnessed a failure. Here are some of Vince's not-so-great moments (as well as some that Vince had absolutely nothing to do with).. XFL: Some of Vince's failures have been overexaggerated by far too many people. For example, if you were to ask people what they think Vince McMahon's biggest failure has been thus far, what do you think they'd go and say? Chances are, they'd bring up the XFL. In fact, I could almost guarantee you that they'd mention the XFL. On one hand, it makes sense to come to this type of discussion with that as your ammunition. On the other hand, though, just how much of a failure was the XFL really? Did it work out in the end? No, of course not. However, it was promoted as an offseason football fix for people who thought the NFL took too long of a break between the Super Bowl and Training Camp. It was a success in that regard, as it did, indeed, give football fans a bit of a "fix" in what would normally be a stretch of time without any football. Yes, Vince McMahon put up a lot of his own money to form the league and to get things running, but people make it as if every cent put into the league was out of Vince's own gold and platinum-lined pockets. Vince was far from the only person who put up money for the XFL. People also seem to forget the fact that the league was shut down for good because Vince himself refused to give into UPN's demands of trimming Smackdown to a 90-minute show so that they could broadcast a 2nd season's worth of XFL games. It didn't cost Vince nearly as much money as most people probably expect that it did, as evidenced by the fact that he wasn't exactly going to start clipping coupons and being spotted at local grocery warehouses looking for deals once the league folded. Besides, the ever-popular "Sky Cam" camera angle that the NFL uses frequently these days was invented by.. you guessed it.. the XFL. All in all, while it didn't succeed in the end, I still defend the XFL, to this day, as a good idea, and something that really could've worked out had Vince not been such a big fan and a true believer of his own wrestling product (which was a good decision in its own right). Sure, there were things about the league, and certain decisions that were made, that would be looked at as failures, but again, I defend the league as a whole. WCW "Invasion": For several years, people had daydreamed about what a "WWF VS WCW" show would've been like. The fans of both companies defended "their" guys in the fantasy battles, and it made for some great discussion and arguments every single time. World Champion VS World Champion. Tag Champions VS Tag Champions. Legend VS Legend. People who never left WCW VS People who never left the WWF. The list went on and on and on. Then the word got out.. WCW was about to be purchased.. by Vince McMahon himself. The talks, hopes, and wishes for a "supercard" were about to become a reality, and true wrestling fans everywhere were nearly giddy over all of the possibilities. It started off just fine and dandy, with Shane McMahon coming out on TV and basically "stealing" WCW out from his father's grasp (in the lines of kayfabe, of course). Sure enough, they really were going with a rivalry between the two companies. It wasn't long after this that ECW even joined the fray, teaming up with WCW in a bit of a masterful swerve, and causing people across the country to lose their minds with excitement and with anticipation. Personally, I began to have some sort of initial doubts when Steve Austin "turned" on the WWF to join the "Alliance" consisting of WCW and ECW wrestlers. Not that Austin couldn't wrestle or anything, because he was still on fire at that time, but I could just see the wheels beginning to fall off as far as a legitimate-looking battle between the companies went. I just envisioned that it would be a way to continue WWF storylines, using "defections" as a way of continuing the same feuds we had been seeing to that point already. If this happened, the guys of WCW and ECW would, undoubtedly, be put on the back burner during all of that. Survivor Series 2001 rolled around, and I appeared to be right about the back burner. The Alliance team consisted of WWF guys (Austin, Kurt Angle, and Shane McMahon) and only two non-WWF guys (Booker T & Rob Van Dam). Of course, the WWF team won the match, and the entire long storyline appeared to be finished. Finished with the outcome being so dreadfully obvious from the beginning. Finished without most (or without all, in some people's minds) of the "dream matches" that we could've.. should've.. and would've gotten. Finished with both the WCW and ECW brand names looking foolish (although the ECW name would obviously return down the line). The entire storyline was merely a way to make the WWF look even better, and while I understand that Vince McMahon was going to have his company come out on top when all was said and done, he could've done a much better job in building up the other "brands" along the way. For those of you who own the 15th anniversary "Best Of Raw" DVD set, direct your attention to disc two, and notice how many segments are on there that relate to the Invasion in any way. There's a grand total of two segments, and what are they? The initial simulcast of Raw and Nitro, featuring.. Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon.. and the "Milk-O-Mania" segment, which was a direct copy of a previous WWF storyline, and it directly related to.. Kurt Angle and Steve Austin. A definite failure, and also a definite sign of the ego that Vince McMahon has. Rocky Maivia: When people think of The Rock, they think of the man who was very correctly named as "The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment". Nobody in the history of the business was able to control a live crowd like The Rock could, whether it was with a raise of an eyebrow or just by saying a single word. Face or heel, the crowds ate up damn near everything he said and did. However, largely forgotten in all that thinking is the fact that it almost didn't happen. Journey back with me, if you will, to the 1996 Survivor Series, and the debut of Rocky Maivia, who was already being heavily-hyped as the son of Rocky Johnson and grandson of "High Chief" Peter Maivia, both now members of the WWE Hall Of Fame. Not only was his debut match on one of the company's biggest pay-per-views of the year, but he ended up being the sole survivor in the traditional elimination-style match. For those who weren't around for this, allow me to try and paint the picture for you.. John Cena (yeah, I mentioned him again.. big whoop.. wanna fight about it?) gets some flack from fans for being too "boring", too "white bread", too much of a "goody-goody", and too "clean", amongst other things. If that's the way you feel about Cena, take that and multiply it by 20, and you'll get Rocky Maivia. He never stopped smiling during his entrances, as he went around the ring shaking hands and giving high-fives to everyone, and all of his promos were full of inspirational messages and how he was going to overcome everything in front of him because he believed in himself.  Not even three months into his WWF career, Rocky won the Intercontinental Title, and it was right about that time that the fans began turning on him in droves. Some people solely blame Rocky for that, while others blame Steve Austin, who had just begun to skyrocket in popularity with his tweener "anti-establishment" persona. Either way, the fans were all completely against a face in the company. Sure, John Cena gets some not-so-welcoming reactions from the live fans sometimes, but at least it's obvious that the women, children, and a certain section of men in the crowd still cheer for the guy. With Rocky, he had nothing. I don't recall hearing any section of the fans cheering for the guy. It was a unanimous chant of "Die, Rocky, Die" week in and week out, and the reaction only seemed to grow louder each time. Of course, the WWF had to do something about the fan reactions, so when Rocky lost the IC Title a couple months later, they had him turn heel and join the Nation Of Domination. He started off as "The Rock" Rocky Maivia, and eventually went with the name that everyone knows him as now. The Rock had built-in fire in all of his promos, as it was said that he was legitimately hurt by the fans and their reactions to Rocky Maivia. He tore into the fans all the time, and the rest, as they say, is complete history. Popularity, world title reigns, fortune, fame, and a career in Hollywood all followed, but the original persona of The Rock was a tremendous failure, and nearly ruined him altogether before he ever had the chance to show the world what he was truly capable of. To think of wrestling history and lore without The Rock is a depressing thing to try and wrap your mind around, in my opinion. Chris Benoit Tribute Show: I fought with myself for a long while over whether or not to include this on the list. Even after all this time, Chris Benoit is still a touchy subject in the minds of many wrestling fans, but I just had to include this event here, as I feel that, while it was an understandable one on a few different levels, it was still a HUGE mistake. Whether or not it was a preventable one is the question, though. Most of you reading this will remember the events of the final weekend that we all "knew" Chris Benoit, so I won't even bother getting into too many details there, but damn.. the assumptions and speculation sure ran wild, didn't they Chris Benoit's