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Dann Fuller

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Son of Continuity

In October of 1998, I wrote a rant on the more flagrant breaches of memory, common sense, and continutiy in wrestling at the time. Now, I'm going to do it again. Why? Because the half-wits and coke monkeys that work behind the scenes of the wrestling world either don't care, or are too stupid to do better.

Nobody likes to make light of a tragedy (well, maybe the Onion). But probably one of funnier continutiy breaks is the recent alliance of Fit Finaly with the Bluebloods, Steven Regal and Dave Taylor. A while back, before Regal decided to play fireman at 30,000 feet, he was in a feud with Fit Finaly. Kind of a "Northern Ireland hate England" kind of thing. Not that any WCW announcer was smart enough to mention that, but hey. They traded some matches, did some mike work, and the feud blew off in a parking lot brawl, where we saw a pretty spiffy piledriver on the hood of a car. Anyway, the short of it is, Finaly and Regal hate each other.

Flash forward to the Steven Regal Punishment Tour, 1999. Back from a tour as a gay macho construction worker too fat to last in the WWF, Regal is re-united with Dave Taylor, who's just glad to be on weeknight TV again. Not only that, though, but they're siding with the one and only King of Hardcore, Hak. Oh, wait. Hak didn't win the tourney he invented, Finlay did. Anyway, no WCW announcer makes note of the past bad blood between Finlay and Regal. They just play up the heel role, with Taylor playing flag boy. It'd have been nice to know why Finaly, wearing a shamrock on his chest, suddenly doesn't hate the Union Jack his pals are toting. But hey, maybe he moved south. Too bad we'll never know, as Finaly hurt his leg in a house show blown table spot. If we're lucky, by the time Finlay comes back, the whole Hardcore Trophy will be an afterthought.

On the other side of the fence (and the grass apparently IS greener on this side...) the WWF is not immune to the occasional brain fart. The biggest of which (literally) is the new alliance of The Big Show and Undertaker. A few weeks/months ago, we were blasted with replays of Wight's blade job at the hands on Albert "Don't call me Joey" Belle. Oh, wait. That wasn't Belle, that was the Undertaker. My bad. Anyway, 'Taker and Big Show weren't friends. And on top of that, UT really kind of got the upper hand in the feud. I mean, the memorable moments were 'Taker playing long ball on Wight's head, and Wight chokeslamming UT through the ring. And didn't UT cost Big Show his KotR match against Kane? During that whole "Undead Wonder Twins Unite!" angle?

Anyway, at least the WWF tries to explain it. UT and Big Show aren't friends, they're just in agreement that asses need to be kicked, and as soon as it's necessary, they'll stab each other. That's almost good enough. I'll add the explanation that Wight is a fucking moron, and point to the ample WCW evidence to back me up. I'll also add that UT has a big man fetish. He teamed with Kane, he has always had Bearer around, he picked up Wight to compensate for losing his brother to a scrawny geek.

I wish there were more WWF foibles to pick on. None sprint to mind, but I can think of a few more from WCW. I'd bash equally if I could, here folks.

Another gem from the top of the card. Sting is abandoned by WCW when they buy the fake nWo Sting is the real deal. He vanishes for months. When he returns, it's to take down the nWo, and he plans to do it by wasting Hogan. He writes a poem, and pays a little kid to read it for him, since he forgot how to speak. He comes back at Starrcade, and needs help from the King of Screwed Wrestlers to take the title. He battles Hogan for the next 4 months, before losing the belt to Hogan's Jobber Boy, Savage. Later, Sting joins the Wolfpack (forgetting the numerous nWo beatings, and the repeated Fake Stings played by Nash or Hall, not the least of which was at WW3 97, which I mention because I was raped for $50 to see this steaming turd live and in person). Presumably, because Luger did, and Luger is Sting's buddy. And Luger is a tremendous ally, right? Yeah. Anyway, fast forward to the present, and we're gifted with Sting, newly appointed President of WCW. He's asked to be part of a team with Hogan against Nash and a Mystery Partner. Reality check: Nash JUST helped Hogan win the title again. Before that, Nash took a dive for Hogan to give him the Title. Hell, Nash lost the title to Savage (and then turned around to help Hogan win it) in a match in which you were on his team!

The summary? Why on this planet or any other would Sting team with Hogan? Because he's a fucking moron, that's why. That's the only reason that meshes with the other gigantic act of stupidity from that Nitro. Sting, new WCW PResident, somehow lets Charles Robinson ref a match with David Flair, the guy who's dad he's been blowing for months. Yeah, good job, Sting. Maybe more time paying attention to the company, and less time getting lobotomies.

More WCW tidings of joy: The 2nd Nitro with Shane Douglas. While he's in the ring, the commentartos make a point of how he has a history with Benoit, Malenko, and Saturn. Those of us with functioning brain cells know this to be a reference to the time all of them spent in ECW, and in fact how three of those four were the original Triple Threat. Does this get mentioned by the announcers? OF course not. They just have history. But later on in the match, we're told that Douglas used to be quite the tag team performer in WCW, even mentioning who he tagged with. Excuse me? You can remember who Douglas tagged with way back, but not what he was doing with Benoit, Malenko, and Saturn more recently? Right. You'd have been better off ignoring the ECW connection. But then, if you ignore Douglas' ECW stint, you're hyping up a big nobody in the eyes of the fans. Maybe there's some way to tell us why Douglas means anything without plugging ECW, but this wasn't it.

What I think these clowns need to do is stop writing ideas on loose leaf paper. Get a binder, a note pad, write on a laptop, whatever. Just adopt a medium in which it's not likely that all the ideas will get scattered and jumbled when one of the plentiful blowhards backstage opesn their yap.

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