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By Mark D, May 11, 2011 1:28 am

TNA was fun. My new and improved Axe is even more deadly then before. Its
faster and thus I’m faster. For the war part of it I ended up barking out
a lot of orders and got a big helping hand from Gerade. We really kicked
some ass for most of the day. I did re-learn a lesson I learn every start
of the season. I HATE our archers. They know enough to kill me because I
wear no plate and I’m usually out in the open. Plus I’ve learned that when
our archers aren’t aiming at their targets they are most likely aiming at
their target.

Hurrah for Brahm for hiding my Jack Daniels that I worked really hard to
get for free. The one ranger was fine, the other one was a pain in the
ass Super Cop Rookie. God Dam Bright Highlighter Orange MadDog.
Of course they saw that stuff when you hide it with your foot. The only
real problem I had was that my pinky toenail is curved upwards, and
towards the end of the fighting I managed to drive the steel toe down
into the toenail which went into my toe and made it tough for me to walk.

Right now I feel like I am living just for the weekends, just for war. I
really feel alive when I’m fighting, when violence is being feed to me. I
want to fight as much as possible. I want to bring vengeance and wrath
upon my enemies, no matter who they are on the field. I am fighting for
the pure adrenalin from battle to battle. To know you can defeat your
enemies no matter who they are is the greatest feeling in the world.

Plus let me just say I got a great response from Blackcross about my Rise
and Fall story. That story was definitely inspired by his stories at last
years Masquerade Ball, so to get a response from him was great.

I’ve got something pissing me off really badly. I won’t definitely know
anything about it till after this weekend. I’m usually the last one to
catch on to some of the politics going on around me, and this seems to be
one of those times. Thankfully its got to know the lay of the law and to
have connections in all the right places. Those people have definitely
offered me a hand already. I’ll probably know more after this weekend. I
just can’t really say anything on this forum of speech. This is almost
like Reality TV. Is reality TV really reality once you introduce Cameras
to people. People naturally act and react differently when they do not
know they are being watched. Interesting thing to think about for this
Journal.

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By admin, January 5, 2010 12:58 am

So I caught the first two hours of Hogan’s first appearance on TNA Impact for the first ever Monday night Impact. I will admit I didn’t watch all three hours, and some of Hogan’s segment was so bad I had to flip over to watch HBK and Hart meet for the first time since the screwjob. I should admit for most of my childhood I was a Hogan fan. Then I became a Foley fan, an finally an ECW fan.

In the end, the real problem with wrestling is exactly tonight’s 9PM opening of both shows. On Impact you have an ancient Hogan, a old fat Hall, a mid aged Sean Waltman still being called kid, grayhaired and unmotivated Nash and a gray haired Bischoff. On Raw you have an ancient Bret Hart and an ancient Shawn Micheals (and it should be noted both looked horribly aged) opening the show. I mean really, I thought all of these guys were old TEN YEARS AGO (except for Waltman). On youtube there’s a video of Hall barely able to walk his fatass to the ring for an indy show held on a football field.

But the reason I stopped watching Raw years ago was for two reasons, too many screwy ending and too much acting not enough fighting. So if you happened to turn into the first hour of TNA you got one of their classic X Division matches. Of course the match ends because of a no contest call after one of the guys used a weapon on everyone. But this being TNA they just continue while the fans chant “This is Bullshit” oh and Shit was censored. It ends with Matt Hardy showing up and just hanging out sort of.

Then we have a Knockouts Singles title match. It should be mentioned that the Knockouts tend to get the highest ratings on Impact when its broken up into segments. Of course this was a blink and you’d nearly miss it match length which was then followed by a far too long Kevin Nash rambling interview. And that’s it, two matches, one far too short in the first hour.

Hogan’s appearance was funny just for his speech. He’s going to change things and its going to be different now. I believe that as far as I could throw Hogan. Him and his cronies are going to run things and job out the youth just like they did in WCW. If there’s one thing I can assure you about Hogan it’s that his ego is bigger then you could imagine. I should also point out by now that TNA must think we’re idiots if we’re watching. They obviously gave away free t-shirts to the rows of fans most likely to be seen all night from the ring shots. Since apparently Impact never catches the slightest glimpse of the other side of the ring unless its an accident its obvious these Hogan fans were plants and given all the Hogan stuff.

