RantWars - Week.6
Posted by Jay Bower on 06.21.2003
w/ Special guest Josh Grut. With only three contestants remaining, things heat up as writers select their own topics.
Six weeks ago, a search of massive proportions began. A search to find a fresh new writer to carve a place in the history of 411Mania. With over five hundred entrants received, only three writers remain. These three writers have survived four eliminations that saw six others fall. These four writers have consistently received the least number of elimination votes and each has strengths that would make them valuable members of any website.
Last week, Dave Schilling (Sailing into the Unknown) and Sean McKissick (Vivan Los Luchadores) became the latest victims of RantWars, drawing the most votes of elimination and narrowing the field down to the three remaining writers. Shane Harrison, Chris Sharp and Adam Pritchard remain, dueling it out for the grand prize, a column of their own at 411Mania! Welcome ladies and gentleman to RantWars - Week6!
RANTWARSweek.6
Hello there and thank you for once again joining us for Week 6 of RantWars. The buzz around RantWars is at an all time high with a record number of voters yet again last week voicing their opinions on who should move ahead in the competition and who should lay their tombstones next to the 497 others in the RantWars graveyard. We are a mere week away and what began as an experiment in reality media has turned into a phenomenon that will bring you the newest member of the 411Mania family. I have all of the confidence in the world that any of these three writers would make excellent additions to the staff, so hang on to your hats, it's going to be a wild conclusion!
Last week, Dave Schilling received slightly more votes of elimination than Sean McKissick, so as RantWars tradition has it, we are going to turn the stage over to 411Mania's most popular writer. Joshua Grutman has been voted 411 columnist of the year for two years running and can write comedy, fiction, drama or just about anything else that he so desires and do it better than just about everyone. Please give a warm 411 welcome to Josh Grut!
Joshua Grutman:
Eric S can really be an asshole sometimes. No offense, Eric. I enjoy your work and respect you and all, but Allen Turner didn’t deserve to be put through the wringer last week. I agree that his column sucked, but there are so many shitty columns on the net that another one blending into the mountain of mediocrity wouldn’t have been the end of the IWC. His efforts weren’t enough to win this contest, but I’m sure that Allen will find a nice home on a minor website with this contest to his credit, and who knows? He might become a better writer. I doubt he’ll ever be anything special, but don’t any one of us forget, not you, not Hyatte, not Keith, not myself, not Bob and Dave and Wade and, I don’t know, Mr. Tito, that we are all viewed the same by the rest of the world. We are the Comic Book Guys of the wrestling world. It doesn’t matter how many columnist of the year awards I win, I’m still an unpaid nerd who writes for a wrestling website like Tom Daniels. We are not special, and we should not be so inclusive as to tell a crappy writer that he can’t ever improve enough to join our nerdy, pimply, fat ranks.
Dave Schilling, one day soon you’ll be able to join us. If this is something you really want, it is an attainable goal. To get your foot in the door, write something different or controversial and send it to a Torch Lounge member. They take ANYONE there. Just kidding, Unca T. Hope I’m not “kicked out” again!
Dave, you had an off week. Better that you had it now than later on in this contest that you had no chance of winning. Your Randy Orton column didn’t answer the question that was posed to you, but you made it personal and almost touching. Your Undertaker Marries Stephanie McMahon column was poorly written at times, but it was a good choice for a moment and resonated with the markist readers. Your Vince McMahon Must Die column was your best of the contest, thought out, well written and compelling. I can see why Jay selected you based on that work.
Your latest column sucked, and you’re only as good as your last column. You were asked to pick one characteristic of Nitro that would make Raw a better show. Very passionately yet boringly, you said that you wish Raw was better. You said you wanted to be, “shocked, excited, appalled, fulfilled, and enthralled all at the same time.” You want this from a wrestling show? GET LAID! Really, that’s good advice for all of us.
