Bray Wyatt (R.I.P.) vs. Shawn Michaels: Schrodinger's Wrestler

 

The Fiend

 Consumers of storytelling should never have to compromise when it comes to good character work. Apparently, the readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter agree with me given how often they slaughter Bray Wyatt in the yearly awards. No, this isn’t just a minor disagreement. They annihilate him! They murder him! They brutalize him! They do all the things he could never do to his opponents when it counts the most. Oh sure, they’ll give him the Stockholm Syndrome treatment with the Best Gimmick awards in 2013 and 2019. And trust me, there’s a lot to be said about playing a demented cult leader and an indestructible monster on TV. But unfortunately for Mr. Wyatt, that’s where the praise ends and the raging against terrible booking begins.

Most Overrated Wrestler in 2020 (that’s a little harsh, all things considered, but okay). Worst Feud of the Year in 2017 against Randy Orton. Worst Feud of the Year in 2019 against Seth Rollins. Worst Feud of the Year in 2020 against Braun Strowman. Worst Gimmick in 2017 for being the bodily host for the spirit of Sister Abigail. Worst Gimmick in 2020 for doing the same indestructible monster character in 2019, but with more losses and more ridiculousness. Worst Match of the Year in 2014 against John Cena in a Steel Cage match (deep voiced child, anybody?). Worst Match of the Year in 2017 against Randy Orton (the worms…all those fucking worms!). Worst Match of the Year in 2019 against Seth Rollins in a Hell in a Cell match (a.k.a. the match without rules and limitations that ended in a disqualification anyways). Last and surely least, Worst Match of the Year in 2020 against Braun Strowman in a Wyatt Swamp Fight (there was no clear winner in this cheesy horror movie with more plot holes than I can count).

So…how did this happen? How did the WWE fuck up this badly when they had handfuls of gold with Bray Wyatt’s various characters? How do you fuck up a charismatic cult leader who could and would kill you with a screwdriver if he wanted to? How do you fuck up a creepy children’s show host who looks crazy enough to be on the sex offender registry and therefore shouldn’t be around children? How do you fuck up an indestructible monster with a hideous, ugly, nightmarish face that would put Pink Floyd and Slipknot to shame? How do you fuck up a character with so many layers, so much creativity, and so much potential to be a top star for the rest of eternity? I’ve got your answer right here: he loses too much.

Yep, that’s right. He’s a three hundred pound killing machine who can hit like a cannonball and move like a cruiserweight. His dialogue is so cryptic, so seductive, yet so terrifying that it’ll echo in your mind like a schizophrenic voice for days on end. If he tells you he’s going to murder you in a cold blood and leave your corpse for the buzzards to feast on, you don’t question him for a second…until he loses all of his biggest matches. He talks a big game and never backs it up when it matters. The audience is so used to seeing him fail that when he finally does add a championship or two to his resume, nobody cares. All the Hawaiian shirts, bowler hats, demonic masks, and pedophilic tendencies don’t mean shit if no one believes in the villain who embodies those traits.

Even if you don’t watch wrestling and have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about, you as authors should still take Bray Wyatt’s story and career as a cautionary tale when creating your own villains. If you want to create a convincing villain, you can splatter them with all the creative tropes in the world as long as they’re powerful enough to make their eventual defeat believable and meaningful. I’m not saying the villain has to win EVERY time, but his losses should be in small ways that don’t derail whatever momentum he has. 

You think Darth Vader would be an iconic villain from the Star Wars franchise if he kept getting his ass kicked by the rebels? Fuck no, he wouldn’t have! So what does he do to solidify his power? He cuts off Luke Skywalker’s hand, he imprisons Han Solo and hands him over to Boba Fett to be frozen in carbonite, he destroys entire planets with his Death Star battle station, and he murders the fuck out of Obi-Wan Kenobi. If you’re coming for Darth Vader’s head, you’d better paralyze his ass, because he’ll kill you the first chance he gets.

Your main villain doesn’t have to have political power over an entire galaxy. Maybe he can have power over another person. Maybe he can kidnap somebody and bend them to his will through mind-fucking torture and endless agony. Can his captive defeat him over and over again for the story to be believable? Hell no! But can his captive run away for a little while and get recaptured and brutalized over and over again? Sure! Even if the kidnapper gets an infected bite on his arm, that’s still a small enough defeat that he’s not completely gone just yet. Maybe he has no medical supplies for that wound. Maybe over the course of the story, he has to travel a long way to the nearest hospital for care. The longer he travels, the sicker he becomes. Even if he does make it to the hospital, he still risks getting captured himself, but by the police. So many layers to this story, yet the kidnapper in question is still a villain you love to hate and would love to see systematically destroyed.

Now…take those two scenarios I laid out and replace the head villains in charge with “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt. He’s the last motherfucker who deserves to wield a light saber. He shouldn’t be allowed near anybody whom he can easily stuff into his windowless van on its way to a room with no view. Long dreadlocks that look like Cthulu’s tentacles. A face with an enormous grin, rotten teeth, and ripped skin. A lantern with Bray Wyatt’s original head covering the light. Dialogue peppered with death threats and seductive promises of the darkest kind. Immunity to pain that his torture victims could only dream of having during their times of torment. If he’s written like a killer, he will succeed in these roles and become even more iconic than his predecessors. If he’s written like a chump like he’s been for most of his career, Siskel and Ebert will come back from the dead just so they can shit all over whatever story he’s a part of. And then they’ll be put back in their graves by The Fiend’s necromantic powers.

