I received a fantastic email after my last column from Jason Watcher in Missouri. I was whining about my dull home town, and this was something of a kick up the ass for me. This is one of the best emails I've ever received and I just had to share if with you good folks. Hey,

I was reading your column about the pathetic news in your town. I think I live in an analogous town. I live in Columbia, Missouri. If, by some miracle, the fame of this thriving metropolis hasn't reached you over on the other side on the Atlantic, let me enlighten you. Take a look at a map of the US, and Columbia is right about in the middle. Actually, I guess you know exactly what it's like, being as your description of Southport could equally apply to Columbia. The only difference, it seems is the presence of the University, which creates the foundation for a few 'ghettos' of young people here and there, who have enough influence that there is usually something to do, if you look hard enough. Another difference, which I don't think you get much of in the UK, is the sheer isolation of this place. It is surrounded for literally hundreds of miles on all sides by NOTHING. Just farms and such. Unless you count Jefferson City, which I don't, because it's a complete hellhole.

Anyway, the news here is absolutely pathetic. The University here has what is evidently one of the best journalism schools in the world. They also have their own TV station, channel 8, which is the absolute pit of news. I tremble for the future of journalism when I watch this channel. See, it's staffed entirely by students and faculty of the journalism school, and it SUCKS. I mean, not only does the content of the news suck (literally NOTHING newsworthy has happened in the eight years I've lived here) but just try to imagine the sheer horror of a half-hour news show done entirely by 19-20 year old idiots. Also, it's PRODUCED by 20-year old idiots, and has more production errors than a WCW show. Last summer, I was watching Saturday Night live with a few friends. A thunderstorm was moving through the area, which is not at all unusual here, and anyone who's lived in this area had lived through literally tens of thousands of thunderstorms in their lifetime. Nonetheless, the ever-vigilant 19-year old weatherman interrupted the show for TWENTY-FIVE (count 'em) minutes in order to tell us to all go hide in our basements (southwest corner, of course), not to panic, and to take a radio and plenty of bottled water with us, because shit, this is a thunderstorm, and, dammit, it could be the end of the world. This caused me to miss a half-hour of the show. If that wasn't bad enough, fifteen minutes later he does it AGAIN. You can ask how he expects to reach his audience, which if they'd listened to his advice, would be huddling like frightened kittens in the south-west corners of their basements, avoiding all windows, clutching onto a radio and several bottles of water, and thus, NOWHERE NEAR THE TV. Anyway, my friend Clare and I called the station to see if we could talk to this bastard, but we got one of the production engineers, who informed us that on the weekends only two people, himself and the weatherman, work at the station and, unfortunately, the weatherman is in charge. So, on the weekends here a 19-year old idiot has full and complete authority to just hijack the airwaves, and no one can stop him. We had a pleasant discussion with the engineer on speakerphone as he explained how his job sucked, and how the weatherman was one of the most annoying fucks possible, and how the engineer had to bring several joints with him to work on the weekends in order to be able to tolerate him.

Another thing you must understand about Columbia: The population fluctuates wildly with the school year. While the students are in town, the population is about 60,000, in the summer, it's about 20,000. This means the city goes from densely overcrowded to deserted over the 2nd weekend in May. With no ambitious journalism students to desperately root up something interesting (like how the stadium is getting a new scoreboard, or some shit), we are left with the fascinating Jim Reek (yes, Reek) as our main newsman. This guy has got to be the most stone boring, won't-offend-anyone person you can think of. Since he produces the news in the summer, it pretty much reverts to stories about 'hometown values' in the 'heartland'. This is a particular torture that I hope is specific to the American Midwest, and I hope you're unacquainted with it. See, evidently every news director, advertising executive, etc, seems to think that the area from Denver in the west to Chicago in the east is populated by elderly fools whose highest aspirations in life are to watch baseball games, go to church, and do other 'good, simple, folksy' things like attending parades and making cedar chests. So, after the dangerous drug-using orgy-having generation has moved by and large out of town, the whole news is oriented to the old school by the fascinating Mr. Jim Reek. For example, the lead story last night was an interview with the sports guy's grandfather, who has the overwhelmingly sad and pathetic distinction of having lived in Moberly for the last 55 years. If you want a good picture of Moberly, picture a brick church, put a dirt-bike track next to it, then add, in this order, a McDonalds, a used car lot, and a trailer park. Whoopee. What engrossing stories such a man must have to tell.
My personal theory is that if there isn't any damn news, you should just not play the damn news show.

Take it easy,

Jason Wachter

I hope you all feel a little bit better about where you live now. Still sucks living here though. Thanks for the hilarious mail Jason, sorry it took me so long to get around to posting it.

