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/wrestling /guests /Chris Jones |
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/wrestling /guests /Chris Jones |
| Guest Columns | Chris Jones |
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WAL-MART, MARKS, AND BOOBS! OH MY! Hola, mes amis! Yes! I'm BACK with something other than a recap! ROCK! RULE! KICK ASS! Now the question is do any of you actually care, or are the 4-5 e-mails I get a week just from obsessed pre-stalkers who have nothing better to do? I'm hoping for the latter, myself. I've never had a stalker before! Woo Hoo! But regardless, in this article of doom you'll learn about my experiences with the dredge of wrestling society, some meaningless random crap, and I'll tie up some loose ends from previous works. For example, I don't contribute nearly enough to include a regular "mailbox" feature, so I'm officially putting the kibosh on Ask Ch... damn it... ASK CHRIS ANYTHING. But rest assured that I DO answer every message I receive, and if there's a really good reason, I may print a letter or two in the future. But hoarding up a month's worth of e-mail would make for a massive column, and who wants that? Speaking of e-mails... I have been experiencing off and on problems with my account since "Terri Runnels' Nipple" was posted. A few of you told me that you'd tried sending me e-mail, only to have it returned. Some of you said you sent me things but I never answered it. As I said, if I GET it, I'll respond. So if you mailed me something of extreme importance and never heard anything back, give it another try. And thanks to everyone who responded to my "where's some good entrance theme sites?" query. Almost every site suggested was a good one, making me realize that you readers know of far better sites than I do. So with that in mind, I've got another question for you: where can a guy find some sites that make decent screen captures of the weekly shows? I'm talking good quality pictures that aren't plastered with the logo of the site making them, as that really annoys me. If you know of such a site, or own one yourself, drop me a line with the address. And if it IS your site, I'll be happy to plug it in a future work. Such as... WCW Mayhem is coming up in a few weeks, which I'll have a recap of. And then on December 3rd, I'll be attending a WCW house show and I'll bust out some results of that. And if you're planning to attend that show at the Salina Bicentennial Center, send me a message! We'll meet up and you can buy me a Rey Mysterio baseball jersey! And now, let's get into the meat of the bull... or something. As you might have inferred from the title, I have three main subjects to discuss here: Wal-Mart, marks, and boobs. I'll shatter that order and start with "boobs", as I don't want anyone jumping forward and missing anything. Simply put... if you haven't gotten, seen, or stolen the "Playboy's Wrestling Superstar" magazine that's all about Sable, for God's sake (or Jeff Jarrett's), DO SO! I could do an entire column about how I hate Rena Mero, how she's a opportunistic bitch who thought she could capitalize on a misfortune to further herself... but frankly, why waste the time? Remember all those interviews she gave about talking with "almost every" major studio in Hollywood? Boy, it sure is good to see that it PAID OFF for her! Bwahahahaha! (Seriously, what has the woman accomplished since leaving the WWF? She's going to film some straight-to-video movie in a few months that will likely rival Chairman of the Board in terms of suck factor and Return to Savage Beach in terms of crap sex scenes. She's gotten a little press on shows like Extra and Entertainment Tonight, programs with such low credibility that they cover ANYTHING. Christ, she was an answer on the Jeopardy teen tournament last week and NO ONE KNEW WHO SHE WAS! Her situation is downright funny. And notice how I enclosed this in parentheses so that it's not actually part of the column and thus I'm not wasting time on it. Am I good or what?) But that said... SHIT, she's hot! And this magazine is packed with nothing but naked pictures of her. Not some 8 page layout... it's PACKED. Bunches of shots from both shoots, some of which are better than the ones we've already seen, in my opinion. Do yourself a favor... go check it out. You'll thank me later! Moving on... we come to the main chunk of this column, the "marks" portion. Several weeks ago I was discussing the state of wrestling with some friends of mine who, like me, are vocal in their opinions. But the cool thing is that we all surf the net, we're hip to the latest info like most of you likely are, and our discussions are laid back and fun as we discuss pros and cons of this, opinions on that, and everything in between. One of my friends pointed out that there's a few wrestling fans in his college debate class who slightly follow the internet wrestling scene and he can't stand to discuss anything with them. It seems they get their "news" off any random crappy newsboard and despite being debaters who are trained to argue, they refuse to listen to any opinions but theirs... they don't believe anything my friend says, even if it came off the most reliable news sites... and they're generally pains in the ass. Or in other words, they're "marks" trying to be "smarts". Now before I continue, let's get some formalities out of the way. EVERYONE reading this, including myself, is a mark... but there are LEVELS to mark status. People who subscribe to the Torch and have the Observer Hotline on speed dial are as inside the wrestling business as an outsider can get... but they're STILL marks on certain levels. The kid who's getting on the net for the first time, doing a search for "wrestling", and pulling up Rock 3:16's Oh You Didn't Know I'm The Game