son died. No, Chris Benoit's wife died. No, Chris Benoit died. No, they're all missing. No, Chris Benoit and his son were murdered by his wife. No, Kevin Sullivan murdered the entire family. No, the family was dead, but it was all a tragic accident of some sort. No, Chris Benoit's wife killed the son, and when Chris found out, he killed her in a fit of rage before killing himself upon realizing what had happened. All that popped up on various news sites within hours of word breaking that something had happened involving Chris Benoit and/or his family. Eventually, word came out that the family was dead, although we still didn't quite know when or how it happened. With an edition of Raw coming up, Vince McMahon did what he did for Owen Hart and for Eddie Guerrero following their deaths.. he held a tribute show. Storylines were scrapped for a week, WWE superstars were all breaking character to tell stories and their memories of the deceased, and just a generally somber mood all around was what followed. During the other tribute shows, I'm not afraid to admit that I was very emotional. For the Owen tribute, it was just something that I wasn't used to seeing.. watching these wrestlers who appear to be larger than-life, and seeing just how human they really are. For the Eddie show, it was due to the fact that he's my 2nd favorite wrestler of all-time (behind Ric Flair) and due to the fact that he had hit the bottom of the barrel in his life and had turned it all around to sit on top of the world. For the Benoit show, something prevented me from being truly emotional. I don't know if it was a hunch that the story wasn't going to end well, but I didn't cry once during the entire two hour event. Sure, it was sad that lives were over, especially that of a young child, but I kinda just sat and watched the show with no real thoughts or opinions on anything. Then, of course, we received the official word on what happened in the Benoit household. Vince McMahon was nailed to the cross for giving praise to a murderer, as if he aired the tribute show after the reports came out. A large portion of his fans were absolutely livid.. they had just spent two hours (and much more, in most cases) mourning a man who had apparently murdered his wife and son, before then taking his own life. People who had been calling Chris Benoit their "hero", "idol", or even their "inspiration" were ridiculed like never before, including at our beloved LoPForums.com, where people were completely ripped to shreds for defending Benoit leading up to the official cause of death finally being announced to the planet. As I mentioned earlier, although it was a completely understandable one, it was still a big mistake to air the tribute show without having all of the facts, in my opinion. If we, the fans, heard some of the rumors about Benoit that weekend, Vince had to have heard them, as well. Of course, he wouldn't have wanted to believe those particular rumors, but that doesn't change the fact that they were there, swarming around. On the other hand, though, if the decision for Raw to air, as usual, were to have happened, there would've been a huge backlash from fans about Vince not showing the proper respect to Chris Benoit. Yeah, the backlash wouldn't have lasted long, but it would've been there nonetheless. All in all, with the grief that he received for going through with it and airing the show, I'd chalk it up in the "failure" category, although it more-than-likely would've made the "failure" category had he not gone ahead with the tribute, as well. How's that for a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario? That's something that I wouldn't wish on anybody. Vader: Another one that "newer" fans won't fully understand, but when Vader made his WWF debut in 1996, people were excited, and for good reason. If the only exposure to Vader that you have is his recent time in WWE as an extremely overweight and out-of-shape (who fell on his ass upon getting out of the ring once, in his most "memorable" moment), let me tell you that you truly missed out on one of the best big men in the history of the business.. maybe even the best. For a man who was billed at 450 pounds to have the agility that he had just wasn't fair. Add to that the vicious and brutal striking style that he had (the legit injuries he's been a part of causing in his career is long and extensive), and the guy was just a treat to watch. He had built one helluva reputation for himself in his years of wrestling in Japan and for WCW, winning world titles in just about every company he wrestled in. Admittedly, he wasn't exactly 25 years old when he arrived in the WWF (he was within a year of turning 40 at that point, if I recall), but he was still on top of his