The 411Mania News-Center! 07.13.03
Posted by Jay Bower on 07.13.2003
The Bower & Burgan Cartoon Showcase, IWC entry for Dummies, house show homoeroticism + more...
The 411Mania News-Center
~07.13.03~
With: Jay Bower
Hey there and welcome back to yet another edition of The 411Mania News-Center. I'm Jay Bower and as always, I'll be strapping your bib on as we embark on this metaphorical clam bake through all the weekend news. That sounds like fun doesn't it? "HEY! I want Flea back". Well, I'm sorry but..."Hey, you're not the guy who uses the stars"...yeah, well...sorry but "Give us Pank Diddy, more Pank Diddy!"...ummm, I can't but..."Fuck you, I want Hyatte!". Sorry friends, but unless your planning a trip to Greenwich, England to leap and skip about the international dateline, you're just going to have to wait another day to read Hyatte! (Jay chuckles and takes a puff of his pipe).
Well, I hope you kids are having a great weekend and we won't further delay things with banter as we have an absolute ton of things to get to this week. Get out your notepads children, you'll probably want to take some of this down. And...............................we're off!
Bower's Bits
According to 1Wrestling.com, World Wrestling Entertainmeant has signed Shannon "Daffney" Ward to a developmental contract. The former WCW valet who was best known for screaming, screaming and screaming even more will report to Ohio Valley Wrestling soon and was asked to cancel her planned Indy dates. When 411Mania News-Center correspondent The Bully reached Daffney's agent for comment, he replied "What? I can't hear you".
World Wrestling Entertainment has also come to terms with Paul London, a shining young prospect who has made a name for himself in Ring of Honor, Major League Wrestling and TNA. London will be allowed to compete in one more Ring of Honor event before being sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling to be brainwashed. Did I say brainwashed, I meant positively encouraged to forget everything that got him noticed by World Wrestling Entertainment and focus on a maximum of three moves with snappy names that he will be doing for the rest of his WWE career. "Watch the pretty coin of gold and you shall do as you are told". Indeed. (Ten Bower points to anyone who identified that quote as coming from the episode of Scooby-Doo where the maniacal circus clown was hypnotizing people at the big top.)
According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Crash Holly may have been released as a result of having words with the creative team in regards to his push or lack there of. While it hasn't been confirmed, sources tell me that Crash was upset because he wanted the role of "One legged wrestler" that Zach Gowen was given. When officials explained to Crash that the gimmick would work best to wrestlers without both legs, he cried discrimination and sent Bob Holly to beat up Johnny Ace's kids.
Also from the Observer Newsletter (And I wish I was making this up), Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar have been celebrating victory at the end of Smackdown brand house shows in a very unique manor as of late. After the duo clear the ring of the heinous heels, Brock Lesnar has been coming up behind Kurt Angle and pulling his tights up in a thong like fashion. Then, Angle comes up behind Brock Lesnar and does the same. As if this wasn't questionable enough, the two men finish the routine by slapping each other's exposed backsides. WHAT THE HELL? According to Dave Meltzer, the general feeling of fans leaving the arena is an "uneasy" one which is bound to be expected out of such a just plain bizarre celebration. Apparently this behavior has stopped after it crashed and burned in front of live crowds thankfully however. In other news, the August Smackdown brand house show in Key West has sold out the 350,000 seat IslandDome.
Before Hulk Hogan left World Wrestling Entertainment yet again, the plan was for him to face Vince McMahon at Vengeance in a hair vs. mask match and likely go over. The creative issues that led to him leaving the company? WWE officials were unable to determine how exactly to shave the head of a man with a toupee.
According to The Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter, the former eye-patch wearing Quebecer Pierre Oulette was recently given a tryout with World Wrestling Entertainment. The general feeling amongst WWE officials is that WWE has lost touch with its fanbase and is ready to start giving them what they want, starting with an overweight pirate.
Also from the Torch, the current reputation for Orlando Jones as that though still green in the ring, he handles himself well in the back. Translation: When Bradshaw rapes him, he doesn't resist.