Even the most brain-dead authors understand the idea of the villains having a shit-load of power. Power can come from anywhere, but if a villain has a lot of it, then his defeat will be even more incredible, especially if the hero comes from modest means. But that of course is giving the WWE too much credit. They used to know how to build stars. Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and John Cena are all shining examples of their success in that department. But as Vince McMahon got older and slower, so did his storytelling. 

As the CEO of WWE, Vince gets the final say in whatever creative decisions make it to television. When his brain is rotting that badly and he has that much influence over the shows, people start to notice and people turn off their televisions. I turned off mine in 2018 and haven’t turned it back on for WWE since then. Thanks, guys, for completely murdering my love for pro-wrestling. And an extra special thanks goes to the geniuses who set Bray Wyatt up to fail. He had all the creative potential in the world. He could have been a badass villain everyone can be scared of. But not anymore. That makes me sad. I’m sure it makes him sad as well.

Authors, if you’re going to make your readers sad, do it the old-fashioned way by killing off their favorite characters or at least badly torturing them. Don’t do it by creating awful villains. And don’t do it by creating awful heroes and neutral characters either. If you’re going to create a character cast, do it right! Make them three-dimensional. Make them overflow with personality. Saddle them with crazy gimmicks. But most importantly, make their victories and losses believable, for fuck’s sake! 

(sigh)

…In case it wasn’t abundantly clear already, my heart hurts for Bray Wyatt and all of his incarnations (except for Husky Harris, but he was just learning how to do decent character work at the time, so I shouldn’t be too hard on him). Wrestling fans were angry as hell in 2020 when the Wrestling Observer Newsletter put out their yearly awards and Bray Wyatt was absolutely wrecked. If those same fans still believe in the magic of Bray Wyatt, then they’re certainly welcome to. I’m not going to shit all over their happiness in that regard. So maybe the negative attention has less to do with the wrestler himself and more to do with the way he’s portrayed on TV. Even Dave Meltzer, the head journalist in charge of the WON, called him a genius when it came to his character work. I bet it hurts him and the rest of his voters to do Bray dirty like that. But silencing criticism is the same thing as acknowledging the problem doesn’t exist. WWE fucked up Bray Wyatt like a bunch of idiots and now they’re surprised when he doesn’t connect with everyone who watches him. How sad. How relentlessly sad.

"Wrestling, Issue One" by What Culture

BOOK TITLE: Wrestling, Issue One

AUTHORS: What Culture Staff

YEAR: 2016

GENRE: Nonfiction

SUBGENRE: Pro-Wrestling Bookazine

GRADE: Mixed

The articles can be fascinating to any hardcore wrestling fan, but not if they suffer from the same typographical errors as the next volume in the series. Vince McMahon’s first name was spelled without an N, the word match had its A capitalized, the word to was all-caps for no apparent reason, need I name more? This wouldn’t be too big of an issue if the typos were few and far between, but they occur so frequently that I can’t give this bookazine a passing grade. A reputable editor with a fresh set of eyes could have easily pinpointed these glaring mistakes and polished this otherwise fine piece of reading material to higher standards.

Typos aside, the articles were actually fun to read, with the glaring exception of WWE vs. Internet Fans. To me, that just sounded like a bitter old man ranting and raving about the inevitable emergence of the internet, as if this new technology is somehow to blame for wrestling being as bad as it can be sometimes. It seems uncharacteristic of What Culture’s writing staff to put out such an article considering they themselves are wrestling critics and employ a mostly millennial workforce. Maybe this particular article author was an outsider from the beginning, I don’t know.

But enough about the negativity. Let’s talk about my two favorite articles in this whole bookazine. Let’s begin with Britney Pillman’s story about how her father, Brian, died of a heart attack while preparing for a WWF pay-per-view. To hear the author describe Britney’s pain as she grew up with a drug-addicted stepmother and without a loving father, it tugs at the heartstrings and makes the reader want to legitimately root for her life to improve. While Britney is in a better place since the tragic incident, she did miss out on royalty payments from the WWF that instead went to the drug-addicted stepmother Melanie Pillman. I wouldn’t wish such poverty and heartache on my worst enemy. We’ve all had to deal with toxic people at one point or another, but I think any reader can agree that Britney and her siblings need a permanent vacation from them. That’s what the author of the article did for me as a reader: put me in the role of cheerleader.

And of course, Adam Blampied’s undying creativity will always be my favorite part of What Culture’s past. Although his recent sex scandal puts me in a tough position with regards to his fandom, I can at least enjoy his vision for how he would book Rey Mysterio’s first World Championship run in WWE. No more will the lovable luchador be jobbed out to everybody and their uncle. He’ll win matches by the skin of his teeth, like a true underdog hero is supposed to. He’ll have credible opponents to put him over the moon. He’ll have blood-curdling storylines that aren’t nearly as despicable with Eddie Guerrero’s legacy as real life was. If Rey Mysterio had been booked under Adam Blampied’s guidance, I would have been a bigger believer in this ultimate underdog. But as it is…

The negatives of this bookazine shouldn’t turn you away from what is ultimately a fun read for all wrestling fans. Typos are easy to fix and even if they wanted to keep the anti-internet fan article, readers could just skip over it. There’s a top 100 wrestling match list,  a fantasy world cup tournament, a nice juxtaposition between Bray Wyatt and his eerie theme song, too many wonderful articles to name. Though not perfect, this work of nonfiction will get a respectable mixed grade out of me.