I stopped watching Raw after Bret and Shawn were done. Its obvious Bret adlibbed on live TV to get McMahon to come out and McMahon was having none of it. Coming back from commercial they claimed that McMahon would come out “on his terms” but since when does McMahon not take airtime whenever he can? He knew Bret would probably try his best to screw him back and knew enough not to go out there.

The funny thing was, after the Shawn/Bret opening both Raw and Impact had women’s matches. But the difference was night and day. Raw had one of the Bella twins fighting a blond bimbo in the usual awful Diva match. TNA had the Knockout tag team championship with Awesome Kong and Hamada on one side, I can’t remember who they were against, but it was a great match. That TNA treats the knockouts like actual wrestlers instead of eye candy is great. It also explains why the knockouts segments are normally higher rated. The flipside to this was a running bit with a knockout stable called the beautiful people doing a strip tease all night. Why can’t we just have wrestling? To finish off the hour they had Pope Vs Desmond Wolfe in a 5 min quick win.

So at the end of watching mostly TNA Impact for two hours, and bits and pieces of WWE Raw, I’ve got to say there is no reason to watch either show. Hogan is going to change nothing. Raw is still awful. Both shows suffer from too much BS and not enough matches. Both have guys who peaked 10 years ago getting way too much time (Triple H too since I haven’t mentioned him) and its really getting tiring now.

If your going to watch wrestling, watch Chikara. Its moved into the top spot on my personal list. Its funny, fast paced matches and the story lines are incredible. Plus most of the wrestlers just tend to have this special kind of charisma that you don’t get from someone that’s been in the business forever. Outside of Chikara, I’m also a huge fan of CZW, but thats mostly for death matches. ROH is also known for having a lot of matches. Either which way you go all three of them are an improvement over either WWE or TNA.

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By Mark D, March 11, 2009 7:48 pm

Also known as “Tents and Alcohol War” What were you thinking? From 2004

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By Mark D, March 5, 2009 3:37 pm

When I was young, I was a huge fan of Mick Foley (aka Cactus Jack, Mankind, Dude Love) as he always seemed to give it his all. It also helped that he didn’t look like a steriod freak of nature. One of my moms friends that knew I was upset that Cactus had left WCW gave her the King of the Death Match tape from Japan where he beats Terry Funk in the finals. I wound up getting back into wrestling when we were taping a PPV for my cousin and the main event was a masked Cactus Jack fighting Undertaker. I followed WWE up till Mick was dropped as comissioner, although I did watch it on and off untill they screwed RVD and didn’t give him the Title Win over the horrible Undertaker American Bad Ass angle on a Monday Night Raw.

I’ve tried not to watch that much Foley in his comebacks. I don’t want to see an Old Tired Foley putting over pieces of shit like Randy Orton. I’ve got the best of Cactus Jack from ECW on DVD, so whenever I want to relive the best of Mick Foley its right there. Nothing can beat his infamous Non-Hardcore Hardcore gimmick and his wearing of a Bischoff T-Shirt to ECW Arena.

But someone has attracted me back, via youtube and EWR. It just happened I was flipping around through wrestlers on Extreme Warfare Revenge and the name Necro Butcher jumped out at me for just being a cool name. Well I evantully searched to see if it was a real wrestler and found out it was. I have watched just a ton of his matches on Youtube and he easily has to be the closest thing to another Foley there is out there. In the past Death matches were Barb Wire, an exploding spot, maybe a little bit of fire and thats it. The CZW (and for that matter IWA-MS) Death Matches are absolutely brutal. Between the Light Tubes, Barb Wire, Tables stacked with Barb Wire and Glass, Fire, Staplers, Cactus, among any item you can think of. They have gone far beyond anything ECW was willing to go.

There are those that mock CZW and the death match fans for liking what is little more then “garbage wrestling” and wrestlers who aren’t exactly trained. Let me say something here. Wrestling is staged for the most part. The endings are known before the match, and depending on who it is they might have even scripted everything beforehand. So if you are watching wrestling for a “technical” display then why not watch Greco Wrestling or Amateur Wrestling? Why watch professional wrestling for technical wrestling? Does it matter how cleanly someone can execute a snap suplex? When people pretend to fight, would you rather see a half assed punch, or a full punch? Would you rather someone get hit by a chair while covering their head, or see them get nailed by light tubes which you can’t fake. If its going to be fake, it might as well hurt.