Credit: The Pro-Wrestling Torch Newsletter (subscription information here.)
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscription information here.)
The Bower N' Burgan Cartoon Showcase
For the past seven weeks, The 411Mania News-Center has been bringing you the internet's premier comic strip that features a rubber Triple H mask. However, readers have spoken and they have said "Jay, One cartoon simply ISN'T enough to get me through the week, for I... I need another".
"Ok" I said, "I'll start making TWO weekly cartoons."
"No Jay, we mean we want another cartoon from someone who's actually funny".
Oh.
Like a guardian angel, the call came from Derek Burgan of the PWTorch. Aside from being the best columnist on the internet not currently employed by 411Mania, Derek is actually one hell of a cartoonist. I first discovered Derek's talent when he hooked me up with some DVD's out of the goodness of his heart and included a hilarious comic which I believe featured Dusty Rhodes. Now, for the first time anywhere, Derek unveils his prowess alongside Jay Bower in the first of what will hopefully become a long line of cartoon collaborations.
Derek is up first with a glimpse of what popular cartoons might look like if written by folks within the wacky world of wrestling.
* Replaying the Zach Gowen segment from last week was probably a necessary evil as the holiday weekend really cut in to Smackdown! ratings last week and because WWE is pushing Gowen's debut as a historic moment (which it was), they just likely wanted as many new viewers to see it as possible who may have missed it last week.
* All kidding aside, do you know who Stephani McMahon is seriously starting to look like with her black singlet and boots, thick body and frizzy brown hair? The Big Show in 2001 before he got his haircut.
* I love Zach Gowen. Besides being a PR dream come true, his story is one of the most inspirational in wrestling history. With that said, it really saddens me to see him walking around with Stephani McMahon as though he is a monkey and she is his handler. He is missing a leg yet she talks to him like he is mentally retarded and I think he would be a lot more effective running with Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar now that Mr. America bailed on him. The guy is tough, probably legitamately tougher than anyone on the roster given the lemonade he has made out of lifes lemons, maybe it's time to spot treating him like a kid and a tool to get Stephani over.
* The McMahon level of involvement has gotten just ridiculous on the Smackdown side and creepier by the week. Aside from Shane who I think could actually draw a pretty big buyrate if Vince "sent him" to Raw to take Triple H's title at pay-per-view X, Vince and Stephani are only stealing air time from their own employees. Stephani's blow-dried hair and obnoxious babyface promos make not only Zach Gowen but everyone who she endorses look like a charity case. When Sable attacked Stephani on screen, my roomate Nick looked to me and said this possibly can't get any worse. When we returned from break and Vince McMahon was tongue-kissin' Sable, I thought to myself that Nick was close to being proven wrong. Then, with a peircing cry that sounded like a mix between virginity lost and Rod Stewart hitting a high note, Stephani came darting across the screen like Shawn Stasiak during his clutzy phase, speared Sable and started wailing on her while I sat in embarassment. I wonder who the ring general is who will carry this match at Vengeance?
* Kurt Angle rapping was PRICELESS. Sure it did nothing to get him over as a badass, but it was the kind of thing that likely grabbed the attention of the swing viewers at the top of the hour. I was literally hunched over laughing at the end of the rhyme when Angle --getting extremely into it as the crowd feuled him --started busting out some dance steps so goofy that even John Cena was cracking a smile. The huge "EAST SIDE" at the end was a nice touch as well.
So You Want to be an Internet Wrestling Celebrity?
There isn't a day that goes by that someone doesn't rudely step in front of me on the streets, tug on my shirt tail and ask "Jay, how can I too become an internet wrestling celebrity?". Now normally I just lower my shades, give them a degrading look and then unleash unthinkable bodily harm on their children, but I've been doing a lot of reflection lately. I think it's time to give back to the little people who have inflated my hit count, turned me into AMERICA'S FAVORITE Sunday columnist and made me a very, very unwealthy man.