newsboard is a mark... but at the other end of the spectrum. And to clarify, I'm not saying people with no inside knowledge are bad. I wouldn't mind going back to the way it was years ago, when my inside info came from copies of PWI every month. No matter what happened at a show, I was always surprised. Anyway... I thought it'd be interesting to test my friend's theory that people at opposite ends of the mark spectrum have different styles of wrestling discussion. I know how my smart-mark friends and I interact and I don't know the guys in his debate class, so I set out on an internet search for a good place to talk with hardcore WWF marks and a good place for diehard WCW marks. The first place I checked was the WWF section on AOL, but unfortunately every time I'd enter the chat room the dialogue would resemble WHO LIKES DEBRA? PRESS 12345 IF YOU DO!!! or Want to know who's behind GTV? PM ME! instead of an actual wrestling discussion. So I started looking for a place where fans of WCW might flock to see if they were any better. After some fruitless searching, I followed a link to Mark Madden's website to see one of his latest attempts at journalism and I saw a link for a discussion board. A quick scan of the topics saw gems such as Hey great news WWF WRESTLER LEAVEING TO WCW!!!!! (no, I didn't alter the spelling) and, after reading that the WWF wrestler in question was the Road Dogg, I knew this would be a good place to start. To better give you an idea of the atmosphere here, much of the posters are WCW fans who were proclaiming Vince Russo as the Anti-Christ 5 weeks ago... but now are counting down the weeks until Nitro beats Raw in the ratings because of the greatness Russo has brought to the promotion. One shining example is the sentence ...let's face it, Terry Taylor isn't 1/100 of the booker that the Russo/Ferraro combination... coming just days before Terry Taylor returns to WCW!!!!! was the excited proclamation of the board. And feel free to visit the board yourself to get a more hands-on example, if you're so inclined. I first had the idea of pretending to be an idiot off the street myself and not attempt to dazzle anyone by doing something like quoting from Meltzer, but then I saw that there were already hardcore WWF fans posting with their own brand of WCW IS WWF RIPOFFS, WCW SUCKS!!! messages and that wasn't leading to any discussion. In fact, responses to those sort of posts included things like I just wish people with gripes also had an education. Maybe their points would be acceptable, and If you're a true fan of either WWF, and WCW, and have the ability to carry on a discussion without insulting someone's opinion, please do so. So seeing as how the initial theory was that marks and smart-marks don't interact well, and since the posters seemed to want "smart" WWF fans to post, I decided to post as I would if I was talking with my friends. I rarely posted my ACTUAL thoughts on things, but everything I said made sense, in my humble opinion. I watched the board for a couple weeks but I found little column fodder until after this week's episode of Raw. Once discussion of the Raw "rape angle" involving Stephanie McMahon and DX had become a hot topic on major sites, a post was made about that angle, the Big Show's father angle, and the depths Vince McMahon will sink to for ratings. Although most of the people commenting likely hadn't even SEEN the segment with Stephanie, the overall opinion is best summed up in the quote: If anyone agree's with the bullshit Vince McMahon pulled this time you can all kiss my •••. (The board censors some words with • characters, although "bullshit" went through unchanged.) Without saying whether or not I liked the angle I pointed out the facts that in the alleged "rape angle"... no one was on top of Stephanie, everyone was fully clothed, and at worst Billy Gunn and X-Pac were guilty of groping Stephanie's ankles. I further pointed out that if the WWF had WANTED to suggest rape, leaving open the possibility that they didn't plan it and it just looked that way, something more suggestive than Billy taking off Stephanie's shoe would have occurred. The response? ...it's totally wrong to show a woman, against her will, lying on the floor, with her legs being spread apart... I pointed out that Stephanie's legs were most certainly NOT "spread apart" and was met with: Vince decided to show a women (not sure if it was Stephanie or not, face was not shown) on the floor with her legs in the air! You can't say that her legs weren't spread because you could see her panties. Thats wrong! Showing a woman laying on the floor spread eagle (yes I saw it! Yes it happened) is wrong! We've now moved from Stephanie on the crowd, her legs 4-5 inches apart and kicking, to Stephanie laying spread eagle with her legs so far apart that we could see her underwear. I further suggested that the other posters find a site that makes video clips and watch the segment for themselves, as they would clearly SEE that Stephanie's legs were not wide open. Rather than take my advice... ...how in the hell is a woman going to lay on the floor, one guy to each side of her, holding either foot, kicking, without her legs being spread? I know what I saw .. everyone else knows what they saw... So since they clearly didn't wish to discuss actual fact, I asked why they were so bent out of shape about this while WCW angles such as Torrie's kidnaping, Kimberly being stalked, or the incident when Gorgeous George was slapped seemingly had no impact on them. In WCW Torrie was portrayed as being willing to be "Kidnapped" by Nash! She was happy about it! They never showed anything happening to George! David Flair stalking Kimberly is a take off on the shining. I clarified and said I meant Torrie's abduction by the Filthy Animals, but it meant little at