game enough that people had legit reason to expect big things from him. People like The Undertaker, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Psycho Sid, Yokozuna, and several others were in the company to potentially have good matches with the man known as "The Mastadon" (fuck calling Big Daddy V that as Michael Cole tried to do on several occasions). His debut at the Royal Rumble that year went over pretty well, as he looked impressive in eliminating multiple people before finally being eliminated himself. Even then, he entered the ring after being eliminated and proceeded to destroy everyone in sight, including the man who had tossed him out in the first place (Shawn Michaels). He even looked strong the next night on Raw, coming across as a real uncontrollable monster, attacking WWF President Gorilla Monsoon after Monsoon suspended Vader for attacking multiple Referees after his match against Savio Vega, in which he dominated. Upon return from his suspension, which lasted a few weeks, I think the mistake was made when Vader wasn't pushed to the main event right away. Nearly every month, it seemed as if Vader was taking part in some sort of a six-man or eight man tag match, seemingly being wasted away. A full seven months after his debut, he finally got his first shot at the WWF Title, in a match against Shawn Michaels. It was a good match (as it always seemed to be when Michaels faced a bigger wrestler), but in the end, Vader came up short in his quest to win the title. It would be another six months before Vader would get another title shot, and again, he fell short, before being tossed into a tag team with Mankind that basically went nowhere. From there, it was nothing but mid-card feuds for the guy, the majority of which he came out of on the losing end of, even after a rushed face turn that I've always thought was lame and unnecessary. He went from being a vicious, badass machine of a man to a glorified jobber playing to the crowds. For shame, Vince. For shame. Fail. Gobbledygooker: Seriously, are there even words to describe how big of a failure the entire Gobbledygooker storyline was? Seeing as how the entire thing happened nearly 18 years ago, allow me to briefly run the entire thing down for you.. leading up to the 1990 Survivor Series (bit of a theme with the Survivor Series in this column.. hmm..), a large oversized egg was shown at various WWF events, and nobody knew what was supposed to be inside. Maybe a new debuting wrestler? Maybe an actual pterodactyl? Either way, there was plenty of buzz as to the contents of the egg. At the Survivor Series itself, the egg began hatching, and everyone knew they were about to witness the revelation of the mystery. After a few moments, the egg cracked open, and out popped.. the Gobbledygooker, a six-foot-tall bird-like figure in the most ridiculous looking costume of all-time (as if the name wasn't stupid enough). As the fans began to boo quite loudly, the Gobbledygooker began square dancing in the middle of the ring with commentator "Mean" Gene Okerlund, just angering the fans even further. Due to the overwhelming negative response, the WWF immediately canned the storyline without explanation. The man under the costume? Hector Guerrero, the brother of Eddie Guerrero, and most recently seen as the manager of Homicide & Hernandez in TNA. Yikes. When THAT is the highlight of your WWF/WWE career in comparison to the heights that your brother achieved, it has gotta suck. Told you it would only be a brief rundown of the entire storyline. Alright, so I could've shortened it a bit more still, but just go along with it.  Look at that schmuck. It looks absolutely ridiculous. The wrinkly skin, the stupid hair, the dumb look on its face. It just makes you wanna punch it in the crotch (Dicks, bro). The Gobbledygooker is pretty funny looking, too. Rob Van Dam's main event run goes "up in smoke": Regardless of what I, personally, think of Rob Van Dam's wrestling ability, there's no doubting his popularity with fans. The crowds across the country fell in love with his flash and glitz, and they called, for years, for RVD to become a world champion. It took a while, but the stars, the moon, and the planets finally aligned themselves properly, and at the 2006 ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view, RVD defeated John Cena to become the new WWE Champion. When one of these wrestling promotions make you their world champion, it shows their faith in you, and how much they trust you to be able to carry the ball for them, both in and out of the ring. That really goes without saying, I suppose. Finally, after a few years worth of him being one of the most over guys on the entire roster, WWE had enough faith in Rob to make him the top