Before you begin your trek towards unbridled internet wrestling fame, look yourself in the mirror, spit-flatten that feather in your hair and ask yourself "Why do I want to become an Internet Wrestling Celebrity?". If you think that a column at 411Mania will lead to fast cars and faster women, you're wrong. If you think that it will open doors to a future career in journalism, you're wrong as well. If you think it will turn you in to the next Dave Meltzer, you're wrong again as most writers who have been doing this for years have still never broken an actual story on their own. Do you think it will make lines of contact easier with wrestlers like the reader who emailed Ken Anderson asking if he could meet Sting? Still wrong as if anything, wrestlers seem to dislike we thirteen year olds (on our parents computers) even more than the typical "smart" fan.
So what is redeeming about being an internet wrestling celebrity you wonder? The answer to that question, absolutely nothing! The truth of the matter is that regardless of how high the pedestal is that many of us put ourselves on, Internet fame means exactly NOTHING when a writer shuts down his computer and walks in to the real world and likely gets talked down to the same way that they themselves talk down to those "beneath them" in the bizarre world of internet wrestling.
Maybe you'll be lucky enough to have cool readers like my boy Albert send you a free video from time to time, that would make it worth it right? Not so fast! Good columnists spend upwards of five or six hours a week on their columns, time that could be spent at a paying job that perhaps even betters society. Even if you made minimum wage, you would still make more than enough in the time spent writing the column to buy TWO videos. Congratulations, you're now one copy of The Super J Cup in the hole!
"But Jay! If I write a successful column, I can chat wrestling with other Internet Wrestling Celebrities!" you shout. Not so fast grasshopper. If other internet wrestling writers are anything like myself, they are likely so tired of talking wrestling once they finish their weekly column that they simply don't want to chatter about wrestling for another six days. Plus, your buddies from the forums probably carry on a much better wrestling conversation anyway without the over-inflated ego and bloated sense of self-importance getting in the way!
But it gets better, have you ever dreamed of being bossed around by someone who doesn't even pay you! While Widro and Ash are seriously great people to write for who never really demand anything out of their staff and Scott was a cool "employer" over at TheSmarks, it's what you're in for and if you write for Another Leading Site, I hear the site owner likes to be called "boss".
Is your glass half full? Well, if the internet wrestling community were a world in itself then we would be experiencing a red alert water shortage! Just remember, once you become a celebrity, it's absolutely essential that you STOP enjoying wrestling. In fact, unbridled hatred sells like hotcakes, so forget everything that you like about wrestling, because it no longer exists!
"But Jay...Feedback...it's all about the feedback!". Yes friends, feedback is one of the best parts about being an internet wrestling celebrity and I'm sure the fact that a few dozen complimentary emails turn up in one's inbox a week may be a good reason to stick around. However, what you don't know about is that for every four pieces of kind, constructive email you receive, some gnome who ran your entire column through a spell check discovers that you misspelled the word "scoliosis" and wants to spend the rest of the afternoon telling you how unqualified you are for your newly found unpaid occupation! "I've got thick skin, I can handle it Jay". Well, he's not the one you need thick skin for, it's the dozens of extremely courteous people who go out of there way to write you long, personal emails about how much they enjoy your writing who you need thick skin for. Why do you need protection? Because before long, you are going to fall drastically behind in responding to their awesome email and feel like a complete douchebag because of it. No matter how hard you try, you'll still always be two weeks behind in answering the simplest of email and if you are anything like me, you'll end up feeling awful about all of the people who took the time to support you and now likely feel as though you're an ingrate who doesn't care. I care, you will probably care, but you'll still have to deal with letting down your readers from time to time.