You were upset that Mick Foley just came out and cut a promo upon his return? It wasn’t surprising enough for you? His heart wasn’t in it? What did you want him to do, leap from the rafters of the arena and promise to kick HHH’s ass while going through all three faces of Foley? He was nervous upon his return, so you write a column crucifying him for that. Sounds to me like someone has been to the netcop school of Cynicism for Cynicism’s sake!
Ah, I’m being too hard on you. You’re 18 and you write decently enough. You’ll find a good home somewhere on this giant net. Good luck with that, Dave. Looks like I won’t be “Schilling” for you anytime soon. If there’s any justice in this contest, I’ll be writing alongside a guy who after he goes to MCdonalds, his KISs makes you SICK. Or one of the other guys. I don’t care.
Joshua GrutmanTwo Time Columnist of the Year Winner and the Guy Who Used To Make Lance Storm Jokes.
Thanks once again to Josh, he's a standup guy in my book.
Now, it is time to turn the stage over to the true stars of RantWars, the three remaining contestants! This week, we are down to three and things will be a little bit different. Each contestant's email address has been listed so please by all means use it. All three of these writers have yet to hear any feedback in response to their writing with the exception of my weekly "you survived the cut" memo after votes have been counted. If you have a favorite, let him know what you like, what you don't like, what he is doing right and what you think he could do better. These three aspiring columnists are up against some tough competition and could use all of the coaching that they can get, so by all means drop them a line to let them know what you think.
This week, the uniform topic has been dropped and Adam, Chris and Shane are now unbound, free to write about whatever they wish. Without further delay, let us proceed with the most heated installment of RantWars to date! Let's turn things over to the italicized omnipotent voice for a brief review of the rules.
The premise of RantWars is simple. You, the 411 reader will carefully read the unique thoughts posed by the three RantWars finalists throughout the duration of RantWars - Week.6. After reading each contestant's column, you will receive instructions on how to vote off your least favorite writers. The order in which entries appear coincides with the chronological order that they were sent, with the earliest arriving entries appearing first. The following class of competitors all have the skills to become a great presence here at 411Mania, so vote carefully.
Now that we have all other things out of the way, Let RantWars - Week 6 Begin!
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FreeStyle!
If Pro Sports Had Attitude.
Adam Pritchard - "The People's Title", "How the Mighty Have Fallen", "Hart's War", "Christian's Crusade".
I was sitting watching Raw this week and during the commercials, my mind started to wander. While this wasn’t the most exciting show I’d seen, it was still, in some ways, more entertaining than watching this years Superbowl, or any soccer game I’ve ever watched. So I started thinking about some unwritten rules we take for granted as the way things happen in wrestling, and wondered whether they could help ‘spice up’ some of the other, more respectable sports, we see on TV. It worked wonders for ladies’ ice skating in the past. Who could imagine a better heel than Tonya Harding? Remember the fuss about that Mike Tyson/Lennox Lewis press conference. You could have been watching a WWE contract signing on Smackdown. Look at Kerri Strug’s vault at the Atlanta Olympics. That was a textbook babyface comeback by the Americans against the evil Russians if I ever saw one. So could other sports also benefit from some sports entertainment magic?
Take the NFL for instance. If the Washington Redskins were any good, they would be the perfect cocky heel in this scenario. You could have Dan Snyder portraying a ‘Ted Dibiase’ character, showing that with his money he can buy the Superbowl just like anything else. Picture the scene, it’s the NFC Championship game, Redskins at the St. Louis Rams. 30 seconds left in the 4th Quarter, Rams leading 21-20, with the ball on their own 30-yard line. The game is over, the fans in the stadium know it, all Kurt Warner needs to do is take a knee and the clock will run out. He gets to the line of scrimmage, sneaks a look to the Redskins sideline, takes the snap, and sprints 40 yards back straight through his own end-zone. Safety, ‘skins win the game 22-21. The fans in attendance watch in disbelief as Warner runs to the Redskins sideline, rips off his St Louis Jersey to reveal a Redskins t-shirt underneath, and begins to celebrate with his new teammates. He takes a roll of $100 bills from Snyder, grabs a FOX microphone, and proceeds to tell the people that he was sick of the fans in St. Louis, not giving him the respect he deserves. He’s a Superbowl MVP dammit, and all he hears about is Marshall Faulk this, and Marshall Faulk that. As trash rains down on the field from the upper sections he grabs a Redskins helmet and informs the crowd he’s going to the Superbowl with a real team.
