Friendly Competition 8.11.07

Posted by Stuart Carapola on 08.11.2007

Screw you, I think bringing Pacman Jones in is a GREAT idea!

I've been watching these news reports about coal mine accidents this week, with people getting trapped and/or killed in coal mines, and it occured to me that all these accidents could be avoided if people would just behave themselves. Think about it, what do you get in your stocking at Christmas if you misbehave? That's right, coal, and where do you suppose this coal comes from? That's right, coal mines. I want you all to think about that: every time you misbehave, you're putting innocent lives at risk. You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

By the way, I just thought I'd point out that I haven't watched any wrestling on TV for weeks now, and I really don't miss it at all. In fact, it seems to me that most of the people who are reading this probably don't watch wrestling as much as they used to and just read the reports on 411 or elsewhere to get what's going on. It occured to me that if I'm not watching and nobody else is, why even bother writing about it? I really don't care if Batista beats Khali at Summerslam, loses, or gets a sex change operation in the middle of the ring. Instead, I'll just write about whatever I want. Most of it will be wrestling-related, but no guarantees.

Get Over Or Get Out

Now here's something I have been watching lately, and that's a lot of old NWA tapes, and one thing I took away from them (other than the fact that Mark Lewin really sucked) was that those guys really knew how to play to the crowds. They'd try something, and if it didn't work, they'd try something else and see if that got over better. They were able to adapt. Contrast that with today's kids in WWE who don't know thing one about getting over with crowds. They have their one or two signature crowd interaction gimmicks that Creative gave them and expect them to work everywhere, and when they don't pop a crowd they're lost. They don't realize that different crowds won't react to the same thing and don't know how to adapt, and that's why the crowds they do manage to draw sit on their hands all night. Jim Cornette has stories about how he and the Midnight Express would go from territory to territory and have to keep coming up with new stuff because what worked in, say, Texeas wouldn't work in Memphis. I swear, when I watch WWE on the rare occasions that I do these days, it's like watching one of those snow globes because it's completely cut off from everything going on around it, ie: the crowd. It's like they're saying "This is WWE, creativity not advised." Then again, I also get the impression that some guys don't throw as many (or at least as well thought out) ideas at Creative as they probably should because they're afraid of getting shot down, but that's another rant.

Guy And The Tramp?

Bit of backstory: my girlfriend and I both grew up in New York, but I grew up in Westchester and she grew up on Long Island. We were having dinner last weekend and I forget exactly how we got on the subject, but I said something and she said it was a "typical Westchester way of looking at things." I asked her what that meant, and she said it's because people from Westchester have this reputation of being snobs who look down on everyone else. I said that's not true because even though Westchester has its fair share of rich areas like Chappaqua, Scarsdale, Bedford, and Bronxville, there's a lot more to Westchester than she's seeing. I grew up in Hawthorne, which is a blue collar, working class town, and there's at least as many of those as there are rich areas. There are also some straight up ghettos in Westchester. You won't catch me walking around Mt Vernon, Yonkers, Peekskill, or parts of White Plains alone at night. I told her that the reason we have this reputation in her neck of the woods is because the only people from Westchester that she saw on Long Island were the rich people on their way down to their summer houses in the Hamptons, and that she probably didn't see many gang members from Mt Vernon heading to their beach houses for the weekend. She also started razzing me because my friends and I hang out at Starbucks, but I pointed out that we hang out there because it's the only thing there is to do in town, and if that Starbucks weren't there then we'd probably hang out in front of a 7-11 or deli or something, and that it's not like I clap my hands and go "Bring the car around, Horatio. I desire a latte."

So then I asked her if she considered me a typical Westchester snob, and her response was "Welllll...you can be a bit cocky and you do have an attitude, but not for the most part, no." I told her that this was good and, for what it's worth, I don't consider her a typical Long Islander. She asks what I think a typical Long Islander is, and I asked her if she really wanted to know. She said yes, so I told her: "Low class white trash and drunk guineas who beat up their big-haired wives." She seemed slightly offended and tried to push that off on New Jersey, but I stood by my stereotype. I also said there's nothing to do on Long Island unless you want to go to the beach, which I'm personally bored to death by. She pointed out that there's always all kinds of traffic jams coming in and out of Long Island, and that she never sees traffic james going in and out of Westchester. I explained that this was because there's more than four ways in and out of Westchester. So I started busting her chops the rest of the night, like I held the door for her on the way out of the diner (which of course served quail), and told her that I learned how to do that at Etiquitte School. I took her to Coldstone in my chariot, and after we dined on a couple of Gotta Love It cookie dough delights, told her that I tired of this mind numbing drudgery and suggested we take a ride on my yacht. She hit me.