guy in the company. How does he return the favor to the company? By almost immediately being arrested on drug possession charges. Those who know anything about RVD know about his fondness for a particular green plant, but the fact that he wasn't more careful in staying out of trouble (and, therefore, keeping the company out of trouble) was just a stupid decision on his part, regardless of what his fans have to say in defending him or what he does in his free time. He lost the WWE Title right away, and then lost the ECW Title the very next night before having to serve his 30-day suspension from the company. He never reached those levels again upon his return, and was jobbed more often than not until he left the company several months later. There's only a small handful of people in the world that know how different things would've been for RVD had he not gotten into legal trouble. My guess is that he would've, at the very least, had a nice lengthy run with the ECW Title, seeing as how he was the biggest star on the brand at the time. Smooth move, Rob. Brock Lesnar's "Shooting Star Botch": This one here wasn't Vince McMahon's fault or anything (well, not technically), but was still a big failure nonetheless, and since it involved Vince's company, it goes here, like it or not. Fortunately for Brock Lesnar, and for everyone watching, however, the outcome wasn't as bad as it could've been. Indeed, it could've been much much much worse. WrestleMania 19.. Safeco Field.. Seattle, Washington. Kurt Angle was set to defend the WWE World Title against Brock Lesnar in the show's main event. Being in the main event of the absolute biggest show of the year makes people want to pull out all the stops, and maybe even go for a little something they wouldn't normally do in the ring. For Brock Lesnar, this match was precisely one of those times, in his mind. Before being called up to the main WWE roster, Brock spent his time in OVW, the "minor league" to the WWE's "major league" at the time. While he was there in OVW, Brock wowed audiences on a few different occasions by winning matches with a picture-perfect Shooting Star Press. For someone as big, as strong, and as muscular as Brock Lesnar to be able to pull off a move like the Shooting Star Press.. well, it just isn't fair to everyone else trying to make a living in the same company as he is. The video of Brock hitting the SSP began circulating all over the internet after he got called up, and it became something of a cult phenomenon. Apparently, Brock figured that there was no better time whatsoever to introduce his SSP to the masses than during his match at WrestleMania. The match was really good, as you'd probably expect between two of the most decorated amateur wrestlers in the history of the company. Towards the end of the match, with Kurt Angle on the mat, Brock looked up towards the top turnbuckle with a bit of a mischievous look on his face. Watching the show live with some friends, I marked out as soon as I saw the look, because I could see what was coming.. the SSP to finish the match. I had seen the video from OVW, while none of my friends did, so they were all surprised to see that the prediction I called out looked to be coming true as Brock climbed to the top. Once he got up there, I noticed that Kurt was quite a distance away from the corner Brock was in, but I didn't pay much attention to it, as I was wrapped up in the moment.. and then I saw Brock flinch a bit before he jumped. Uh-oh. I almost wanted to shut my eyes right then and there. Bad things were-a comin. As we watched him rotate through the air, I could see that something wasn't right. There was no way he was gonna make a complete rotation, and sadly, I was right. Once he landed, head and neck first, just short of Kurt, I literally thought I had just watched a man die in the ring.  My friends and I all sat there with our mouths wide open, completely shocked. There was a hush over the Safeco crowd, as would be expected. Seeing Brock able to move his extremities was a comforting feeling, but it was completely and totally obvious that he was knocked completely silly, and the glassy-eyed far-away look on his face told that story. Kurt had to improvise for a bit, and you could see him trying to talk to Brock, and trying to map out the next move or two to the kid who probably didn't even know what state he was in at that point. When Brock finally got Kurt up for the F5, it was like watching Superman or something. For him to nearly kill himself like he did, and then turn around to finish the match was amazing. He won the title, but still seemed like he had zero idea of what the hell was going on around him. While becoming the WWE Champion was definitely a success that night, nearly