Villains: Psychosis vs. Calmness

***VILLAINS: PSYCHOSIS VS. CALMNESS***

When I’m submitting short stories to the WSS, a common critique I get is to focus on writing about calm villains instead of psychotic ones. I admit, my borderline bipolar villains are fun as hell to write about, but I believe there’s a lot of truth in what Angie (the one who gave this advice) says when it comes to calm villains. Think about it for a minute: who would you be more afraid of: a guy who says, “I’m going to kill you” while cartoonishly laughing or a guy who says, “I’m going to kill you” while breathing calmly through his nose? Since cartoon characters don’t exist in the real world, you’re more likely to be afraid of the calm and collected guy.

Case in point, WWE Smackdown superstar Kevin Owens. A wrestling example? Again? You got that right! In his mind, he’s justified in his anger against Smackdown Commissioner Shane McMahon. Kevin believes Shane is showing bias against him and screwing him out of important championship victories. So what does Kevin do? He tells Shane to his face, “Your whole family would have been better off if you didn’t survive that helicopter crash. Your father, your wife, and especially your kids!” Shane beats the hell out of Kevin to where the latter threatens a lawsuit against the WWE (because authority figures aren’t supposed to assault the wrestlers (tell that to Stephanie McMahon)).

Shane’s father and CEO of WWE, Vince McMahon, makes an appearance on Smackdown to quash the potential lawsuit and put Kevin Owens in a Hell in a Cell match against Shane McMahon. Kevin, in his calm and collected manner, wants Vince’s word that he won’t be fired if he, “Beats a McMahon senseless.” Vince gives the okay, but without realizing that Kevin meant ANY McMahon. He heat butts the 70-year-old Vince and opens a deep cut in his forehead. The beating continues in the form of rib kicks, a super kick, and a frog splash. Kevin has a shocked look on his face like, “What the fuck did I just do?”

Next week on Smackdown, Kevin Owens, once again being the calm and collected villain he is, blames Shane McMahon for his father’s assault. His passionate tirade against the Smackdown Commissioner ends with, “For what I’m about to do to you at Hell in a Cell, people like me don’t go to Hell; people like me go to Heaven.” Imagine that last line being said through a cool demeanor. Creepy, huh?

The coolness becomes ice cold when the next week on Smackdown, Kevin Owens has a wrestling match with his longtime rival Sami Zayn. The match ends in a No Contest when Kevin power bombs Sami onto the corner of the ring apron (the hardest part of the ring) and possibly fractures his ribs and spine in the process. What does the calm villain do as Sami Zayn is being carted out of the arena? Well, he sits on the announce table and stares at Sami like he had just taken a bowlful of Prozac and washed it down with warm milk. Peace and quiet washes over Kevin Owens like warm and soothing beach water. It’s the loveliest feeling in the world for him.

Kevin Owens doesn’t have a cartoonish laugh. He doesn’t wear clown makeup. He doesn’t have bulging eyes and a nearly exploding forehead vein. He’s just this calm, cool, and collected tormentor who feels so numb that his brain might as well have been rubbed with Novocain. A straightjacket is too good for him. He needs a prison cell in the worst way. That’s how scary Kevin Owens is as a villainous wrestler. You don’t have to be a wrestling fan to appreciate how calmly psychotic he is.

Pay attention to those two operative words: “calmly psychotic”. It’s not just one or the other. It’s a combination of both, whether the psychosis is subtle or not. If Kevin Owens told you that he was going to rip your intestines out and feed them to vultures and coyotes, you’d better run as fast as you fucking can. If he told you he was going to show up at your home while you were away and hoped that your kids answered the door for him…well, you get the idea.

And then you have the other WWE example in this blog entry, the overly psychotic Bray Wyatt. Since 2013, Bray Wyatt has had the same gimmick of a backwoods cult leader. He would speak in these cryptic promos and he would back up his spookiness with a 300 lb. frame and a hard-hitting fighting style. He once had a choir of sheep-masked children sing, “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands”, which was so spooky that it reminded me of the scene in Pink Floyd the Wall where they sang, “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2”. Couple this with backwards tarantula walking, brainwashing abilities, a worm-infested compound to live in, and a bearded face with a head full of long dirty dreadlocks and you’ve got a recipe for psychosis.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I modeled a lot of my villains after Bray Wyatt. But on the advice of my awesome friend Angie, it could be time to at least try a new style: the calm and collected villain with a subtle psychotic nature. It could be a guy who picks the wings off of flies and keeps a straight face the entire time. It could be a handsome gentleman in a suit and tie who orders human jerky online. It could be a gentle and loving grandpa who instead of slashing the shit out of people, suffocates them with duct tape by covering their mouths and noses. This is already sounding pretty creepy to me, so yes, there’s a lot of truth in what Angie says. Happy early Halloween, by the way! We’ve got ears, say cheers! Hehehehehehe!

***POISON TONGUE TALES 2: THE RIGHT TO REMAIN PSYCHOTIC***

Despite the subtitle of this short story collection, this next piece could be my first real attempt at crafting a calm villain. He’s a politician, so being calm and charismatic comes with the territory. This story will be called “Peacemaker” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Gerard Killings, Human Assassin

2.      Misty Blades, Fox Ninja

3.      Randy Schneider, Politician

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: Gerard has the unfortunate mercenary work of protecting Randy Schneider, a politician who is trying to introduce a bill that would legalize fox hunting. One night while Gerard is camping out in Mr. Schneider’s living room, the mansion is invaded by Misty Blades, an anthropomorphic fox who takes offense to the pompous politician’s anti-animal views. Gerard Killings has to decide between collecting a paycheck from Randy or giving into his disgust for his client and agreeing to help Misty. Either way, Randy Schneider isn’t a slouch himself; he’s armed with a peacemaker handgun while Gerard prefers a machete and Misty possesses a jagged katana.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Speaking of calmly villainous politicians, next on the chopping block is Randy Schneider. Maybe I could use Patrick Bateman as a reference model when I draw Randy. Or perhaps Alan Shores from the TV series “Boston Legal”. Or perhaps David Aceveda from “The Shield”. Whoever I end up modeling Randy Schneider after, it won’t be another chubby villain like I normally have. Marie Krepps likes to rib me over that, but she’s truthful in her friendly ribbing. It’s time for a change!