Necro Butcher is someone who whenever you see him, you know he’s going to put on a show worth your money. That was one of the running themes of Foley’s first book, if the fans paid, give them a reason to have paid. As you watch him brawl, not only can he take a beating but he can give it. The masters of pain match between Brain Damage and Necro Butcher is a perfect example. Both of them are able to give it and take it like no one else. The video I’m adding to this post is the perfect example, as at the end is Necro Butcher walking back to the ring after losing a death match tournament. I’ve never seen someone with a back that looked like that still be alive.  In the end you can say what you want and what you believe, if you think that he’s out there cause he’s just some kind of pain freak, but it looks for all intents and purposes that he is out there to entertain the fans. Be it 100 or 1,000 fans he seems to give his all. What more can you ask for in a wrestler? That he know how to give a perfect suplex? Whats that matter?

Necro showed up in “The Wrestler” which tells you something. When even mainstream wants the most hardcore wrestler in America, its Necro Butcher. In the end it’ll probably be the highlight of his career to have been in such a prestigous movie. And to spend most of the movie with a dollar bill stapled to his forehead. But in this general downperiod for professional wrestling, its tough to find whose going to be the next big thing or the next this or that. But in Necro Butcher we might have more then just the next Mick Foley, but Possibly the next Terry Funk. A maniac who will wrestle far into his 50s, and maybe while he’s in his older days he can like The Funker get tied into an up and coming ECW like promotion and be able to catch a new wave of gratitude and fans.

For all those that mock the wrestling style of Necro and of CZW, just look at the fact that following the CZW Vs ROH angle Necro has managed to catch on with ROH. ROH is easily considered the third promotion in America behind TNA and among the Smart Marks its held in high regard. At a later point I’ll have to remark on the stupidity of a term like Smart Mark, but thats for another day. For today spend the time to search Youtube for videos of Necro Butcher, and let me leave you with one that I like.

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By Mark D, February 14, 2009 1:24 pm

I believe the title says it perfectly. Paul E explained it best. To Vince, ECW was beloved because the WWF made it loved. In Vince’s understanding it had nothing to do with what Paul had done. Anything could go out there and be ECW and be beloved because Vince said ECW is to be loved. If you look at history though, you never heard fans chanting WWF or WCW during any of their shows cause they were appreciating it. Yet nearly every ECW show had the infamous ECW chant, among other classic ECW chants. To me this reborn ECW died after the first one night stand. I realize there was a second one night stand that wasn’t awful, and  the begining of ECW wasn’t bad. There was nothing as classic as the old school ECW fans chanting at the new ECW shows. The highlight being the Big Show Vs Batista match during which fans started chanting “Change The Channel” and even Taz had to comment on saying “Why would you want to change the channel on this great match?”

Fortunately ECW is Dead, but it is not forgotten. ROH has continued on with working towards smart fans with high quality matches. But the other way, the Hardcore, has gone even further. ECW only had four barb wire matches. Two of them being Sandman and Cactus Jack. I can’t remember the third, but the final ECW Barb Wire match was the most infamous. Born To Be Wired was Terry Funk Vs Sabu. Sabu managed to tear his bicep during the match, tape it up and continue. In the big spot finish, or what became the finish Sabu rolled up Funk in barb wire on a table, rolled himself up in the wire and dropped a leg onto Funk. They became so intertwined and Funk was in so much pain that you can hear Funk yelling for Sabu to just pin him to finish the match. The next five minutes of the video is nothing but paramedics trying to cut Funk and Sabu loose from each other without hurting each other. Paul E never had another Barb Wire match, for fear of trying to top it. Obviously they had matches with Barb Wire, but no matches in which the ring ropes were wrapped or replaced with Barb Wire.

And so CZW brought forth Ultraviolent wrestling. Matches with every weapon imaginable. Cactus’, Light Tubes, Staple Guns, Barb Wire bats, Light Tube Bats, the list goes on and on. They also have the yearly Tournament of Death, which is something thats been missing in American wrestling. I’ve long been a fan of the Death Match tournaments I have on tape from Japan. The first one I ever saw was the one Cactus Jack famously won over Terry Funk. From my catching of CZW (and lets not forget IWA MidWest which is just as insane and run by former ECW wrestler Ian Rotten) it not only follows in the footsteps of Hardcore ECW but ups the ante. If you enjoyed Born to be Wired or any of the number of Hardcore matches ECW held, then CZW is for you.