The World Cup of Soccer. I know that it’s not of much interest to Americans at the moment, and that as a game it can be pretty boring. Maybe that, too, could take some lessons from wrestling. Let’s look forward to the World Cup in 2006, and imagine that the USA are involved in the elimination round against France. Emotions are still running high, La Resistance will by then be 7-time WWE Tag Team Champions no doubt, and millions (ok, hundreds) of American viewers are watching hoping those lying cheating French get what’s coming to them. The game is tight, as all the French want to do is defend, and regular time finishes with the scores tied at 0-0. We are now in sudden death extra time, the French move the ball forward, well into the American’s half. There’s some kind of disruption on the French sideline, and their coach manages to get the referee’s attention. As his back is turned, French captain Zenedine Zidane picks up the ball and throws it in the back of the net. The referee turns back around, sees the ball in the goal, and the French players celebrating, and has no choice but to award the goal and the match to the French team. As the American players protest and bring in the other officials to plead their case, we are reminded that the referee’s decision is final. Imagine the heat that could be built towards the rematch between the countries, it’s GOLD I tell ya.
With Anna Kournikova fading out of the world of women’s tennis, men need another reason to start watching. If you look at tag teams in wrestling, when one member decides to start a quest for singles gold, it always leads to dissention in the ranks, and often the death of the team. Enter the Williams sisters. Venus the older sister paved the way, winning tournaments and majors, only to see Serena come through riding her coat-tails. She sees Serena become World no.1 and hold all 4 Grand Slam titles at the same time as all Venus can do is collect runner up checks and look on at the endorsements and interviews her sister picks up. We could start off slowly, a bit of miscommunication in doubles matches, Venus costing them points here and there, perhaps losing a match or two. A few arguments between them caught at press conferences, looks caught on camera from Venus towards her sister. The kind of slow logical build that Kane vs. RVD has been crying out for. This could come to a head at Wimbledon in the ladies doubles finals. The crowd begins to chant for Serena as Venus gets more and more frustrated. Then, in the middle of the match, Venus runs up and blasts her sister in the back of the leg with her racquet. The match would be forfeited, and in an impromptu press conference afterwards Venus speaks with glee about how she ‘knocked her leg from under her leg’. We could take the full Bret/Owen route as Venus beats Serena in the Canadian Open, only to see Serena triumph in the Grand Slam at the US open. The camera’s catch Venus looking on from the second row, mouthing ‘What about me’ as Serena hoists the trophy above her head. Now if only there was some tennis equivalent to a cage match that they could have, it would be the perfect blow-off.
Sure there could be problems of course. If Vince Russo booked Augusta’s US Masters we’d be sitting watching a midget jerk off inside a golf bag, or we’d cut to a video of Tiger Woods throwing a fit as he returned his golf putter to the store. Plus baseball games are plenty long enough without a 20-minute promo to begin them.
I guess my point is that even though sometimes we all bitch about the state of wrestling today, the truth is there’s an element of fun and excitement about it that you just don’t get in other sports, nor would you want them. Even if we can tell what ought to happen in a particular situation, or know when someone is going to turn on their partner, there’s a sense of warm familiarity to the fact that eventually the heel is going to get their comeuppance. Even Triple H will sometime. After all, wouldn’t watching baseball be a lot more fun if you knew that eventually the Yankees would get their butts handed to them?
Chris Sharp - "Burning Down the House", "All in the Family", "And Everyone Stopped Breathing", "The God of Small Things".