***WRESTLECRAP***

Another wrestling reference? Again? What’s with me and these…ugh…Anyways, now that Stuck Rubber Baby and Paper Towns are both in my rearview mirror, it’s time for a new book. Stuck Rubber Baby was a graphic novel and Paper Towns before it was a fictional novel, which means the next choice has to be nonfiction (that’s a new rule for me when I choose which book to read: I have to cover all three bases). Enter Wrestlecrap, a biography of the worst gimmicks and storylines in the history of professional wrestling, dating all the way up to 2003 when the book was published. So far, so good. It’s not earth-shattering, so it’ll probably earn a passing grade at best. I like it, though. I like it a lot!

***WRESTLING JOKE OF THE DAY (AGAIN?!)***

If Dude Love and Juice Robinson formed a tag team together, they’d be called Dude Juice.

Body Positivity

***BODY POSITIVITY***

Judging from how my selfies look these days, this is going to come as a major shock to a lot of people (eye roll). I treat the fat guy with the same respect that I treat the athlete. There are good and bad people on both sides of that spectrum and that’s really the only criteria I use to decide if I like someone or not. You can do bicep curls and military presses until the end of time, but until you treat your fellow human being with love and kindness, you don’t deserve my respect.

I know that sounds ironic considering my love for WWE and how only a small minority of those wrestlers are out of shape. Yes, I enjoy the flippy-floppy techniques of guys like Neville and Seth Rollins, but I also don’t feel the need to bash out of shape wrestlers like Kevin Owens and Bray Wyatt simply because of how they look. Whether it’s with WWE or real life, looks don’t mean shit anymore. There are fat guys who are happily married and muscle studs who are struggling to find a girlfriend. Yes, I know Family Guy is only a cartoon where the characters beat the shit out of each other constantly, but the fact that a chubby guy like Peter Griffin can have a sexy redhead like Lois isn’t lost on me.

Not everybody on this planet has to be a sex object with rippling muscles and firm thighs. Sometimes I get the feeling that the only reason we have fat shaming in our society today is because the ones doing the shaming want someone to jerk off to. They don’t have enough people wax the carrot to, so they expect the whole world to look like sex statues. So that’s it, huh? If I were to go to the gym and exercise my ass off until I was 200 lbs, my biggest reward would be people jerking off to me? Gee, thanks a lot.

Another excuse fat shamers like to use to do what they do is that they’re concerned for their target’s health. So let me get this straight: you’re worried they might die from a heart attack or a stroke, so you insult them until they feel suicidal? Great logic. Great fucking logic. If you’re legitimately concerned about a fat guy’s health, cheer them on, don’t insult them. That drill instructor logic will get you five knuckles of death right in the fucking jaw.

So, the primary excuses people have for making fun of fat people are not enough wanking material and fake health concerns. I thought that would have been the end of it. And then Bill Maher closes an episode of Real Time with one of the most disgusting monologues I’ve heard in a long while. He chastised publications like The Huffington Post for promoting body positivity because obesity is supposed to be a disease, not a fashion trend. It’s one thing for him to make fat jokes about guys like Donald Trump, Chris Christie, and Rush Limbaugh, because those three are bona fide assholes. But to generalize the argument to include everyday people? Unbelievable.

Imagine if the wrong person were to see that kind of message on TV. Maybe it’s a fat guy in high school being bullied by jocks. Maybe it’s a binge-eating fat woman with low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. No less than a week after doing an ending monologue about Republicans being trolls, Bill Maher became a troll himself to the entire obese population. He was already on my shit list for telling his audience how to dress and bitching about superhero movies and fast-paced novels. Those things I can deal with. But after that night of fat shaming, I have to reconsider my fandom for Mr. Maher. Yes, he and I are both proud liberals with a strong sense of zeal, but is he really fighting for someone like me with his show?

On one hand, I understand the health risks of being overweight. I know this, because there were times when I’d get winded climbing the stairs. I would come home from walks to the convenience store dripping with sweat like a fire hydrant. I have sleep apnea that isn’t always cured with my CPAP. The fact that I even have a CPAP says a lot about the state of my body. Am I the healthiest person on earth? Not really. But that doesn’t mean I have to feel like shit because of it. There are worse things in this world than being fat, such as being evil, stupid, shallow, obnoxious, and hateful among other negative qualities.

In the end, the only one who has the right to an opinion of your body is you yourself. If you like the way you look, good for you. If you don’t, do something about it. But if you are going to do something about it, make sure you have the final say. It’s your body, after all. Making diet and exercise choices shouldn’t be taken lightly and shouldn’t be because of coercion or insults. Surround yourself with people who embody a positive state of mind. They’re the ones who will help you through your body issues, not the jerk-offs and trolls. Somebody out there loves you and hopefully you love yourself too. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Two days ago, I finally pumped out “Wolf’s Cannonball”, the martial arts retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. The next character from that story to be drawn will be Little Red Sniper. I ordered some red colored pencils from Amazon and I might wait for them to get here before I get started on this drawing. I might have other variations of red in my collection, I just have to look for them.