It's not over though, look forward to eventually getting in to the scene so deeply that getting out is not an option. Look at Online Onslaught for example. "The Rick" has spent over five years devoting ten to fifteen hours a week to his columns and what has it got him? Nothing but a large stack of server bills. A legacy? Hardly, within two years 75% of his readers will probably have spouses, a career and no longer care about wrestling. Why doesn't he get out? Because he can't. Internet wrestling celebrities spend so much time making a name for themselves in binary code that if they up and go, it would be like throwing years of hard work in the garbage and would spell countless hours down the drain. If they continue, their legacy will increase but at the expense of even more hours of their lives that they can never take back. Surely when Scott Keith, CRZ, Scaia, myself or any other member of the IWC are on our death beds someday, we'll wish we could take back every second that we wasted writing wrestling columns. Imagine the income, real world success or other tangible satisfaction that you could achieve beyond your desktop before you even think about writing a column because you have no idea what you are getting yourself in to.
Why am I still involved in this scene then? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. Each week when I finish writing the 411Mania News-Center, I think to myself that I can't keep devoting so much time to a wrestling column and then without fail, the next week I am sitting right back down in front of my computer to photoshop a monkey dropping Bananas on Triple H. Deep down, I guess the fifteen minutes of fame is gratifying and beneath the cranky exteriors of every other major columnist out there --regardless of how "too cool for the school" they may act-- I think they must feel the same way or else they would be making other use of their time.
Now that you have been thoroughly warned of the dangers of becoming an internet wrestling celebrity, there is nothing I can do to stop you if you are still feeling masochistic enough to want your own wrestling column. I can't guarantee success because everyone just isn't cut out to be a writer, but follow these nine steps to optimize your chances of success!
Step 1:Ask yourself, do I have some basic writing skills and a decent knowledge of wrestling dating back at least five years?
If your answer to either of these questions is no, I think it's time to find a new goal. If you can write at least at a high school level and can not only recall major in front of and behind the scenes events from at least the past five years, but can reference them in relation to today's events, then you may move on to step 2.
Step 2:Spend some time on a decent message board and hone your craft.
Useful hint: If all of the other posters on the message board still tell you that you are a moron after the goofy "Grizzly, respected posters heckle the new kids who certainly mustn't know as much about grapplin" period is over, it's probably time to find a new goal.
I can't stress enough how good of an idea this is as it's not only a fun way to interact with other wrestling fans, but provides instant feedback to not only your point, but the manor in which you present it (which is just as important if not more important than the point itself). I would strongly recommend the forums at the SmartMarks.com. Serving as an Ohio Valley Wrestling of sorts, the forums played home to at least five or six members of Flea's new IWC100 before they began writing regular columns, including myself. Don't waste time associating yourself with "posting stables", gimmickry or other tomfoolery, just spend as much time in the wrestling section as possible. Try to come up with new topics that have never been started and attempt to look at items in an angle that others before you haven't, I guarantee you that it will help you overcome writers block when you begin writing a column. Message boards, you WILL improve as a result of them.
Step 3:Focus your style.
Now that you have a forum to share your wrestling opinions, it's time to start focusing your style. If Scott Keith, Hyatte, Eric S, NoSoul, R.D. Reynolds, Josh Grut, The Scotsman or other popular writers on the internet all wrote a paragraph about the exact same topic, the reader would be able to identify each and every author without being told because each of these writers all have developed distinctive styles of their own. A style is not something that you just pull from a hat, most of the time it's an extension of yourself. This style will only rear its ugly head after you, the potential internet wrestling celebrity, compose paragraph after paragraph after god-forsaken paragraph. When you finally see it, hone in on it, develop it and start incorporating it in to everything that you write.
Step 4:Develop Trademarks.
Much like unique styles, every popular writer has a few trademarks that make him stick out from the pack. Scott Keith? Patented cynicism and star ratings, Chris Hyatte? Something coming from so far out of left field that readers click on his columns in droves in "can't miss" fashion. Eric S.? World affairs entangled with the sport of wrestling. Ric Scaia? That unbelievable trick where he never credits his news. NoSoul? A newspaper type presentation that lets readers know that they can't possibly be reading anyone else but him. Me? Frequent conversations with a third-person reader who doesn't exist as well as some gumshoe Photoshop disasters.
