Scott's Blog of Doom

Can't believe this post is over 19 years old...
| >From: vatsanp@unix386.Convergent.COM (Srivatsan Parthasarathy)
| >Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling
| >Subject: Matches setup?
| >Date: 16 Oct 90 22:58:56 GMT
| >Organization: Unisys/Convergent, San Jose, CA
| >
| > I heard from _several_ of my friends that the wrestling
| > matches shown on TV are setup. What they mean by that is the
| > losers don't get as hurt as we believe they do.
| >
| > I love watching these matches, especially between even teams
| > and I would lose interest if I knew they were setup. Help me
| > regain confidence that all these wrestling matches are for
| > real and not stage-managed.
| >--vatsan
| >-=-=-=-=-=-
From: yonatan@csri.toronto.edu (Gary Will)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling
Subject: Re: Matches setup?
Date: 18 Oct 90 02:28:25 GMT
Srivistan, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by
the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe what they see.
They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their
little minds. All minds, Srivistan, whether they be men's, women's or
children's are little. In this great universe of ours, humans are
mere insects, ants, in our intellect as compared with the boundless
world about us, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping
the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Srivistan, professional wrestling is legitimate. And how dreary
would be the world if professional wrestling was "set-up." It would be
as dreary as if there were no Srivistans. There would be no childlike
faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.
We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external
light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Is it all real? Ah, Srivistan, in all this world there is nothing
else real and abiding. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn?
Of course not, but that's no proof they are not there. Nobody can
conceive or imagine all the wonders there are in the world.
--Gary Will (with thanks to Francis P. Church, The New York Sun, 1897)

Hi Scott,

So apparently the producers of Reno 911 are making a tv series that is a mockumentary set in the world of indy pro wrestling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amWjnYUHbY4.  It may just be sour grapes (let's face it, it probably IS just sour grapes), but it doesn't look very funny to me, especially compared to our little movie, Kayfabe, about which luminaries of the IWC such as Scott Keith has said "Hilarious...I can't recommend it enough."  What do you think?

Also, if you wouldn't mind, could you mention to your minions that we've reduced the price of the DVDs for Xmas to US$15 including shipping, and that DVDs can be purchased at www.kayfabemovie.com.  Because, really, nothing says Christmas like a low budget indy wrestling mockumentary filled with foul language, violence and a bit of (male) nudity.

Thanks,

Mike

 

It definitely looks like a different type of humor.  The clip didn’t really say too much about the show overall (although it’s got Tony Almeida going for it), so for now we’ll agree that Kayfabe is still superior. 

Something I would like your opinion on: Given that it's been revealed after the fact that Kevin Sullivan and company, were planning on Chris Benoit only having the WCW World Championship belt for a short time, due to Sullivan wanting to get the belt on Sid ASAP and have Sid basically beat everyone in WCW in order to build up Sid Vs Golberg once Golberg came back from his injury, why couldn't they have done the same with Benoit?
They could have had Benoit as the big heal champion, complete with dissolving the NWO and bringing back the Four Horsemen with Flair as Benoit's manager and Malenko/Guerrero/Saturn as the other members of the Horsemen. Flair as a manager could have negated the issue of Benoit needing someone to do his interviews for him and I'm pretty sure Benoit/Golberg could have made for a decent enough feud to keep the company going in 2000.
Have Hogan, Nash, Hall, Sid, Jarret lose to Benoit to get him over as champion and maybe even go the "retirement" angle of Benoit "crippling" them after he beats them, to get them off canvas in the event they threw a hissy fit after losing. Not to mention pushing Booker T and Rey Mysterio Jr. as challengers as well. And since Benoit and Golberg, IIRC, had never fought before, there would be some nice hype for that dream match of sorts.
Given everything that happened, Benoit as the company's top heel could have been gold. Same with the return of the Four Horsemen as uber-heels, as they would have had WAY more credibility than a third-rate retred of the New World Order. Granted, given how things were at the time when Benoit won the belt, you'd have to do some major league cosmic reset button pushing to move things into alignment, but it would have worked out quite well for them and kept WCW relevant.

 

The thing is, the damage was done.  There was nothing they were going to be able to do that was going to undo what happened in 1999, and by the end of the year the company was dead no matter what anyway, so it’s all rather pointless to speculate about.  Benoit in a promotion with Kevin Sullivan as booker was never going to get a fair chance as champion.  Frankly at that point it wouldn’t have been fair to him to put that on his shoulders anyway.