***BOOK REVIEW***

I only have a little over a hundred pages left to read from Chris Jericho’s third memoir “The Best in the World: At What I Have No Idea”. I would have made some progress on it today, but I was feeling the blahs as far as creativity went. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a more energetic day. I plan on giving this book the same grade I gave to Chris Jericho’s first two memoirs: four stars out of five. He’s witty, he’s to-the-point, he’s entertaining…what more could I ask for out of a pro-wrestler turned author?

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What did Barack Obama say to the Republican Party in 2012?

A: Damn Mitt!

My Influences

***MY INFLUENCES***

We all have our favorite books, authors, movies, actors, music and bands. But how much of that creative fuel actually changes the way we approach our art? I can safely say that even though Daniel Bryan is my favorite pro-wrestler of all time, he doesn’t make me want to adjust my writing style. In other words, even though I prefer watching Mr. Bryan over other wrestlers, he’s not necessarily an influence to me. An influence is someone you model your work after, not just someone who tingles your senses. Soulfly is one of my favorite heavy metal acts of all time, but they don’t change the way I write stories. So what does influence me? Who are the people and what are the mediums that make me want to become a better writer? I never gave much thought about this until now, and as of today, there are ten items on this list. Starting with…

***DIALBO II: LORD OF DESTRUCTION***

I’ve always credited this computer game with giving me a fascination in barbarians. I’ve always loved using melee-ranged warriors whenever I played RPG’s and the barbarian personifies that in Diablo II in a way no other class does. Actually, that’s not entirely true since the paladin’s fire and cold auras can jack him up like Brock Lesnar, but who’s keeping track? Bottom line, if it wasn’t for Diablo II, Deus Shadowheart, Brutus Warpath, Corey Darkside, and Magnus Warcry would never be possible. I’ve always considered Deus to be my honey child despite the fact that he’s an overloaded Gary-Stu. He finally found a story to be a part of and that short story is appropriately called Deus Ex Machina, a high fantasy tale that preaches teaching people how to do stuff as opposed to doing those things for them. Deus Ex Machina is one of the cornerstones of my soon-to-be published anthology Poison Tongue Tales. But it’s not just barbarians that held my fascination. Hannah Jason from “Bee Jay the Glutinous” is a sorceress, Marcus Edge from “Stardust” is a druid, Edwin Stryker from “Crossing the Line” is a paladin, so many characters were influenced by the dark magic Diablo II is known for.

***FINAL FIGHT***

More and more these days, whenever I’m riding in the car and I see a dilapidated neighborhood through my window, I always tell my brother James that said neighborhood looks like a stage from Final Fight, a beat ‘em up arcade game where most of the stages take place in ghettoized buildings. Ever since rekindling my interest in this game earlier this year, lots of Dungeons & Dragons campaign, novel, and short story ideas have come from those broken down buildings. I’m still waiting for the day when I can sit down with James, Reina, and Shara and guide them through an adventure that takes place on a shit-infested subway train. Stage backgrounds from videogames have always fascinated me, but the biggest piece of creative fuel I drew from Final Fight was Mike Haggar, a pro-wrestler who pile-drives, suplexes, and clotheslines Mad Gear gangsters into powder. When I wrote the first draft of “Occupy Wrestling” back in 2013, I wanted the main character Mitch McLeod to be a throwback to Mike Haggar in terms of body size and outfit, right down to the shoulder strap and the plated boots from the second Final Fight game. With thick rimmed glasses, pale skin, and puffy spiked hair, Mitch McLeod keeps himself from being a complete clone of Mr. Haggar while honoring how badass the Mayor of Metro City really is.

***WWE***

This one’s a no-brainer in so many ways. Where do I begin? Well, if I didn’t have such a zealous love for pro-wrestling, “Occupy Wrestling” wouldn’t be possible. If it wasn’t for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award, I wouldn’t have a basis for how to build Keegan Day from the ground up since he’s supposed to represent everything wrong with the wrestling business. But what about the dark fantasy aspects of WWE wrestlers? The Undertaker is without a doubt the biggest one with his necromancer gimmick. Bray Wyatt as a sadistic cult leader will always be an influence on the creepy monsters from “Occupy Wrestling”. Stardust and Goldust? Well, if I ever decide to write the sequel to Occupy Wrestling and call it “The Black Widow”, Rosie Rogers will be a parody of the Rhodes brothers’ bizarre gimmicks and she’ll be called Angel Dust. WWE will always be my favorite form of violent entertainment. Ignoramuses who call it “fake” can say the same thing about other forms of fiction like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones.

***THE CLEANER***

Stephen King once famously said that if you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time nor the tools to write. In the summer of 2009, I finally got the wakeup call I needed when I read “The Cleaner” by Brett Battles, a fast-paced, exciting, well-thought-out novel that set the standards I now have for the books I read. My tastes have changed over the years, but “The Cleaner” will always be what I base my reading and writing on since that was the novel that set me on the right path. Jonathan Quinn really is a badass character and Brett Battles really is a badass author. Check out this book whenever you get the time.

***PINK FLOYD THE WALL***

I started listening to Pink Floyd on a regular basis when I moved to Chehalis, Washington in 1996. Back in those horrendous middle school days, I loved hearing Roger Waters say, “We don’t need no education!” I didn’t gain a full-fledged appreciation for The Wall’s message until I watched the movie version of it quite frequently in my sophomore year of high school. Seeing those faceless children plunge into a meat grinder made me fear conformity so much that I resisted everyone’s attempts to break me. If it wasn’t for Pink Floyd the Wall and its message of anti-conformity, lord knows where my creativity would have ended up. Maybe I wouldn’t have made it out of high school with my individuality intact. Maybe there would be no Garrison Kelly novels.