Much like style, reoccurring themes aren't something that one can normally come up with in five minutes. Usually, they come about as a result of throwing everything at the fan that you have and seeing what sticks. If you find that readers, fellow posters or friends take a liking to a certain aspect of your work, latch on to it.
Step 5:Name your column.
What's in a name? Everything if you want to be an Internet Wrestling Celebrity! A good column name is almost as important as your writing itself. "Circa", The Netcop Rant", "Online Onslaught", "The Main Event", "The Midnight News", all names that by themselves seem edgy and inviting. Shoot for a name that has the same appeal and is all-inclusive. For example, "Midcard Madness" is a new column at 411Mania. The name is snappy, flows off the tongue and has a bit of pie-zaz to it, but what happens if Chris Robinson wants to talk about the lower card, or perhaps the upper card? Another example is David Murphy, one of my favorite columnists here at 411Mania. What if, let's say, Nazi's rose to power, took over Raw and Smackdown and turned each show in to a two hour infomercial for their platform. Poor Mr. Murphy would certainly have a difficult time with "In Praise Of" then! There is always a way around it, but try to concoct a column name that is adaptable to almost any type of situation.
Step 6:Begin work on a sample column.
Now that you feel as though you are ready to see your name in lights, you should start working on a sample column, a piece of writing that should be the culmination of everything that you have learned over the last several months of honing your craft. No matter how big of an internet wrestling celebrity you may someday become, this piece of writing will remain the most important thing that you will ever write. The following guidelines should not under any circumstances be broken:
1) Do NOT submit a Raw or Smackdown review/recap as your sample column. There are so many trained monkeys spouting off about the same show each and every week that honestly there is almost nothing you could say in review of either show that would warrant the webmaster in question even making it halfway through your sample without throwing it in the recycle bin. I can't even bring myself to read my own Raw review most weeks and chances are, however original your thoughts are, they have already been said by someone with a much larger audience than you. Don't fight a losing battle, it's not worth your time.
2) Do NOT write a column about how Chris Benoit is being misused, the fact that John Cena should be pushed harder or the need for more four-star matches. It's a guarantee that Widro, Scaia, Dames or whoever else you are sending your column too will have ten other samples in his inbox saying the exact same thing. The sad fact is that 90% of the people with regular columns on the internet are saying the exact same thing too, the world doesn't need one more of them.
3) Write a sample with a shelf life of at least one month. Regardless of what you may think, Webmasters are real people too who's lives consist of more than refreshing their mailboxes every five minutes and praying for another dozen 3,000 word tryout columns. If you work countless hours on a tryout column about how Paul London should be introduced to WWE audiences and then three days later he debuts on Smackdown, the webmaster may not read your column for another three weeks. The key to a website showing interest in your work is you keeping the interest of the person evaluating your column, and if you are talking about how something should happen that already did, consider yourself history.
4) Be original and showcase your trademarks and style without overdoing them. I can NOT stress the importance of originality enough. Reading 500 RantWars entries on the same topic, the only thing that kept me from shooting myself was those writers who thought outside of the box. Keep in mind those entries had a limit of 500 words. Now try to imagine Widro and Ashish trying to pick gold out of thousands of 3,000 word samples that come in every month. If you don't hook them within two paragraphs, I don't think that the cure for cancer you have closed out the column with will even matter, because your sample was probably deleted long before. DO NOT be the man who stands in the middle of a rainstorm and says "It's raining, it's raining, it's raining...". State the obvious and no one will care. It's the not-so-obvious that sharpens the interest of webmasters and future readers alike.
5) Spell check, grammar check and reread your column at least five or six times before submission. Include a formal introduction and conclusion.
6) You may now submit your sample column!
Step 7:Wait...and wait...and wait.