Joe Or Danielson?

Samoa Joe is almost universally recognized as the greatest ROH World Champion thus far, but I take issue with that because I recognize Bryan Danielson as being a better World Champion, for several reasons. I think that there are two main factors that you can attribute people's view of Joe's reign to: the length of the title reign (21 months) and the series with CM Punk. Well, Bryan Danielson didn't reign for quite as long as Samoa Joe, though at 15 months he is by far the second longest-reigning ROH World Champion. But here's something else to think about: he had several more successful title defenses than Joe did, and the guys he defended against were generally stronger competition than Joe's challengers. Sure, Joe went through Christopher Daniels, both Briscoes, AJ Styles, Homicide, and CM Punk during his reign, but those were his strongest challengers and, out of the bunch, Styles and Homicide were the only ones who really meant anything when they were challenging Joe. As much as I love them, the Briscoes were tag team wrestlers who never had a shot of getting the title (and still don't), and Punk had a really crappy record and was totally elevated by the Joe series. I don't think he would have won it in 2005 if it weren't for that series. Danielson, on the other hand, not only defeated Homicide, Styles, and Daniels, but also Austin Aries, Roderick Strong four times, future GHC Heavyweight Champion Naomichi Marufuji, KENTA, Steve Corino, Lance Storm, Colt Cabana several times, and a KILLER feud with Nigel McGuinness which Danielson won every time out when it went to a fall. He did a lot more long marathons than Joe, and though Joe is very versatile, his style stays pretty much the same no matter who he's in there with, while Danielson has shown his ability to adapt to the style of the opponent he's in the ring with while still managing to get in all his trademark stuff. Also, several of Danielson's opponents were people coming into ROH from the outside specifically to challenge for the title, and he beat them all, and that's something Joe can't say. I'd be interested to know what people would have thought about the "greatest ROH World Champion" if Danielson's title reign had come before Joe's and where they would stand in that case. There's no doubt that they're the two best, but which is better? I say Danielson, but you might not agree.

Always An Infocommie

So is anyone else out there a fan of the old school Infocom games like Zork, Planetfall, Enchanter, Wishbringer, and Leather Goddesses Of Phobos? Let me tell you something, those are THE old school classic games by which all other adventure games should be measured. For those who weren't around for the early 80s, Infocom was this company that made these computer adventure games that had no graphics. That's right, no graphics whatsoever. Everything was text based, and they had these wonderful descriptions of all the places you go and it could understand just about anything you typed into it, which was really impressive for a floppy disk based game at the time. I think a lot of those games would sadly be considered boring by today's youth which lives and dies by hair trigger shooting games and epic RPGs, but for those who enjoy working through puzzles to solve their way through a game, meeting all kinds of weird characters (that you don't usually have to fight!) and awesome settings, I highly suggest you look up Infocom and see if you can find a link to download some of their games, which must surely have found their way onto the internet by now. Actually, what I'd like any fellow Infocommies to do is write to me at [e-mail] and tell me about what your favorite games were, favorite memories of playing Infocom games, and anything else. Hell, let's broaden the field and throw in the old school Sierra adventure games as well like King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Manhunter, the Black Cauldron, Code Name: Iceman, Quest For Glory, and others. I love talking about this stuff.

Honor Amongst Dredges

A lot of people seem to think that bringing this Pacman guy into TNA is a really bad idea. At a time when wrestling is under intense scrutiny due to the Chris Benoit situation, people feel that bringing a guy who may well soon become a convicted felon into the company is not the image TNA wants to be shooting for. But let's think about this for a second, if we're really being honest with ourselves, how much harm can this possibly do? As a general rule, people expect the worst out of pro wrestling, and that's just the way it's always been and always will be. They could drop the Pacman idea tomorrow and bring in the Pope instead and nobody will think any more highly of wrestling. The good news is that they probably can't think any worse of wrestling either after the Benoit situation. If you look at it that way, then they're bringing Pacman in at the perfect time. Besides, this isn't exactly a business known for the high class and exceptional morals of those who work within it. With a business full of convicted criminals like New Jack, MVP, Ken Patera, Marty Jannetty, and people with heavily publicized substance abuse problems like Scott Hall, Jake Roberts, and Tammy Sytch, and just some flat out fucking scumbags like...oh, well...every promoter who's ever lived, does Pacman really seem all that bad by comparison? Sure, a guy got paralyzed because of an incident he was ALLEGEDLY involved in. Sure, it's probably not going to increase buyrates or ratings, but is it really going to make things any worse than they already are?

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That's it for me this week. All praise and well wishes can be sent to [e-mail] as usual, and I'll see you back here next week, assuming everything goes according to plan. Later.