***KILLER BE KILLED***

Okay, so this super-group hasn’t been around for a long time, but their song “Snakes of Jehovah” is a huge part of the reason why Occupy Wrestling is a success (in my mind at least). After Keegan goes to a minimum security jail for corruption charges, he has his robe and snake mask-wearing henchmen, The Snakes of Jehovah, do his bidding for him to make sure the police don’t interfere with his behind the scenes work. These faceless minions are blessed with magical powers, creepy limbs, and the ability to put up a barrier just by forming a circle and speaking in tongues. Thank you, Killer Be Killed, for putting out such a badass album! Without you guys, Keegan would have to shell out even more money from his billion dollar bank account to keep the police at bay.

***GEORGE CARLIN***

With intelligent speaking abilities, a raunchy and dark sense of humor, and a disdain for politically correct policies, George Carlin gave me permission to be as wild and crazy as I want when it comes to my writing. Before watching my first George Carlin routine, I had to rely on comedians like Johnny Carson, Benny Hill, and Bill Cosby to be my creative fuel. Being as young and naïve as I was back then, those three comedians’ messages didn’t ring true for me the way that Carlin’s did. I feel so good about my comedic abilities that I currently have a novel idea sitting in my reserve stack called “Suck It, Double Dork!”, which is basically one long rehashing of Carlin’s joke about making rape funny by picturing Porky Pig sodomizing Elmer Fudd. They’re cartoon characters; nobody gives a shit what happens to them. Even at the age of 71, Carlin died too soon. Rest in peace.

***CLERKS***

When I reviewed Clerks and Clerks II, I should have given both of those movies five stars instead of four. A lot of the well-spoken dialogue from those movies is the basis for my characters’ dialogue and my writing was well-received because of it. I wish I would have known how to interpret creative fuel in a more mature way when I was a teenager and a twenty-something. Otherwise, my first movie script Pumping Filter wouldn’t be such a mess of racial and sexual slurs from Pulp Fiction. As I look up scenes from Clerks I and II on You Tube, I realize that it’s not enough just to copy a style of dialogue. It has to fit your story’s world and sound 100% natural too.

***DUNGEONS & DRAGONS***

It’s a pencil-and-paper role-playing game where my love for dark fantasy themes is rekindled and reenergized once more. Many of my player characters and villains from these campaigns went on to become major players in many of my stories. Brutus Warcry, my level eight human barbarian, had his last name tweaked to Warpath and he became the main character for a short story called “Stone Cold” about a barbarian who wants revenge for his fallen wife. Bob Rua, a tiger monk and MMA practitioner, was the main character from “Tiger Bullet Kick”, where he guards a tomb full of treasure from a necromancer and a newly awakened mummy king. Charles Goodhorn, a paladin with a dark past, will be the main character in a novel idea called “Barbaric Justice”, where three intergalactic barbarians hold a trade route hostage in exchange for the means to return home. So many characters, so many stories, so much fun!

***THE SHIELD***

Maybe this detective show was responsible for my teenaged works being so offensive and crass due to its blatant TV-MA rating. Over a decade later and it becomes central to a novel idea called “Silent Warrior”. Spoiler alert, high school introvert Scott George has sex with his vengeful history teacher’s daughter and says to him, “Your daughter’s pussy tastes like sweet butter.” Okay, so maybe Silent Warrior isn’t as extreme or brutish as The Shield, but the writing style and dialogue have a lot of similarities, especially when, spoiler alert, Scott gets put on trial for having sex with a minor while being 18 years old.

***CONCLUSION***

(Gnaws on a carrot) Meh…that’s all folks! Wait a minute, wrong Looney Tunes character. My bad! Hehe!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I’ve got the obligatory Hendrix perm and the inevitable pinhole burns all down the front of my favorite satin shirt. I’ve got nicotine stains on my fingers. I’ve got a silver spoon on a chain. I’ve got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains. I’ve got wild staring eyes. I’ve got a strong urge to fly. But I’ve got nowhere to fly to. Oooo, babe! When I pick up the phone, there’s still nobody home.”

-Pink Floyd singing “Nobody Home”-

WWE TLC: The ECW Originals vs. The Wyatt Family

MATCH: The ECW Originals (Bubba-Ray Dudley, D-Von Dudley, Tommy Dreamer, and Rhyno) vs. The Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, Erick Rowan, and Braun Strowman) in an eight-man tag team elimination tables match.
PROMOTION: World Wrestling Entertainment
EVENT: TLC: Tables, Ladders, and Chairs
YEAR: 2015
RATING: TV-PG for violence
GRADE: Mixed


All throughout the 1990’s, Extreme Championship Wrestling defined the spirit of hardcore wrestling. Power bombs through flaming wooden tables, Irish whips into skin-shredding razor wire, repeated kendo stick shots until the opponent bled buckets, high flying dives off of the tallest structures, broken bones, insane fan participation, and saying “Thank you, sir, may I have another?!” the next day. If you wrestled for ECW, you couldn’t just be a moderately good athlete. You had to be tough as nails, nasty as hell, and maybe even godlike at times. The pain you will suffer, the scars you will obtain, the blood you will spill will all be in the name of legitimizing professional wrestling. ECW has since closed its doors permanently in 2001, but Bubba-Ray Dudley, D-Von Dudley, Tommy Dreamer, and Rhyno are invoking the spirit for this confrontation at TLC.