killing himself in the process wasn't, of course. Thankfully, Brock (maybe it wasn't his decision, and he was told to do so) retired the move after just a single botched attempt at it. Glacier: In the same basic concept as the Gobbledygooker, Glacier made his debut after a few months worth of really cool looking "Blood Runs Cold" videos that aired on WCW television. Upon his debut, a lot of younger fans began noticing that he looked familiar. In fact, more than just "familiar", he was an exact copy of Sub-Zero from the Mortal Kombat video game series. While some people thought that was really cool, I found it to be rather dumb and a bit of an insult to people's intelligence. They could've AT LEAST tried to make the color scheme of his costume different. Something. Anything. After months of hype videos and a few months of matches that really went nowhere, Glacier was placed into a feud with Mortis (better known as Chris "Who Betta Den" Kanyon). They supposedly had some sort of past history together, although that past was never revealed by any of the WCW announce team. They looked like extras from a really lame sci-fi martial arts movie, and it didn't help when Wrath (aka Bryan Clarke of Kronik, and Adam Bomb, for you older fans) made his debut to help out Mortis in the feud. The matches were all bad, the characters were all cheesy, and the point of the entire thing was all missing. Can't really ask for more than that when trying to find a failure in wrestling, and that's not even taking into account all the money that WCW pissed away with the vignettes, the ultra elaborate Glacier entrance (rumored to have cost the company over half-a-million dollars overall with the times that they used it), and the Sub-Zero knockoff costume (which was supposedly valued at $35,000 all by itself, which is just fucking insane, and way too much money to spend on a wrestler's costume). Way to go, WCW. Yikes. You could've just given the money to me if you really didn't want it. Shockmaster: The year was 1993. The promotion was WCW. Sid Vicious, Vader, and the Harlem Heat(Booker T & Stevie Ray, then known as Kane & Kole) were teaming up to face Sting, Dustin Rhodes, Davey Boy Smith (aka The British Bulldog), and a mystery partner in an eight-man tag match at that year's Fall Brawl pay-per-view. Sting and Davey Boy were going to reveal their partner during a live "Flair For The Gold" interview during an episode of WCW Saturday Night. After Sting's ridiculously cheesy and corny introductory speech ("All I have to say is our partner is going to shock the world because he is none other than.. The Shockmaster!"), a small pyro display went off in front of a wall. The Shockmaster (played by Fred Ottman, better known as Tugboat and Typhoon from his WWF days in the mid-90s) was then supposed to break through the wall and reveal himself to the world and to his opponents (who, I guess, are also part of "the world"). Unfortunately, things don't always work out the way you want them to, and The Shockmaster tripped and fell through the wall, instead of going all "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" and crashing through it. He fell to the ground, and his helmet (a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet, painted silver) fell off, thus REALLY revealing his identity to the world. Keep in mind.. this was on live television, so nothing could be done. He grabbed the helmet as quickly as possible and put it back on before continuing the rest of the entrance as if nothing had happened. Nobody in attendance knew just how to react.. the fans, the announcers, the other wrestlers on the set.. nobody. This is, quite possibly, the definition of "EPIC FAIL" in the world of wrestling.  Un-fucking-believable. There are so many different failures I could mention in this column, but I'd be here all day long. Because I'm a cheap bastard like that, I'm going to save some more for a future HIPE edition, possibly tomorrow. I just didn't want to drag this column into the 20,000+ word mark, giving it novel-like status. We have another edition in the books now, and we're about 24 hours from yet another one hitting the streets. Believe The HIPE. It's real. I'll be back tomorrow.. new Hustle time, same Hustle page.. with HIPEv5 (speaking of numbers, I really hope you all understand by now why yesterday was v2 and today is v4), so yes, keep your peepers peepin. From the place where we DON'T put pineapple on our pizza (contrary to popular belief, thanks to a misnamed type of pizza), I bid you farewell. Aloha and Mahalo Nui Loa. "I'm exceedin expectations, you barely meeting quota.. I give it to em straight, you cut it with baking soda.." Hustle HIPRNFeedback@gmail.com 
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