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Paul Daniel Bond

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Wrestling Dementia

Greetings Rap and Country fans alike! Welcome to the only internet wrestling column with the guts to welcome everyone, no matter how many bad stables their favorite musical genre has spawned! Will you get that guarentee from Scoops?

Before I start talking about wrestling, I have two things to say, one vaguely wrestling related and one just personal.

My band, Nothing But Pocket has a website at http://listen.to/nothingbutpocket. If you have a minute to spare (and if you're reading 'net wrestling columns you probably do) stop by and look around and let me know what you think. We're a rock band that sounds like a cross between Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, Tool, Pavement, and Hum. Five bucks to anyone who can convince me they've heard of all those bands :-)

On a wrestling related note, get WWF Attitude if you have a playstation. The game is insanely detailed, with killer features that let you create-a-PPV, create a wrestler (with tons more stuff than Warzone), start a singles or tag career, and has so many gimmick matches it could almost pass for a WWF PPV on its own! I've been losing sleep and putting off getting a new job, all because Attitude is more addictive than Heroin.

Side note: Don't smoke dope boys and girls. That stuff will make you stupid :-)

Who is the paragon of virtue now? Eh?!

Well campers, its shaping up to be a hell of an eventful week in the world of wrestling/sports entertainment (depending on which net gurus lingo you "dig"), so I thought I'd take a chance to get my licks in hard and fast before I got so hopelessly behind in my self-gratifying commentary that I could never catch up. So here's what's going through my mind.

1) I Get Letters (The Final Rip-Off)

Well sure I don't get so many letters as some of the good commentators, but I did manage to eke one letter out of a previous column thus far.

Chris Glowacki writessaying: The Acolytes are "goth"? How do you figure? So is Jim Ross a punk rocker?

Okay, let me explain.

My whole problem with the Acolytes comes from their involvement in the now infamous MOD angle with everyone's favorite tubby has-been. Whether you like it or not, that angle and its players were nothing if not gothic. The Acolytes were brought into the fold and started wearing tights with alleged arcane symbols and the "its not a cross...we swear to God" UT symbol on it. They posed with the various gothic members of the crew. That was fine and dandy with me (excepting the fact that the angle sucked) until they picked up the mike and talked like ignorant white trash (in Bradshaw's case) and a Martin Lawrence black stereotype (for Farooq). As far as Jim Ross being a punk rocker, I'm afraid that good ole' JR doesn't have the charming good looks and smarmy wit it takes to be a punk rocker this day. Ever since supposed punk band Green Day hit the scene the insightful social rage (which JR demonstrates in spades during every Heel run in on Raw) has been replaced by kitchy pop references and a self-deprecating wit. While JR's willingness to work the "Egads, JR is deformed and he's pissed" angle with his boy Dr. Death, his references are too much like those of Andy Griffith to give him the tools he needs.

On a related note, in an effort to increase the amounts of hate mail I receive in response to this column, I will now issue a series of inflammatory statements designed to raise the ire of various people who might read this column.

Chris Jericho is the most over-rated piece of garbage since JR first pretended that Lawrence Taylor could indeed wrestle.

Mark Madden is the most insightful columnist on the net since Bob Ryder. Its about time someone stood up to those naughty naughty men in Tita-er-I-mean WWF-Land!

The newsboard sites are easily the best way to get a jump on all those jerks that claim to "verify" their news. After all, they were right about when Shane Douglas would debut!

God, I can't lie anymore. I gotta be me!

(insert show tune)

2) The State of the WWF

Things are starting to look promising again in the fed I typically mark out to. Jericho looks to be a lock for Raw, and that will give the mid card a kick in the ass. Add to that the appearence by Jesse "The Mind/Body/Mouth" Ventura, the rumors that Shawn Michaels will be on hand, and the possible debut of Stevie Richards and you've got one hell of a show.

