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By Mark D, April 10, 2012 12:52 pm

Just a tad bit of background here, Andre The Giant was one of my favorite wrestlers when I was little. So this was something that interested me back in the day. I remember a friend telling me to watch WCW for “The Giant” because at the time WCW was promoting him as being Andre’s son without saying as much. But I was able to check online and find out in a few seconds that he wasn’t really related to Andre at all. Other then being a freakishly sized human being.

So in the late 90s WCW Vs The World came out, and me and my buddies grabbed it like all Wrestling games and played the hell out of it. I ended up playing it enough to unlock all the secret wrestlers, including one who was named “The Giant”. Of course he didn’t look anything like WCW’s The Giant unless he had grown a magical Afro at some point. Originally the game was released in Japan (without WCW wrestlers) and the wrestler was Andre The Giant. When it was imported they just called him The Giant and renamed a bunch of other Japaneses wrestlers due to copyright.

Now WCW made a mistake and switched game developers, getting picked up by EA. So the people who made WCW Vs The World were picked up by the WWF to start working on their video games. Which was pretty much a god send for the WWF games, considering Acclaim who were doing the WWF games continued to release the same game with minimal changes for the next 5 or 6 games. Have fun trying to pull off a Stone Cold Stunner when it requires you to hit 7 different buttons in a precise order. Mortal Kombat styled wrestling games were a brilliant idea.

So 2 or 3 games in, and they are working on the great No Mercy for the N64. Probably one of my all time favorite N64 games.  Well just about when the game was done with development, word came from the WWF that Big Show (aka The Giant in WCW) was demoted to the OVW roster. So they had to remove him from the game. Since it was so late in development, they just decided to turn Big Show into Andre The Giant. Thus the Andre/Big Show replacement came full circle. I don’t know why this amuses me, but it does.

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By Mark D, October 4, 2011 1:10 pm

So I’m a fan of hockey and I come and go with wrestling. But I do know a lot of the terms when it comes to wrestling, and one of them definitely fits this hockey blogger. Ryan Lambert covers hockey at his own site and most infamously Puck Daddy at Yahoo!. His gimmick, if you want to call it that, is that he hates every team and every player. So basically he’s the guy that your supposed to hate, but you keep reading his column anyway.

Now why I mentioned wrestling in the beginning is because of a term called X-Pac heat. Heat is how pissed the crowd is at a bad guy. Some guys are better at drawing heat and playing as bad guys then getting cheers as a good guy. Basically you want to show up to see certain guys win, and to see certain guys get their comeuppance. But what happened to X-Pac (AKA Syxx, AKA 1-2-3 Kid) was that he was getting plenty of boos. But the crowd was booing him not because of what he was doing (at the time he was supposed to be a good guy) but just because they were sick and tired of him personally. They were tired of his character that never changed and that he was still around because of behind the scenes bullshit.

I am now taking this for the hockey world and declaring “Ryan Lambert Heat” which is when a writer/blogger tries too hard to piss you off. While all the Puck Daddy writers take a beating in the comments, nearly every Ryan Lambert comment has far more negative then positive. Nearly all of them mention Lambert by name too. People aren’t just bashing what he’s talking about, but they are bashing him. Of course he plays the hate up as though people are mad at what he is saying about their teams.

The sad thing though, is that Lambert can actually do so much better. I came across his two line pass blog and found it to be an enjoyable read. It had some insightful thoughts mixed with insightful commentary. None of the persona he puts on for Yahoo. It was apparent why he became a part of Puck Daddy in the first place and he’d be better served going back, but it might be too late now.

It’s just if you’ve read his PD stuff, he mails it in. He doesn’t actually look to the articles he’s linking to. He takes the headline and then jams it into his joke. I know this because he’s taken some of my posts over at LHH and made jokes that had nothing to do with the story and everything to do with the title. I’m not the only one either. So Ryan Lambert heat is born, when a writer purposely tries to piss people off but people are just tired of him instead of being legitimately pissed at him.

You know, when I start writing at 2AM stuff sounds better in my head then when it’s done.

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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, 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.