Scott,
Firstly, hello from a long-time reader going back to the Netcop days.  I've dug your stuff for . . . Jesus, much longer a time than I ever realized until I thought about it just now.  A while.  I've been blogging at www.stevelikestocurse.com for three and a half years or so now, and while most of my time is spent pissing and moaning about politics and pop culture, or making profane comics with Star Trek screencaps and action figures, I write the occasional wrestling article, too.
The last month or so, inspired by your recent all-time tag teams poll tournament, I've been writing a fantasy wrestling series about a tournament featuring 64 legends of wrestling from all over the world and all eras, summoned to the present thanks to the unexpected discovery of chronotons and tachyons by those clever guys working on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.  (I'm surprised it hasn't made more news, honestly.)  It's a big and diverse group, including everyone from Ed "Strangler" Lewis and Rikidozan, all the way down to present-day darlings like Bryan Danielson and Go Shiozaki.  It's been fun to write so far.
I'm four weeks in to what will eventually be a nine-week project (eight groups of eight, one per week, then the eight group-winners compete for the tournament title in week nine), and if you could find it in your great Canadian heart to favor me with a plug, I'd love to see what the rest of your readers think about it.
The results from groups one through four, as well as the subsequent episodes when I post them, can be found at:
http://www.stevelikestocurse.com/tag/wli
Thanks for the time, Scott, and for all the good work over the years.

The Captain Hindsight Retro Review of WWF Invasion 2001

By red29 (redw29@gmail.com)

With the decade nearing a close and since I have been collecting wrestling DVDs at a pace like the movie 2012 is real and it is my job to archive professional wrestling for all of mankind, I wanted to take a look back and re-watch the pay-per-views of arguably the biggest storyline flop this decade– the Invasion. So I fired up the Amazon Marketplace and found new original copies of the Invasion (very easy actually), Summerslam, Unforgiven, No Mercy and Rebellion (hey, why not?) shows. I’m still shopping for Survivor Series 2001 and may have to settle for the future Anthology version much to my chagrin (the extras and non blurring may change my mind though).

(more...)

The SmarK DVD Rant - Dangerous Comedy!

"Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."

- The Joker

I think that one of the reasons that safe and predictable pop culture junk like the Night At The Museum movies or the (Noun) Movie series keep getting made is that truly cutting-edge comedy isn't always funny. Yes, Monty Python was routinely brilliant, but for every Dead Parrot Sketch there are a million misses within the same show. I personally find it easier to deal with a swing for the fences that misses rather than a tepid ground out to first, because at least there was the potential for gold in one of them. Sandra Bullock mugging for the camera makes $100 million because you know exactly what you're getting and it doesn't scare people off. The Hangover made nearly $300 million domestically because it was an easy-to-understand concept pulled off spectacularly well.

And then there's Bruno and Funny People, released around the same time earlier this year…

(more...)

Anyone using the new ITunes Genius Mixes? I don’t even own an Ipod (well at least not an actual, non-Ebay ripoff Hong Kong version one) but I’ve always liked ITunes well enough as a music player over Windows Media Player.  But man, the new Genius mixes feature is something else, transforming the whole thing into something like Pandora Radio (which I can’t access any more due to international copyright issues, fuckers…) and creating some absolutely amazing playlists for me.  It really is genius, grouping together musical styles and genres that “go together” (it immediately put together two mixes for me with Poison, Motley Crue, Skid Row, GNR, and 80s KISS and I haven’t had to skip a song yet!) based on tempo and preferences of other users and such. 

For as much as I hate the smarmy Apple commercials, I really love this new version of ITunes.  

The SmarK DVD Rant for Hell In A Cell

- I'm talking about the 3-disc DVD set here, not the recent PPV. I know this is an older set, but I found it on Ebay for like $3 and I've been wanting to work in a proper review for a while now.

- Hosted by Mick Foley, fittingly enough.

(more...)

At this point I have no idea what Wave is supposed to do exactly, but I’ve had people ask me for invites should I ever get some, so at the moment I’ve got 8 of them and am willing to share with whoever gets their name in the hat first. 

Drop me an e-mail and the first 8 people can get invited.

UPDATE: And we're done. Thanks to those who played at home and if I get more, I'll post another call for invites here.

Scott,

I usually include you in the list of Poor Bastards I Accost with Links to My Latest Nonsense, and am always pleasantly taken aback that you opt to share said links at your blog. (This is to say nothing of the three or four times I've actively solicited a plug from you, for the various blogs I've started and deleted over the years.)

Anyhoo, whatever you opt to do with this'n, it (eventually) quotes you:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/116083-what-if-were-all-mythtaken-about-star-wars/

It's a long piece, composed of a half dozen shorter essays I wrote last spring, wherein I learn to accept the original Star Wars trilogy (I spent many happy years mocking the films and their fans), and then discover that the Prequels are really no worse (or at least not much worse) than the classics.

I hope you enjoy it.

I did!  And I agree, the dialogue in Indy is much smarter and quotable at times, but I agree with your friend about the Star Wars dialogue being deliberately pulpy, so I’m kinda open to both sides of the debate.  But then I watch all the movies in both trilogies pretty often (TRILOGY!  The Indiana Jones TRILOGY) so I’m not really an impartial observer on either side.