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Ian Serotkin

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Part 1: Obligatory Shots Out And The Like

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooo nurse!

It's been a while, I know, but I'm back at school and this is the first time I've been somewhat sober in about a week.  Okay, maybe not that sober, but sober enough to type.

First off, we have all the Boneheaded Wrestling Maneuvers that I managed to forget: accepting your opponents challenge to a test of strength, trying for a shoulderblock or a charge on a fat guy, and...of course....YOU CAN'T POWERBOMB KIDMAN!  Beats me how I forgot that one.  I'm just waiting for Sid to interrupt one of his matches to see if he can successfully get the move off or not.  It'd be funny if Kidman reversed it, just to see the look on Sid's face:  "Uhh...well...I'm 75 and 1....I guess...".  Can't we just fast-forward five years and give the WCW championship to a buffed-up Kidman already?

Related note: SID CAN'T ACT.  It's just a matter of time before he asks someone to slap him while looking at Kevin Kelly.

Hey, being up at college means I actually have cable television, so I'm back watching stuff live.  But...the Champaign-Urbana area doesn't get UPN, ironically, so I miss out on Smackdown.

And, since no one in my house has an addressable cable box yet (stupid delivery guys), I watched the last two matches or so of Summerslam scrambled.  I was thankful that I couldn't see that fat woman's ass, though.  I still managed to mark out when Mankind got the title, even though I couldn't actually see anything but pretty kaleidescope colors. :) 

Excuse me while I LAUGH MY FUCKING ASS OFF as Finkel comes down to the Warrior's music and attempts to lay the smacketh down on the Road Dogg.  I honestly couldn't tell if RD was laughing in character or out.

Excuse me while I LAUGH MY FUCKING ASS OFF again as Hogan tries to pretend he still has a clue.  About anything.

How long before Luger turns on Sting?  House poll says two weeks.

A shot goes out to David Hauser, who thought he knew me in real life...but didn't.

Another shot goes out to Corey Pierce, who consistently sends me the dumbest ideas for plot angles possible.  If I found out he worked for WCW, I wouldn't be surprised at all.  In fact, it would clear up a whole lot.

Another shot goes out to fellow [slash] dude Chuck Carlin, who for some reason thought he needed my permission to write a retro review.  I'll clear this up once and for all, because a whole bunch of people have been emailing me asking my permission to write stuff on [slash}: 

Ian Jeffrey Serotkin (hereafter referred to as 'myself') has absolutely no editorial control on Christopher Robin Zimmerman's [slash] wrestling and Scott Keith's Rantsylvania outside of his own writings, which are jointly copyrighted by the page owner and myself. Complete editorial control is retained by the site authors under all circumstances unless explicitly declared otherwise.  All correspondence regarding potential columns or other publishable literature should be sent to the site authors and the site authors only. Sending correspondence for such matters to myself may inspire a response, but in no way will this response have any legal status whatsoever.  It should be disregarded as all costs, as it will be intentionally false and misleading.

I sure hope that clears things up.  (Yes, Chuck, that's my own particular way of giving you a plug.)


Part 2: Rant Mode

Today's topic: Wrestling Referees...as requested by Kevin Proffitt, the guy who sent me my 100th email of feedback.

Referees are, in my opinion, the unsung heros (besides Barry Horowitz) of professional wrestling.  Often prefixed with the playful moniker "Blind", referees such as "Blind" Earl Hebner (and his evil midget brother Dave), "Blind" Mike Ciota and "Blind" Charles Robinson have been staples of professional wrestling for years.

If you know what you're looking for during a match, you'll discover that it is the referee who calls large portions of the matches.  When the referee leans over a fallen wrestler to make sure he's okay, in reality he's usually giving instructions to that wrestler about the upcoming move sequence.  He also usually informs the wrestlers when it's time to 'bring it home', wrestling jargon for skipping to the finishing sequence of moves (If you watch the X-Pac match in Backlash '99 carefully, you can see some of the most blatant exposing of the business along these lines ever, as X-Pac audibly confers with the ref at various points during the contest). 

The ref also makes sure none of the competitors gets legitimately hurt and should ideally stop the match as soon as possible if this occurs.  (See the Bret Hart/Dino Bravo match as chronicled in "Wrestling With Shadows" for an example of one wrestler compounding damage due to the referee not stopping the match quickly enough after a serious injury). 

Lastly, we have the Ref Bump.  One of the most classic (and often overused) booking devices, it refers to a sequence of events wherein the referee passes out due to sometimes accidental, sometimes intentional contact with a wrestler.  Invariably, one or more falls will occur while the referee is out, often preventing the face from losing...errr....face by getting what would have been a pin had the referee been concious.  Only a good referee can make the Ref Bump look really good.  That is to say, not make it look painfully obvious from a mile away that it was coming.  You can cross-reference this one under "Tag Team Partner Bump". 


Part 3: Heat Reviews

Now that I can actually watch the Monday Night Wars again, a Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down Heatrate Scale will become a staple of this section.

Raw: Thumbs (Moderately) Up.  The wrestling was crap, as usual, but it entertained me immensely.  Finkel coming down to Warrior's music and his segment with Road Dogg was classic.  I was a bit annoyed that we didn't get a victory celebration with Mankind, as he usually tends to give rather monumental interviews after he wins major matches, but The Rock did some nice color commentary later on to make up for it.  I predicted HHH would get the strap tonight immediately after finishing my scrambled viewing of Summerslam, so, while I was disappointed that it happened, I can't really deduct much for the bitter ending since it was inevitable and expected.

Nitro: Thumbs (Way the fuck) Down: There's too much Sid and red & yellow on my screen for my liking, and that's a very, very, very Bad Thing.  If someone with actual MIC SKILLS was interrupting matches it would at least be a step in the right direction.  And, the fact that Sting didn't wipe the floor with "Hollywood Heights Retirement Home" Hogan in under a minute just defies all sensible logic whatsoever.  Fuck you, WCW.

Accuse me of being biased; see if I give a flying fuck.

Ian Serotkin
Jobber-at-Large and Founder of the Heatrate Cru

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