There are those that are critical of CZW and the like. They claim they are garbage wrestling with people who have no ability beyond a high threshold of pain. They say that they are lacking in any technical skills, and will never get beyond the outer rims of the wrestling scene. But lets get one thing right. In the end, Wrestling is fake. The matches tend to be pre-scripted, and in the bigger feds they tend to repeat the same scripts over and over. Obviously sometimes they go on the fly, but its the same general outline.

So if you were watching two men beat the living crap out of each other, do you want to see three suplexs in a row, or do you want to see people actually trying to injure each other? Do you want to see wrestlers flying around the ring like Ballerinas? or would you rather see a body splash onto a plank of wood which has barb wire on top of it and a pane of glass on top of that. Would you rather see someone’s head get pretend smashed around the ring and have the guy give himself a tiny little cut on the top of his head, or see someone get thrown through flaming tables and barb wire and glass and have wounds covering half his back and chunks of skin hanging off.

Say what you will about TNA or WWE, but those guys don’t leave half of what the CZW guys leave in the ring. They don’t go above and beyond for the fan, they do what they have to do to hit their payday. Vince has loaded up his Roster with steriod freaks of nature, and then he lets Triple H’s politicing keep him on top. Vince doesn’t care about the fans, he feels that they will show up anyway. In front of a full arena, The Giant and Brock Lesnar (I might be wrong) go off the edge of the stage onto tables with padding under them to cushion their fall. The cameras zoom in and you can hear them talking back and forth making sure each other is okay while the commentators try to sell the move as oh my god its the end of the world. Meanwhile the Giant just smiles. And yet, in front of a handful of spectators, the CZW guys will give it their all, will do everything short of trying to kill each other during a match for the fan to enjoy it. There are no foamy pads for soft landings, just bodies, shattered light tubes, barb wire and maybe a table.

And TNA? The TNA fanboys are even worse. TNA itself is nothing but leftovers from WWE. Their latest event, the Main Event was all cast offs – Sting, Kurt Angle and the Dudley Boys, two of the next three matches at the top of the card involved Booker T and Matt Morgan. The match that involved no WWE castoff was the Tag Team match which one team had WWE castoff Jacqueline as their manager. TNA needs to look at the History of ECW. When ECW picked up WWF talent and WCW talent they tended to repackage them, or pick up guys whose personality fit the product at the time. Only towards the end of their run did they have guys who were recognizable from WWF. That was when they were already set with wrestlers upon wrestlers who were ECW, who could be considered ECW and who spouted ECW. RVD, Tommy Dreamer, Raven, Sandman, The Dudleys, The Franchise, Sabu, Taz and others were all considered at their core ECW. Even as they would come and go between ECW, WCW and WWF they were still loved when they returned. When you talked about ECW and you had to come up with a feud, there was always the eternal Raven Vs Dreamer which lasted about as long as ECW did. There was Sabu Vs Taz, RVD and Sabu as a tag team before they started feuding, The Triple Threat with the Franchise. But whats the face of TNA? Kurt Angle? Who was created by WWE for all intents and purposes? Samoa Joe who made his way up from ROH? Sting the heart and soul of WCW? When I see any of these guys, they are replaceable and it doesn’t seem like a step would be missed in TNA. Yet can anyone imagine an ECW without Tommy Dreamer? or any of those I mentioned especially early on? Even Terry Funk who has been wrestling forever is remembered fondly for his time in ECW and helping it get off the ground as the Champion. If TNA is going to compete with WWE it needs to bring in unknown talent. It needs to bring in high quality wrestlers from around the world along with bringing guys up from unknown feds who at least don’t have 2 years of their video past you can find on youtube. They have to be TNA guys.

In the end though, its not about TNA. Its just about wanting something to compete with WWE so that theres some shakeup at WWE. The worst period in WWE history was the 90s before the Monday Night Wars. This period since Vince bought WCW seems to be reaching that Era of horrible. At least Duke The Dumpster had a personality. These steriod freaks have no personalites and are a throwback to some of the worst aspects of that day. Now it seems that since wrestling isn’t considered a sport that no one cares if they use steriods.

For as long as CZW, IWA MS and other feds continue the hardcore tradition of ECW, there will be feds where wrestlers work hard. Where wrestlers will bleed for the fans and any injury in the end is worth it to pop the crowd. The only garbage wrestling out there today is coming from the two biggest wrestling promotions out there. No heart, no emotion, just garbage.