These past couple of years, it hasn’t been the best time to be a wrestling fan. Apart from those precious few months during which the Smackdown Six delivered great matches week in - week out, there has been little in the WWE for us to get excited about. Whether it’s due to a deficit of talent in the creative team, the influence of backstage politicians, the McMahon-Helmsley axis of evil, or simply Vince McMahon losing his touch, the WWE has been stuck in a quagmire of mediocrity. They’ve been in a similar situation before, and the catalyst that brought them out of it was competition.
The ‘Monday Night Wars’ forced the McMahons into a radical rethink of the way they presented wrestling. They were fortunate to have Stone Cold Steve Austin leading the charge, and the evil Mr. McMahon character was one of the most compelling heels in wrestling history. Since they won the ratings war and bought WCW, they’ve mostly rested on their laurels. Many characters have failed to progress from where they were three or even five years ago. When ratings dip, they rely on the re-introduction of stars from the past. There’s a dearth of creativity in the WWE, and I think it’s because their confidence has been shaken.
They won the war too well.
It’s hard to be the best if there’s no competition. Now that the McMahon family has decimated the competition and sucked the marrow from its bones, there’s nowhere else to go, and nothing left to be done. They had the opportunity to import their competition wholesale, and a well-booked invasion angle could well have been the best wrestling angle in history. Instead, a mixture of arrogance, incompetence and raging ego led to the biggest missed opportunity in wrestling history. They’ll never get the chance again, but to their credit the WWE is still trying to create competition.
So now we have two shows, with separate rosters, and separate PPV’s. Unfortunately, the brand extension feels like a valiant attempt to reintroduce competition to a one-horse race. But a two horse race where both horses are owned and trained by the same stable is no race at all. As long as the same people have creative control over the two shows, there’ll never be any real difference between them. The same prejudices will still be in place. The same hands will hold the book. And there’ll be an inherent desire to ensure that the two shows are viewed as equals.
We’ll probably never know the reasons behind Paul Heyman’s removal from the helm of Smackdown. But I’d venture that it was partly because Vince simply couldn’t accept a non-McMahon producing a better wrestling show. The ratings didn’t reveal the difference as the WWE has lost all but the core audience of fans, and there was little on Smackdown to attract the casual viewer. But for those of us who still watch every week, Heyman’s Smackdown was a reminder of much that is great about wrestling.
Heyman challenged Vince’s fragile yet immense ego, and was slapped down like an exuberant puppy. Vince can obliterate any internal competition, and so the brand extension is doomed to mediocrity, with neither show being allowed to overshadow the other, and the audience will feel as indifferent about one as the other.
There was a moment though, a few months back, when I had a glimmer of hope.
Vince is a genius, or so they say. And when he fired Raven & D’Lo so soon after elevating them to RAW, I almost believed it. I thought that was the beginning of his most impudent and outrageous plan since the Montreal screw-job: a plan that could relight the fire under the WWE and help it recapture it’s long-lost form. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. But there’s still time.
I thought that Vince had gotten bored being the biggest, baddest wrestling promoter on Earth. I thought he’d decided that the brand extension was dead in the water: that while it could help bring extra revenue in for the WWE, it’d do nothing to increase the ratings. I thought he’d decided to create some competition.
While other people saw the departures of Raven & D’Lo as pure incompetence on the part of the WWE, I saw benevolence in the gesture. Before they were fired, Raven had recently completed a lengthy and fairly well-booked feud on Heat, and D’Lo had started the gimmick that evolved into the White boy Challenge. They were more prominent in the minds of wrestling fans than they had been just six months before. And then they left, and made their way straight to NWA-TNA.
A-Ha! I thought. Vince has finally decided to put his over-stacked mid-card talent to good use. A deep roster is only as good as the creative team that supports it. Instead of saddling the over-burdened, under-talented creative team with yet more characters to create and develop in their weekly 100 minutes, he’s sent the NWA-TNA a gift, maybe the first of many. He’s given his only hope of competition two of his most charismatic under-utilized employees, having only just reminded the wrestling audience of their existence.