Good luck, boys, because The Wyatt Family has dominated the WWE on a consistent basis for three whole years, temporary separation aside. All four of these stable members are giants among insects. In addition to towering over all of their opponents, their scraggly facial hair, ugly faces, sheep masks, and cultist mind games give them a psychological edge in their matches. Just imagine if Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, Erick Rowan, and Braun Strowman came to your door to deliver a pizza. Could you in all good consciousness eat that pizza knowing four zombie rednecks with serial killer mindsets are the ones at your doorstep? You’d better give them a million dollar tip lest you be squashed and strangled to death by these behemoths of men.

It’s only right that four hardcore extremists and four monstrous hillbillies get together for a tables match, where the rules are simple: if a wrestler gets slammed through a wooden table, he must go back to the locker room and wait for the match to be over. The losing team is the one who has all of their members slammed through tables. There are no pin falls, no submissions, no count-outs, and no disqualifications. If you can dream it up in your sick and twisted imagination, you can do whatever the hell you want to your opponents in this kind of match. Hell, you might even get a way with bending the limits of a TV-PG environment.

As soon as both four-man teams made their entrances, they stared each other down and waited for that bell to ring. When it rang, nobody was safe. Punches, kicks, slams, head butts, elbows, these basic moves turned a wrestling match into a head-stomping, mosh-pitting riot. These wrestlers already do a good enough job with the wrestling aspect of their matches. But when the toys come out, you’d better watch the hell out. Kendo stick shots form the biggest welts on the Wyatt Family’s skin. Metal garbage cans flatten and twist as they bounce off the zombie rednecks’ skulls. Braun Strowman was the only one who could contain this extreme riot. He went around clubbing and clothes lining the ECW originals until his Wyatt Family had the edge once again.

It was only a few minutes into the match and it already looked like it had TV-MA potential. But it didn’t take long for this match to earn is mixed grade. There were a few spots in this match that looked a little botchy to me. Bubba-Ray Dudley was supposed to use a metal garbage can to block a haymaker from Braun Strowman. Bubba put up his guard too soon…and Braun punched the defensive shield anyways. Not long afterwards, you had Erick Rowan attempting a running kick on one of the ECW guys only to put his foot through a table (which for some odd reason didn’t count as an elimination). Erick Rowan had D-Von Dudley spread eagle across another table and was perched on the top turnbuckle only to be shoved off by Rhyno. Rowan broke the table, but only the edge of it and D-Von had supposedly rolled off in time, though it still looked sketchy to me who was at fault for this botch.

The WWE fans are rarely happy with the choreography of a non-Daniel Bryan match (I swear, that guy has spoiled the audience rotten). This time, I can empathize with their unhappiness. Just this time. But hey, the action picked up again when both Dudley brothers slammed Erick Rowan through a table. Once he was gone, there were more kendo stick shots, more beatings, more chair shots, and then the ECW guys were being slammed through tables until Bubba-Ray Dudley was the last one remaining on his team. Before that scenario took place, Bubba did a spot where he was supposed to do a cross body block on Braun Strowman. Those two took a while to get positioned and when it finally happened, Braun stumbled backwards and fell as if it wasn’t meant to happen.

Never fear, original ECW fans. Just when the crowd was about to die, Bubba-Ray Dudley set up another table in the ring, but also brought out some lighter fluid and a cigarette lighter. He squirted a very liberal amount of fluid on that wooden table and stunk up the entire arena with chemicals. All that was left was to light it on fire and power bomb Bray Wyatt’s fat ass through the hardcore toy. But that never happened. It probably couldn’t under a TV-PG setting. Luke Harper super kicked Bubba-Ray under the chin while Braun Strowman heaved the ECW warrior in the air before slamming him through the table, thus ensuring the match-ending elimination and a victory for the Wyatt Family.

All in all, it was an enjoyable match to watch, especially since I have a lot of nostalgic feelings for the old ECW promotion. But let’s face it: the match at TLC earned its mixed rating. You could blame the hard-to-impress fans, you could blame the botchy spots, you could blame the false advertising when it came to the would-be flaming table, but there’s one other thing that stuck out in my mind. Elimination matches are tricky bitches as far as putting the winning team over is concerned. The Wyatt Family lost only one member of their team during that match: Erick Rowan. Losing three members would make the Wyatts survivors. Losing two members would also make them survivors. Losing zero members would make them dominant and scary like they’ve always been. But losing Erick Rowan exclusively made me believe that he’s being singled out as a weak link of that stable. I know it’s not true since he’s every bit as powerful and intimidating as the rest of his clan. All I’m saying is that one elimination looks suspiciously like a weak link plot. I’m interested to see where the WWE creative team goes with this. I hope they don’t go anywhere with it and just have Erick Rowan be treated as an equal.

WWE Hell in a Cell: Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker

MATCH: Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell rubber match
PROMOTION: World Wrestling Entertainment
EVENT: Hell in a Cell
YEAR: 2015
RATING: TV-PG for violence, but realistically, it should be higher due to blood
GRADE: Pass


The Undertaker had been a WWE wrestler since 1990. In those multiple decades of destruction, he has won multiple world titles and created frighteningly violent moments under the gimmick of an undead wrestler. He even had an undefeated streak when it came to competing at Wrestlemania pay-per-views, winning on 21 different occasions. The Hell in a Cell match itself is considered his specialty alongside Casket matches and Buried Alive matches. Bottom line: if you were an opponent of The Undertaker’s, Rest in Peace wouldn’t have been just a meaningless catchphrase. It was your ultimate fate as this demonic warrior dragged you to hell with him.

