Now, I know what you are thinking "What the hell another Outsider's Edge?!?!?!?!" Yes, three in four days or so. I feel weird about it myself, yet oddly entertained. Well feel free to drop me a line and tell me how much I suck. That is, if I suck. And I have no plans of doing that, but then again, as Napoleon once said, all plans fail when they hit the enemy. Would that make The Outsider's Edge the enemy? I am confused already and I have not even started. Oy!

Marks. That is what I am talking about. We are all marks in one way or another. I am a big ECW Mark. You cannot convince me that ECW could do wrong. There is one type of mark, though that really busts my butt. I do not have a name for these mark mark mark marks. Mark mark mark mark mark mark marks? These are the people that take joy in seeing the other company fail. I find that most of these people are WCW Marks or were WWF Marks when WCW was really big. I have nothing against enjoying your type of wrestling. I personally do not enjoy WCW right now all that much, because I am a wrestling mark over a storyline mark and the WWF and ECW are giving that to me more than WCW is. If people like WCW, because they like the storylines or the characters, that is all good. If they start saying things like "Last nights Raw was the worst in 2 years, the cracks are starting to show! Soon, WCW will be the number one fed in America," then it rankles me. They would rather that the WWF fail, allowing WCW to take their spot, over WCW improving to challenge the WWF for their spot. I saw the exact same stuff several years ago with WWF Marks who said "Oh they have 2 nWos now. They are running out of ideas, I see the cracks. WWF will soon be number one!" Oddly enough, they were right, but the WWF Marks were just as guilty, I think, as the WCW Marks.

I will level with you. I used to be a big WCW Mark. When they had wrestling on and WWF had Russo Booking, I loved WCW. When I would read about something bad happening to the WWF, I would do so with a big grin on my face. In retrospect, it seemed dumb. I was cutting off half or so of the wrestling enjoyment by not allowing myself to like the WWF. I was looking for flaws in their product so as to gloat the "my" WCW was better than "their" WWF. The Sullivan Era did at least one good thing by breaking WCW's grasp (although Bischoff and Russo had started me on that slide). If any of you have seen some of my older work, you will notice I am a big WCW apologist. But now I feel I am a more balanced watcher. I am not pulling for WWF over WCW or vice versa, I am pulling for good wrestling and good storylines in both. Right now I find that more often in WWF (by far IMO), so I watch that and tape Nitro for later viewing "pleasure." I am by no means unbiased or objective, I just don't take pleasure in seeing WCW fail. And I decry any that do.

As a quick aside, I felt that Test showing up to help the Regime on the 5/8 Raw was extremely stupid. This whole Regime was started back in late 99, when they screwed Test over. Now he is back to help them?????? I think Vance just pulled a Russo. I call the WWF on things too.

As another aside, I was thinking about wrestlers I would love to meet in real life. So, here are the Top Five Wrestlers I would love to Meet in Real Life:

1. Mitsuhiro Misawa: I would just go crazy if I saw him like walking down the street here in Berkeley. Nobody else would recognize him, but I would mark out like SuperDude. I do not know if he knows English (and I don't know Japanese), but I would try and strike up a conversation with him.

2. Akira Taue- This might run into the language barrier also, but I am just curious. Taue was on the "old legend" side during the late 80s early 90s feud and he is a holdover from that era. But now that the young bucks have turned into the old legends, he seems out of place to me. I just wonder about his views on the business and such. I also want to see if he is a smart fellow, because he looks like a lumbering dolt to me. He just has this aura of stupidity when I watch him wrestle, but I do not want to judge him based on looks alone.

3. Rob Van Dam- RVD RVD RVD RVD RVD RVD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is frigging awesome. I would love to chillax with RVD sometime and see what he is like in real life. He really puts 100% into his work and I just want to meet this cocky, yet dedicated wrestler. At least he will be ensured to know English.

4. Hulk Hogan- Terry Bollea, Hardcore Hogan, Hollywood Hogan. Whatever name you use, I want to meet him. I want to see if he is as arrogant as noted. I have seen him in public appearances on like the Leno Show or Larry King Live and he seems really nice, but then he has that histoury of holding people down. I want to see what the real Hulk Hogan is like. If he is an attention hog. If he just cannot stop doing wrestling. Why he stays so long in the business. I am very curious about him.

5. Scott Hall- I frigging love Scott Hall. The guy oozes charisma and machisimo. I am sure he has hella stories about being the catalyst for WCW's 2 year revival. Just another really interesting guy, who I would love to meet and talk to. Without kayfabe, of course.

Who are 5 or so dudes (or dudettes) that you would love to meet in real life? I am sure there are many wrestlers that are interesting or at least tape other wrestlers' conversations.

Anyway, if you have any comments, complaints, concerns, or questions, or just wanna chat about how this is my 50th column, then please, by all means email me at talboito@uclink4.berkeley.edu.