Be prepared to wait quite a while after submitting your sample column. You will probably be deferred to a stack of dozens of other sample columns to sift through when the webmaster has a break from work, life and running his website. Do NOT pester the webmaster about the status of your column because that generally tends to lead to not only your "annoying" email being deleted, but your sample as well. 99% of the time a webmaster will only respond if he chooses to add you to the staff due to the sheer volume of submissions that come in and the extreme lack of time that he faces. If three weeks pass, it is safe to assume that the website in question is either not interested in you or not seeking columnists at the time. In this case, it's not the end of the world. Simply pass your work around to a few friends and ask for constructive criticism. After hearing their input, make necessary changes and resubmit your sample column to the website as well as several others under a different email address.
Step 8:I got accepted Jay, now what!
Congratulations, you are now officially an internet wrestling celebrity! You no longer need me to hold your hand, but just remember to stick with what brought you to the dance at first. Sure, writers change over time. The Scotsman began as a newsboard poster, Hyatte began with Mop-Ups and AAT's and Josh Grut went from "A Wrestling Tale" to hitting you with the Junk News, HUZZAH, but initially showcase to the readers what got you noticed by the webmaster. Don't come in and act like you own the place, if you'll notice writers like that generally don't last very long. Encourage feedback, learn from it and treat readers with respect. If you are like most new columnists, you will stick around for three, maybe four columns before discovering that it's not what it's cracked up to be, but maybe, just maybe you'll end up being an internet wrestling celebrity for life! If this is the case, move ahead to step 9.
Step 9:Suicide, glorious glorious suicide!
This has been a public service announcement from Jay Bower. It does not necessarily represent the thoughts or opinions of 411Mania.com.
A Plug, A Plug, My Kingcone for a Plug.
My main man is back and just like a father coming home with a pint of Ben & Jerry's to reward his daughter's fine report card, NoSoul is saying SCOOP THIS Princess! Although I'm sure you've already read it if you're settling for my column, check it if you haven't.
Call the 411 Fire Control Unit because RantWars is going up in flames! With two finalists left, Chris Sharp has denounced his fandom from the sport of wrestling in a surprising turn of events. There's more than meets the eye to the RantWars finals however so stay tuned and best of luck with Chris and Shane in the voting which ends late Monday.
People LOVE The Little Things around these parts as evident by the 411Mania forums. Luckily for us, John B. Haley comes around a lot more often than his comet, and lucky for the ladies he doesn't have a tail either, so check him out. It's amongst the finest columns here at the Mania and anyone who can work the line "How you gonna say that my rims aren't clean" into a column gets my HIGHEST endorsement.
What's the difference between The Oratory and the Roman Coliseum. Nothing! They both boast fine columns! However, you might be better served with the Oratory as we normally don't have any flying buttresses to speak of aside from Drqshadow when he puts his steppin' shoes on. Just a mass amount of quality content added this week including the feature-packed one year anniversary of the Smackdown grades, so by all means check it out. Brace yourselves as well for a huge staff column coming in the next week that I'll be taking part in. Ya' heard me!
While you're at it, bookmark O2 (Oratory Opinions) and take a look through. I'll be bringing a version of the old Smarklog back from the dead to add to the already great site in the upcoming week. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Last week, Retro Rob did NOT interview Trish. In fact, Trish doesn't even have a computer. In fact, she is illiterate and blind. (Vince McMahon takes the gun away from Jay's head). What's Rob doing this week, he's got a brand new column SUCKKKKA. It's called The Booking Report and I got a kick out of it and look forward to many more editions to come. Meet me at TheSmartmarks.com, last one there is a rotton egg! You don't want to be a ROTTEN EGG do you?
Well there you have it, another edition of the 411Mania News-Center in the history books. Thanks as always for spending Sundays with me and as always, feedback is welcome, appreciated, considered and sometimes even printed and smeared all over my near-naked body. On that note, have a great week and I'll be seeing you soon. Until then, so much time, so little to do...wait, strike that.
You will bring ME an everlasting gobstopper. Your reward? TWENTY THOUSAND OF'DEEEESSSE.
YOU STOLE FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS, YOU BUMPED INTO THE CEILINGS WHICH NOW HAVE TO BE WASHED AND CONTAMINATED. You lose! You get NOTHING! GOOD DAY SIR!