He’s thinning out his roster, giving the talent that’s left behind a bigger share of the show. He’s dissolving the mid-card congestion, and giving his creative team room to breathe. He’s cutting his bottom line, and helping create some competition. He’s getting lean & mean while fattening up the goose all at the same time. The man’s a genius. I envisaged a stream of departures, all bolstering NWA-TNA’s native talent, and helping them secure a TV deal. He’d create an effective opposing force, and by the same actions make his company fit to fight another war.
But no.
The talent-shedding stopped there. I’d guess that the recent rash of injuries has persuaded Vince that he needs a stacked roster more than he needs competition, and so NWA-TNA is unlikely to receive any more hand-me-down’s from the WWE. There have been no significant departures since Raven & D’Lo. Hyatte’s report of Goldberg’s departure appears to have been a hoax, or a mistake, and NWA-TNA couldn’t afford him anyway. NWA-TNA have survived their first year, but they’re plagued by the same booking problems that beset the WWE. And while they’re doing a better job than the WWE in elevating new talent, they’re still reliant on old stars, and are yet to create a true superstar.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and until Vince is forced to improve his product by the threat of competition and his need to decimate it, the WWE will continue down its current path of institutionalised mediocrity. Unless the NWA-TNA make a major star and find themselves a TV deal, the WWE will remain much the same. Their roster will keep on playing the mid-card shuffle. All the right ego’s will be soothed, the pecking order will still be in place. And we’ll all be sitting on our hands, wondering where the magic went
Shane Harrison - "Return of the Clash", "Insulting Our Intelligence", "Return of the Nature Boy", "A Champion to be Proud Of".
The night was May 23, 1999. A superb wrestler and ring veteran laid in the ring. The crowd looked on, stunned. "It must be a work," they thought. "It must be." After all, if Owen Hart was really dying, the show would have stopped. Surely. But Owen Hart was dying. He passed away that very night and the show went on.
Owen Hart was a terrific wrestler. He had been given a small push - put back into the Blue Blazer costume - and at Over the Edge he was scheduled to face The Godfather and capture the Intercontinental Title. This may have been his big break. But as The Blue Blazer descended from the rafters in superhero-like fashion, something dreadful happened. A cable snapped. He fell 70 feet through the air, before hitting his head on the turnbuckle. As he lay there dying, the crowd was divided: half shocked, half thinking it was all a work. It was unbelievable that such a tragedy could happen. The show stopped briefly while Owen was carried out of the ring. And then it went on. Jeff Jarrett had to wrestle immediately afterwards, in the same ring where he had just watched his best friend die. The show went on, largely as if nothing happened - save for Jarrett nearly breaking down throughout his match - until the announcement came that Owen had indeed died. And then the show continued, going normally again despite no-one really caring about the show any more. It could have been stopped without problem; I’m sure all would have understood. Instead, the show simply kept going.
Everyone has an opinion on the issue. I have met many that think it should have gone on; that stopping the show would have hurt the WWF financially, that it would have disappointed many people who paid their money to see the show. I have met many who believe that Owen Hart, himself, would have wanted it to continue. Some assert that there was nothing that could be done and that he didn’t die right away. I disagree with all of these arguments. It is about respect. Stopping the show would have been showing respect to Owen Hart and to the memory of a man who loved to perform. It would have been showing respect to his wife, children, and close friends wrestling on the very same show. Under closer inspection, there is not a single argument that can justify the disrespect that the WWF showed on that night. One of their best and brightest died trying to entertain their fans. So they swept him aside, and the show went on.