Now, if you read my King of the Ring recap (shame on you if you didn't!), you will know that I didn't think very much of it. In fact, I fucking hated most of it, even more so because I had to write about it for hours afterwards. Come on, would I make jokes about Buchanan and 'rims' if I were not under considerable duress? It was my dedication to my five fans and imagining your happy little faces when you saw my recap was posted that kept me going. Thanks a lot you bastards.

This was a badly booked show, not quite as bad as crowning 'King Mabel' but it was still bad. Chris Benoit going out in the first round was inexcusable, made even worse by Benoit's 'cobbled together at the last moment'-style interview. They job the Intercontinental Championship to Rikishi for no good reason, and then have him go over Benoit again? Did the WWF hire Kevin Sullivan while no one was looking? Benoit got himself disqualified, thus losing his chance to become number one contender for the world title, because everyone already knows he's the best? That's like saying They could have at least had him saying he was bitter about losing the title to Rikishi, or that he didn't care if he won it or not - as long as Rikishi didn't. But NO - they had to make him sound like a bush league idiot instead. Good one.

I had no problems with Jericho losing to Angle, they had an entertaining match and Jericho hardly needs a KotR win at this point. Plus having Stephanie involved furthers future plot developments which made sense. The Crash match was exactly as I expected, though Crash vs. Saturn would have been a lot better, they could have played up their history revolving around the Hardcore Title and such. Saturn would have gone over though.

Val Venis vs. Eddy was okay I didn't like it as much as some seemed to, though I think that was a reflection more on the actual wrestling itself which was way below the level reached at Backlash and Judgement Day. Everyone was saying how the content was improving, but the matches were pretty shallow affairs with far too much generic brawling, especially from Kurt Angle - who did a surprising amount of punching and stamping when you consider how talented he is in the ring. There was hardly any wrestling at all, the tag title match did not see many moves beyond a bunch of their finishers, very disappointing. This situation wasn't helped by all the fine technical wrestlers they got rid of in the first round. To think if they had done the brackets differently we could have had Jericho, Angle, Guerrero and Benoit in the last 4. *sigh*

The Hardcore Evening Gown match was a travesty beyond all travesties. The *funny* scenes with the banana, and the work of *genius* with Pat Patterson using a maxi-pad have left me wondering which amazing talent was responsible for this? Why has this person's obvious talent been forced down before now? Will we now get to see the matches the fans really want to see like Kat vs. Terri in a Chocolate Body Paint Match, or Test vs. Jeff Hardy in a Closet Match (think about it). How can we possibly go back to the way things were now that we have seen the future? In drag? Will someone please kill me?

The one saving grace of KotR was that Rikishi didn't win. Unfortunately they built him up as the bruised, injured and courageous underdog for no good reason first. If you're going to have a guy get viciously attacked after winning - why do you then job him in a tediously unspectacular fashion in the final? You either have him take the beatings and battle against the odds to come back and win, or you don't have him take the beatings and lose. If you are going to have Rikishi reach the final, which was a bad idea to start with, why not have him blaze through the matches like the wrestler-eating Monster Zero Three from Planet X? That way he goes into the final looking pretty much unstoppable and that would have made Angle look much better than him beating some big fat tired guy with no stamina and a sore arm. Of course, I'm not the 'genius' Vince McMahon and I clearly don't 'get it' so what the fuck do I know?

The tables and dumpster match was as lame as I expected it to be, yes Tori got wood but not before those whining little DX bitches avoided jobbing AGAIN. What is it with DX? At least RD took a half decent bump before REAPPEARING AND ACTING LIKE NOTHING AT ALL HAD HAPPENED TO HIM. They are the most over-pushed, useless little shits in the WWF and they get their own way just because they're friends with the top heel, booker, and gay icon Triple H. The Dudleys work far too hard to get blown off like this and X-Pac and the Road Dogg are despicable human beings. I DARE YOU to disagree with me, come on I want to email dangnammit

The main event was as awful as I expected, the action was dull (except for the Undertaker's cool beating on Shane and Shane's bump through the table) and the ending sucked. The only time I gave a shit was that point where Kane took Rock out and looked like he was actually going to win. I would have actually given a shit if Kane had walked out with the belt. As it is it stank and I don't have anything else to say about it.

I'm tired of writing about this now so I'm going to end this before you get too fed up of me.

Mail to the usual place, it doesn't take more than a minute or two to mail someone on here and tell them you liked what they wrote. Or that you hate them and that they are going to hell and that if you ever find out where they live you are going to kill them and steal their brain and keep it alive in a jar so you can torture them. Or something.

And on that note, good bye.

Marvellous Martin
[slash] wrestling
Oracle of Delphi