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/wrestling /guests /Serotkin |
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/wrestling /guests /Serotkin |
| Guest Columns | Ian Serotkin |
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Part 1: Obligatory Shots Out And The Like: Bah, I'm too bored to include any letters this week. Dammit, send me flame mail! I promise I'll include it in Part 1 and make fun of you if you do! Part 2: Rant Mode I had a REALLY good idea for a rant last night...but I completely forgot what it was. So, you're stuck with a somewhat unoriginal Why We Just Can't Resist WCW When I get bored at work, I have this tendency to to through Scott Keith's retro rant archives and go through a year or two in sequence. Why? Because I have no life and work sucks. But that's not the point. I think. Anyway, the most interesting pieces to read--and some of Keith's best writing--is the Black Hole of WCW, also known as 1993. (I highly suggest going and reading Keith's new rant on this very subject right now at http://members.home.net/skeith/shows/rant18.txt if you haven't already. If you still think 1993 was a good year for WCW afterwards, go stick your head in a landfill). Anyway, 1993 was total crap for WCW. But, if you go and read any review of one of their PPVs during this time, it is probably double the length of an ordinary review. Why? Because we love talking about it. We love watching it. We love writing down just how horribly putrid it really was. We love trying to figure out what illegal drugs the executives at WCW were on for that entire year (some would say the entire current ten year period except for 1989, the brightest diamond in wrestling history in the middle of the deepest rough). It's exciting. Why do you think "Worst Of" compilations often outsell "Best Of" compilations? Sure, it takes enormous skill to put on a ***** spectacle, but it also requires an equal (possibly greater) amount of ineptitude to put on a -***** debacle. It's addicting. When I first started buying a few wrestling tapes, Great American Bash '91--by common consensus the worst pay-per-view show in history--was higher on my list than WrestleMania X and Great American Bash '89. I think part of it has to do with the shroud of silence surrounding these atrocities. After all, great matches are acknowledged on later broadcasts as being such, but have you EVER heard Jim Ross or Shill-a-vonie go, "Hey, remember that awful scaffold match from Bash '89? That was was just crap!" Or, "Hey, why doesn't Vader just take him into his White Castle of Fear like he did at Superbrawl III?". Or, "Wow, the Gobbleygooker would have been able to handle that challenge." (See, I passed up an opportunity to make a Shockmaster joke to rag on WWF instead. I'm not a total shill.) So, after these memories have been forcibly repressed from our minds, we begin to get curious about them. They couldn't have been that bad, could they? So we watch them. We show our friends. We save entire tapes of them to remind ourselves every once in a while that yes, Virginia, it was that bad. And that's why so many columns and rants have been dedicated to WCW bashing. If a review of an average show is two pages long, a really putrid one--the kind that only WCW knows how to put on--will run for five pages. No detail will be spared, no theory or explanation left out. Most people will actually recommend watching these shows because mere words can't describe how bad it truly is. Just take a look at one of the last lines in Keith's GAB '91 rant: "Do I recommend watching the show? Yes. Without a doubt." And now some crackpot is going to try to argue that this is exactly why WCW is that bad. They're doing it on purpose. It's all an act to get people to watch, to see how low one company can really sink. NO. Absolutely wrong. It sounds nice in theory, but it just can't be true for one simple reason: The level of incompetency that WCW sustains for months on end is too great to fake. Their bookers aren't that smart. (If you have ANY doubts about that fact whatsoever...go listen to Bischoff announce. Or even better, go watch some AWA. Oh wait, you can't! Bischoff completely sunk them in 1990 while he was in charge. Silly me, I forgot.) I doubt the WWF creative team could pull it off intentionally either. Most of the things that went wrong in 1993 are too fucking inane to have been thought of by any sane individual, even if they're a genius. Plus, trying to get ratings by stinking up the ring night after night isn't exactly a marketable strategy. Sure, you'll get niche fans like myself that watch it just to laugh and shake my head in utter disbelief, but it's not what I'd call a mainstream attraction. It's just that the WCW creative team *is* that stupid. And that's why we watch...to see what they'll foul up next. Part III: A Plea to Ric Flair No retro review this week, I didn't have time to go to the local video store this week. So, it's a Plea. I think this was my first idea for the above rant...I finally remembered it. I have the utmost respect for Flair...he's STILL the only one of the old guard who will give the newer guys clean pins...but I have to question the logic of continuing to maintain employment at a company who has shown him continuous apathy for the better part of a decade and even tried to boot him out tf the company. If I was Vince MacMahon, I'd do everything I could to snatch him up ASAP, before he degrades completely. (From everything I've heard, Flair was pretty happy during his year-long stay in the WWF, left on pretty good terms, and only went back out of [misplaced] loyalty to WCW.) I'd bring him out at the beginning of RAW, let him shoot for half an hour or longer, and then have him wrestle--and win--an Iron Man match against Austin. For the last 20 minutes, he comes out again, gets on the mic, and says goodbye and thank you to the fans. He rides into the sunset going out on top, and he never wrestles again. Ric Flair, I'm begging you. Get out of WCW while you still can, before they strip the last of your dignity from you. You deserve better. And I'm out. Until next time, I'm Ian Serotkin Jobber-at-Large and Founder of the Heatrate Cru Mail the Author |
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