this point. I also ripped into the "it's from a movie" argument, pointing out that they'll defend anything WCW does, and the "nothing happened to George" argument doesn't need commenting on. Another response: The WCW didn't plan on having Savage hit George. He did the impromptu. I don't have a problem with Torrie being "kidnapped" and I didn't have a problem with Stephanie being "kidnapped." Had you bothered to watch Nitro, the stalking angle would not be a center of your argument, because it was comical, and not the least bit offensive to anyone with a brain, that can decipher the rights, from the wrongs. I pointed out that the Flair/Kimberly stalking skits only came across as comical because they SUCKED ASS and that the fact that WCW didn't plan for George to be hit doesn't make it okay, but again, it meant little by now. The posters were clearly condemning the WWF for one controversial angle and then refusing to even admit that WCW had done any themselves. As another example, a previous subject before I started on the board was a WCW fan getting on the promotion for the Outsiders/strippers match and one of the same exact people debating me on this point defending that match by saying The match was meant as fun, while ignoring all of the points made. How did he close his response to me, you ask? You see only your points, because you've put on blinders to anything else. You have to love irony. One response to me included the line I think your just a teenage wwf fan who has the hots for stephanie, and it doesn't matter if it was a rape angle or not as long as you get to see some skin! Am I right? to try explaining how I could possibly be pointing out that Vince McMahon isn't Satan and not everything he does is immoral or evil. And my favorite example, with both lines coming from the same post: ...you're an idiot... also, don't call me an idiot again you pompous •••• Clearly it seems my friend was dead-on with his conclusion. Despite their claims to the contrary, facts and educated opinions meant little to the hardcore WCW marks that frequent the board. As I said, the arguments I made weren't necessarily MY opinions, but they made sense and were still ignored completely because I couldn't grasp the basic formula WCW rules, WWF sucks. It's a shame, no? (Use this time to ponder how this effects your opinion of life in general...) And just imagine how they'd react if they knew I was recapping WCW pay-per-views here! HA! Anyway, now that we're back, I've got a funny Wal-Mart story to share with you. Last Wednesday, the day after Wal-Mart removed the Al Snow doll from the shelves, I actually went there with my girlfriend and her little sister. While looking in the toy aisles I came across the WWF figures, looked for the Al doll, and couldn't find it. Despite knowing why it wasn't there from hearing about it online, I figured word wouldn't leak down to the sticks where this particular store is located for a few more weeks... so I asked a woman stocking the shelves if they carried the WWF action figure of Al Snow. Her reaction... and I ain't shitting you... was: "I'll pretend I didn't hear that." I stopped for a second and said "I'm sorry?", not sure if she hadn't heard me correctly. Her: We took that disgusting thing off the shelves. I can't believe they're peddling that crap to kids. Me: Because he carries a mannequin head? (Dr. Evil mode) Riiiiiight... Her: A man carrying around a woman's head is disgusting. We were going to toss all of them toys in a barrel and burn 'em up out back. Me: You're going to burn a TOY? Her: As horrible as that thing is, you bet yer ass! Why are you even looking for one? You a big fan of that guy or something? Just before I really started going off, my girlfriend and her sister came into the aisle and I backed off. I mumbled something and walked away, wishing I'd said "who gives a shit what you think... you're FORTY and you work at F'N WAL-MART!!!", but I didn't. But MAN, I can't believe that people who are so uneducated on things have the never to act like they're an authority. In other news... has anyone read about this Microsoft ruling? I can't believe this! Society has gone to hell when a guy can't build up a business without the man smacking him down! It makes me SICK! See, you get too powerful, and they get you in the end! (The irony contained in the last two paragraphs will sink in... just about...) Now we come to the final section, the always random "Random Thoughts" portion. Let's get going! Colin seems like an okay guy, as does Teck. Ruthie's a little messed up, but hopefully she can keep her problems under control. I rather liked Amaya as she reminded me of my twin sister, as my sister lets people walk on her a lot while trying to be overly nice. The way they ganged up on her at the end wasn't cool. Kaia is a little too weird for my tastes. And the winner of "Most Fucked Up Cast Member" goes to Matt, hands DOWN! Check this dude out... he starts off the shows admitting that he's got a thing for Ruthie, but Ruthie's gay so he's not seeing any of THAT action. But that doesn't stop him from later trying to make himself out to be the ONLY one that cares about her, tipping her off that the other roommates have a problem with her drinking. Earth to Matt... you're NOT GETTING ANY! So what's the guy do? It seems Ruthie has a twin sister of her own and suddenly Matt's hot for HER, the girl who looks just like Ruthie! Does NOBODY see that this dude's as stable as a house of cards? Man, I need to get on that show. If nothing else, I'd plug wrestling a lot and get it some attention. And on that note, it's time to say good-bye. I'll be back for Mayhem! And remember, if you don't know me, you ain't my homey! Peace out! Chris Jones [slash] wrestling Mail the Author |
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