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Chris Wilcox

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THUMBS IN THE MIDDLE

After WCW's recent pay per view offering, WCW Mayhem, I looked around the various sites and saw various polls asking people what they thought of this show. Seeing such polls reminded me of the one thing I have grown to despise in wrestling polls coast to coast. You'll see this one thing in almost ever poll, sitting right there, usually in the middle, sometimes at the end, sticking out like a sore thumb. It aggrivates me to no end. What is this, you may ask?

The "thumbs in the middle" option.

I despise "thumbs in the middle." Can't stand it. Can't look at it. Everybody uses it now too. Go to 1wrestling.com...there it is. Wrestling Observer? Usually it's the first thing you see after a PPV event. It's everywhere you go.

I don't get it. What the hell is "thumbs in the middle?" Did Siskel and Ebert ever give movies "thumbs in the middle?" I don't think so, although if they had, maybe it would have saved Ebert the embarassment of giving Cop and a Half a thumbs up. Did they use the "thumbs in the middle" in ancient Roman times? If they did, what did it mean? A thumbs up meant you live. A thumbs down meant you die. What did "thumbs in the middle" mean? Did Julius Caesar ever say "Eh, you worked hard and hit your spots, but you lacked psychology, so we're not sure whether or not the lion gets to eat you."

I don't get it. What does it mean? The thumbs up is a time honoured symbol of things going well, things going your way. Somebody asks how you're doing, and you give them the thumbs up. It shows you're confident. It shows things are going well. It shows "Hey, right now, I'm doing OK." Likewise, the thumbs down is also time honoured, however for things going pretty bad. Somebody asks how you're doing, and you give them the thumbs down. It shows life sucks right about now. It shows things are going pretty poor. It shows "Hey, right now, I'm doing shitty."

However, I've never heard of anybody giving the thumbs in the middle. What kind of tradition is that? A non-existant one, that's what kind of tradition it is. Somehow, though, it ended up in wrestling, and wrestling only. I don't know how, I don't know why. Maybe when Jim Cornette and Norm Dooley sat around the house one day and created star ratings, they also created thumbs in the middle. Maybe Dave Meltzer created it as a way of rating PPVs in the early days of PPV. Maybe Pat Patterson invented it after a night of...oh never mind. The point is, that the whole idea of rating a PPV with a thumbs in the middle is just plain stupid.

My reasoning is simple. Let's take the PPV of the week in WCW, Mayhem. The show was rather mediocre. Some good matches, some bad matches, some good segments, some worthless segments. Overall, based on the sum of its parts, it would be considered a blah show, saved by a really good main event. A lot of people would be inclined to vote this type of show "thumbs in the middle." Let's think about this for a second. I just slapped down $30 to order a night of wrestling. Three hours of (hopefully) mind blowing entertainment and excitement. Sure, I've got 80 other channels of mostly free entertainment, but dammit, I have to pay the $30 for my wrestling! So I watch the night of wrestling, and at the end, I'm totally underwhelmed. Nothing stood out as being particularly bad, but nothing was particularly good either. Really, I just wasted my money. If I, as a pay per view buying customer, can spend $30 on a wrestling show and at the end, feel as though it is a mediocre show, then that is a thumbs down pay per view, because I spent $30 and got no return for my investment, and to top it all off, I missed the Simpsons, Futurama, and whatever else is on the old TV that is either free or already paid for thanks to cable. To me, rating wrestling PPVs is black and white. Either the show is good, and it was worth spending the $30 to buy, or it wasn't, and thus was a waste of $30. There is no middle ground. You either got your money's worth or you didn't.

A good example is in hockey. Say you go to a hockey game, and it ends in a tie. You leave the arena that evening, and you think to yourself "Damn, we didn't win. That was thoroughly unsatisfying." You don't think "Well, at least that one point won't keep us from falling too much further in the standings!" You don't go to a hockey game to see a tie! You go to see a win, dammit. (The same also applies for the new OTL format, I guess, but I hate that so I find it's best not to acknowledge it.) Just like, you don't order a wrestling PPV for a "thumbs in the middle" show. You paid $30 to see a blowaway, monster show. That's why I give the thumbs down to the "thumbs in the middle." It needs to be eradicated from our culture, from our way of life, and done away with once and for all. Be decisive! Vote thumbs up, vote thumbs down, but don't be wishy washy about it! Just say no to the "thumbs in the middle!"

But if you're watching a PPV on a black box, all bets are off.

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