Realistically, it would not have affected the WWF financially to stop the show. At the time, Vince McMahon was valued at $1.4 billion and the loss of a few million in PPV revenue would have been minor. Instead of a drop in ratings and interest in the product one could argue that it had the opposite effect. RAW is OWEN did a 7.2 rating and the increase in interest would recover their losses at least. A 5 or 6 million dollar loss doesn’t seem very big now does it? As for disappointed people they must understand someone has died, they wouldn’t be happy but they would surely understand. The thing that really annoys me about this argument is that someone will always say "Owen would have wanted it to go on". How are they in authority to say such a thing? A great majority of them never met Owen Hart and have no real right to assume he would have wanted it to go on. It wouldn’t have saved him and he would have died but its all about respect.
How could the workers themselves be called upon to wrestle that night? Should someone like Jeff Jarrett have to wrestle in a ring stained with the blood of a friend who died minutes before? People that saw Owen Hart’s good nature and humor. They had to deal with the loss of a friend and performing would be the last thing on their minds. To drag out Jeff Jarrett and Debra, almost breaking into tears the entire time, and making them perform is a most despicable thing. If they had refused what would have been the consequences? The show was guaranteed to be poor quality once it happened anyway. You can’t get a good performance out of a roster of mourning wrestlers. People like me who don’t live in North America get the PPVs late and I along with many others didn’t even buy the show out of respect for Owen anyway. I didn’t want to see one of my favorite wrestlers plummet to his death and the Rock wouldn’t convince me otherwise.
Would many people be angry at not seeing the show? A man just died in the ring, his children now without a father, his wife never waking up next to him again and paying respect to him is more important than Billy Gunn and the Road Dogg. It could always be rescheduled anyway. It could have been held again or the matches moved to make King of the Ring very special. The wrestlers wouldn’t be upset and they would have had their head in the game. The imaginary losses would have been regained by this and it would have solved all problems.
To be fair, Vince McMahon wasn’t to blame throughout all this. He has been scapegoated and blamed for this accident when he didn’t make the equipment. It had been done before and, while needless and unnecessary, was an unfortunate accident. He had a difficult decision on May 23rd and although I believe he made a chose wrongly it was a very tough decision to make. Little blame should be placed on him and to his credit he produced what was in my opinion an excellent tribute the following night. I could never forget the heartfelt words of Helmsley and Jarrett and that is perhaps a fitting and excellent tribute to such a great worker and person.
Owen Hart deserved to have the show stopped. If it happened in Baseball the match would be instantly stopped and so it should be. Owen Hart gave years of his life to us and to selfishly watch the show in a ring stained with his blood is appalling. He deserved to have been left there as long as necessary to try and revive him, instead of just scooped up to make way for the next match. I will never watch Over the Edge 1999 and Flair/Steamboat wouldn’t have saved that show. Having respect for Owen’s memory and showing respect for his family would have been to stop the show. Owen was always a show stealer and it is perhaps fitting but tragic that he stole the spotlight again. He was a show stopper and on May 23rd, 1999 he should have stopped the show one last time.
And there you have it, three great columns from three great writers. Personally, I am relieved not to have a vote in this contest because each one of the three remaining writers did an excellent, confident job.
Unfortunately, you the reader have a very difficult task ahead of you. Only one RantWars contestant can leave the battle with the ultimate prize, their very own column at 411Mania. In order to narrow the field down to the final two hopefuls, you must vote off one of the three remaining contestants by using the high-tec voting panel below. Click on the name of the writer who you would like to eliminate and send away. If you have any comments on RantWars, please specify that they exist or else the email will be deleted after the subject header has been seen and the vote tallied. Choose wisely readers, the fate of these three writers lies entirely in your hands.
That does it for RantWars - Week6. Another thank you to Josh Grut and to you, the 411 reader, for making this contest possible. We'll be back next week with the first round of the RantWars finals and you don't want to miss it. The two advancing columnists are freestyling it again next week so again, any thoughts or suggestions should be sent in the direction of your favorite RantWars contestant.
For Chris, Adam, Shane and me, Jay Bower, we'll see you next week for RantWars - Week7!
