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Buff McKenzie

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THE BUFF REPORT
Supplemental

I am Buff.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Superhero.

'S been a while, so let's get to it....

In the Interest of Clarity:
Last Column, (you did read it, didn't you?) I printed an e-mail from Daniel Taylor, then proceeded to call him David.  Duh'oh! Sorry Daniel.  To make up for it, here's another link to his Daffnee (Daphne) website.... HERE....

Strong Words (my letters section):

From: Shadowlongknife Save Address Block Sender
To: smashem@hotmail.com Save Address
Subject: RE: Daffney
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 11:28:16 EST

yo Buff...

just got done reading your column...about the dollish Daffney Unger...(I like
her too)...

I hear tell thru the vine o'grapes that one of the Misfits got her the gig
with WCW...I believe it was Kurt Wolfgang von No-talent...or maybe Jerry
If-ONLY-we-didn't-suck-this-much

(can you tell I don't like tha Misfits?)

later...

Well it's not much, but it's a start in the Quest for Daphne's Origin (insert orchestral fanfare here).  Oh, sorry you dislike the Misfit's so strongly.  I'm sure by my picture in my last column (you did read it?), one could see that I do like them.  But at least you didn't tell me that I suck.

Onward.

Title this one:  Bloodlust!

Sunday, I settled down in my living room to watch the Royal Rumble.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and consider the $30 well spent. There wasn't much bad in there, overall though I could have done without the NAO/Acolytes match.

Actually, I did.

I went to the bathroom and when I returned, the match had been and gone.  No biggie - I hate the NAO anyway.

The Hardy's star shone bright that night, and Tazz debut was a delight.

Ok, stop that rhyming and I mean it! (Anybody wanna peanut?)

I could have done without adverts for 1-800-whatever, seeing as how I shelled out 30 beans for the privilege of what I thought was a commercial-free broadcast.  Mae Young's breasts were mildly traumatic, but what was more so was that it seemed like she was going out of her way to keep them on exhibit.  Has she finally flipped?  In either case, the old battleaxe has got (figurative, I hope) balls.

The Foley-Helmsley match was great.  I have newfound respect for HHH's workrate.  But this match, and not the Ancient Breast Exhibit (on loan from the Smithsonian) was also the most disturbing part of the show for me.  Why?  Hmm... could it be SATAN??? I, I mean BLOOD?  Ummmmm, yes.

HHH bladed early in the match and bled like a, well, like a, a.... he bled a LOT.  Buckets. Ooodles. Gobs. Assloads. Ok, strike that last one, but to sum up, it was much worse than any Flair blade-job I've seen.  The actual words floating around the room to describe it were "Gore-Zone."  The close-up shot after he bladed, you know the one where he screwed his eyes closed and a sheet of blood ran down his face, made me wince and my extremities go numb.  I doubt that he meant to blade so deeply.   Not to mention the nasty puncture wound on his calf, sustained by a suplex into a pile of wooden pallets.  Yes, those pallets, the same pallets that are glad to issue you multiple splinters because you looked at them the wrong way.  But that was juicing hardway... the blade-job.... um.......

So, Buff, what's the point, you may ask? Well, I say, have patience, grasshopper, It's coming...

I don't think wrestlers should have to blade themselves to appease the public's lust for blood and gore.  Don't get me wrong, I love a high-spot as much as the next guy, but things can be taken too far.

What?  Aren't you they guy who said, "get used to it" or something like that? Well, yeah.  But hear me out....

I like daredevils.  Those who are willing to put their bodies on the line for a thrill, for themselves or their audience.  That spirit that says, "How can I push the boundaries further, yet still survive?"  It's exciting to watch.  The Hardy/Dudley match is a prime example.  The spots were fantastic, culminating with a Jeff-Stenton Bomb (which at this point, should really be renamed the Hardy Bomb) which garnered a unanimous "Holy Shit" from my living room audience.  That's excitement, folks.

Intentionally slicing open your veins for public consumption is another matter.

Paradoxically, I respect workers who juice hardway - taking a bump so nasty that it makes you bleed and finding a way to keep going shows a lot of heart, and I respect that.

But scarring yourself on purpose is just plain dumb.  Ballsy, yes, but dumb.  I wonder how many stitches it'll take to piece HHH back together.  I look at the foreheads of many ECW workers and see thick scar-tissue where skin used to be, caused by multiple self-induced gashes all for fan approval.  But who really enjoys buckets of honest-to-god blood shooting from the scalps of wrestlers?

Blood, the visceral vitae of human existence earns many wince and gag.  Many people can't even stand the sight of a little trickle, much less the Niagara of gore that flows every week on nationally televised federations.  I've actually never met anyone who likes the sight of blood.  So why do they do it?
To prove their toughness? To show promoters that they're willing to "take one for the team?"  Or is it just to be noticed in hopes of a new or renewed push?

I can't say.

My theory is that it’s a case of the assumptions.  Workers assume the public wants it and the public, in the assumption that it's all for them, assume it a requiem of the show, thereby assuming they do indeed crave a crimson mask each and every week.  Confusing?  Read that sentence again and I think you'll get the idea.  It's also called a viscous circle.  In this case, just a bit more vicious than most.

Buff McKenzie

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Guest column text copyright (C) 2000 by the individual author and used with permission