Ventura is going to be the real man to watch at the show. While the internet writers seem convinced that HHH's time has come, I'm not seeing all the heat that they're claiming he has. The artist formerly known as Hunter Hearst Helmsley is going up and the most over face in the history of wrestling, and if he can't generate more heat than he's getting just by virtue of being Austin's foe, I'm not sure what will generate it. Ventura is going to be vital if this match is to have the punch that a eminent PPV Main Event needs to have. Ventura could have a big impact on how well Summerslam turns out, and not a lot of wrestling guest stars can say that.

The Main-Eventers in the WWF are the reason that programming has been dragging a little. Austin is over as all hell now, but he's been doing the same damn shtick since the legendary Austin 3:16 speech, and while most of the marks may be satisfied to hear him holler "Hell Yea" every week, its starting to grate on my nerves.

Then there's the Undertaker.

Its truly sad that the one wrestler who has truly been a franchise for the WWF has gone downhill so quickly. The Undertaker has gained weight and lost a lot of the skills that made him such an electrifying presence in days of yore. He can't even walk the top rope anymore without being braced, when he actually bothers to try. He's slower than ever, and the crowds just don't care anymore. He needs some time out of the spotlight to retool and retune and refocus if he ever wants to matter again.

HHH is the newest addition to the main event ranks, and so far he's got potential, but I don't think he's ready, and that makes me wonder if he ever will be. He is a reasonably good wrestler, but he has a repetoire of moves that reminds me a little too much of Hogan. Most everything he does involves the standard brawling fare that is growing tired in the era of lightweights, and the Pedigree has never been a very convincing finisher to me. And while we on the subject of the Pedigree, why the hell is it still called that given that he dropped the blueblood gimmick way back when. While commentators call him HHH constantly to distance him from his blueblood name, his finisher is a reminder of his days in the mid-card.

The Rock is tragically underused right now, and that's a damn shame. The Rock and Jericho are the stars that are going to lead the WWF into the new millennium no matter what all you Austin marks would like to believe. Whereas many wrestlers can do amazing high flying moves to the sound of the crowd's yawns, the Rock can make the crowd explode with a mere elbow drop. His mike work is THE reason to watch Raw right now, and his interplay with Michael Cole has led me to call off the hit I had planned for the WWF's worst commentary man. The Rock is currently being utilized in a feud with Billy Gunn in an effort to get this year's KOTR some much-needed Heat. For now, that's as much Rock as we can expect, and it'll have to do.

Jericho will be a welcome addition to WWF-land. This man was the only thing that could get me to turn from Raw to Nitro, and I'm really fucking excited that I won't have to change channels to catch Jericho's rise to his rightful position as one of the top men in pro-wrestling.

On a side note, I love Pepper the Talking Dog. Everytime Al Snow starts to get old he pulls something out of his ass to make him entertaining again.

3) The State of the WCW

Hogan has the belt.

Benoit is jobbing to David Flair.

Raven is becoming a "spiritual advisor" to Vampiro and the Insane Clown Posse.

Sometimes I watch because I secretly love to suffer, but the pain is too great. No matter how much damn talent they keep bringing in, things still seem stale. The same elderly Superpowers still wrestle in the main events, and the Face with the title has a rare illness that prevents him from performing jobs. Nitro's content and ratings are so bad that I'm having a hard time believing that its all an accident. I'm beginning to wonder if Bischoff is being paid of by McMahon.

4) The State of Internet Commentary

CRZ is still listing me as a freelancer, so I suppose he hasn't been impressed enough with my wrestling related babbling to make me one of the "Slash Posse." Will the injustice never end? Will CRZ read this, take pity on me, and grant me my childhood wish? Will he read this and deny me? You'll just have to tune in next week to find out children. I'm sure the tension is killing you.

My congratulations go out to you if you managed to wade through an article this long with such anemic material. Maybe you kids can send me some ideas about what you'd like to see me tackle? While I may not show it, I am getting an English major, so I should be able to deal with whatever you send to me. Then again, I'm not sure anyone is reading this, so I may just be talking to myself.

Ah, self-depricating humor is a beautiful thing.

Until next time, send your flames to the address below.

Paul Daniel Bond
freelance

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Guest column text copyright (C) 1999 by the individual author and used with permission