And then The Undertaker found his ultimate poison in the form of NCAA and UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar. They competed in Hell in a Cell and Biker Chain matches between 2002 and 2003 and Lesnar won all of these encounters. Fast forward to the year 2014, when the most shocking moment in Wrestlemania history overshadowed Daniel Bryan’s WWE Championship win. Lesnar was the one who snapped Undertaker’s undefeated streak and sent him to the hospital that same night.

Ever since that humiliating defeat, questions began to surface as to whether or not The Undertaker should retire from wrestling permanently. Not only was he pushing 50 years old, but the pictures fans took with him showed a weaker version of his former self. The man looked like he was dying from starvation and cancer at the same time. And then he returned to the 2015 Wrestlemania event with packed on muscle and a thicker hairstyle. He defeated Bray Wyatt in a match that was considered to be a classic despite Undertaker’s advanced age.

With this newfound courage, The Undertaker made yet another return at the Battleground pay-per-view when he kicked Brock Lesnar in the balls and gave him two Tombstone Piledrivers, effectively giving Lesnar his win against WWE Champion Seth Rollins via disqualification, when no title can change hands. The rivalry between Lesnar and Taker got so personal that they competed at Summer Slam, where the latter used a desperate low blow to help him achieve victory despite being a baby face.

And then we come to the 2015 Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, where the titular match between Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker would be the final chapter in their storied rivalry. No more controversy. No more shocks. No more bullshit. Just two warriors being locked in a prison cell and kicking the crap out of each other. When that cell door was closed and chained shut, the two wrestlers would put on a violent clinic that would last in the memories of everybody who watched it.

The match started out with both fighters intending to destroy each other, but ultimately finding counters for each other’s moves. Lesnar tried many times to take Undertaker to Suplex City, but the latter held onto the ropes and punched out his opponent with those huge hands.

And then the counters were over and these two just destroyed each other from this point on. Undertaker shoved Lesnar into a steel ring post and caused his forehead to drool with blood. Lesnar hit The Undertaker with heavy ass steel stairs and busted his forehead open as well. And then there were chair shots, more steel stair shots, and tosses against the chain-link cage. And then came Brock Lesnar’s F5’s and German suplexes. And then came Undertaker’s Hell’s Gate submission hold, which is really just a chokehold against the shins.

The bloody wounds on both combatants’ heads were so severe that the ringside doctor had to be called to patch them up. Undertaker was on his back and being tended to, but Brock Lesnar just wanted to beat the hell out of him some more. So what did the former UFC champion do? He grabbed that doctor and threw him around like a teddy bear. And then there were more beatings, including multiple punches from both fighters that did little to help their head wounds.

Lesnar wants to finish this match badly. He tears up the ring’s protective canvas and exposes the wooden boards underneath. He thinks he’s going to slam Undertaker on these boards and end the deadman’s career. Instead, Lesnar gets a choke slam and a Tombstone Piledriver for his efforts, but kicks out of both. Undertaker thinks he has this one in the bag and uses his throat slash taunt to show Lesnar who’s boss. And then Lesnar uses a low blow of his own and F5’s Undertaker onto the exposed wood for the match-ending three count. The 13 year feud between these two is finally over with Brock Lesnar as the victor.

Despite losing the match and laying in a broken heap, The Undertaker received adulation from everybody who watched that match. The fans were standing up and clapping for him. John Layfield, a normally heel commentator, was paying his respects to The Undertaker’s 25-year career. And me? I’m giving this match a passing grade and a TV-MA rating. The match itself was bloody, vicious, violent, and barbaric. Lesnar and Taker didn’t just have a wrestling match. They went to war with each other. If they were given AK-47’s and bazookas, you’re damn right they would have used them on each other. They would set the entire world on fire just to burn each other alive. That kind of sadism is why Undertaker got the respect he got at the Staples Center that night.

And then the ultimate act of disrespect and a candidate for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic came when all four members of The Wyatt Family surrounded the ring with Undertaker struggling to stay standing. Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman, Erick Rowan, and Luke Harper are all huge men north of 300 lbs. and they all ganged up on an already beaten down and bloodied Undertaker before carrying him off Jesus cross style. Everybody in the arena was sickened by this display, but none more so than the same heel commentator who praised The Undertaker the entire night, John Layfield. This is supposed to be a plot device to set up a four-on-four Survivor Series tag team elimination match between Team Undertaker and The Wyatt Family. It’s sick. It’s twisted. It’s disgusting. But it’s damn good television and doesn’t do anything to lower the passing grade. The only thing I have to say about all of this? If Hell in a Cell was hell on earth, Survivor Series is going to be the apocalypse. Run!

Treehouse of Hell

***TREEHOUSE OF HELL***

For some reason, the title of this journal sounds like a secret level in one of the Diablo computer games. I can fully imagine taking my barbarian and paladin and storming the shit out of that place, purging it of demons forever (or at least until Diablo is resurrected for the next videogame). As much as I’d like for this to happen, that’s actually not why I’m writing this journal. This review is about something much deeper: reviews.

When it comes to reviews, writing them has become over time just as much a part of my professional life as paperback copies of Occupy Wrestling, American Darkness, and Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage. Whenever I read a book, I feel obligated to write a review for it in order to help that author out no matter how famous or obscure he or she may be. I recently wrote reviews for the obscure “Girlfriend Wager” by Edward Davies and the wildly popular “Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris. Both books received passing grades (four stars) and are more popular for their reviews. Then again, honestly critiquing the book does more for an author than giving the book a particular number of stars. Honesty is the best policy. Don’t bullshit people when you write your reviews. In the words of George Carlin, “It’s all bullshit and it’s bad for you.”

But that’s with books. What about TV shows? What about movies? What about wrestling or mixed-martial arts matches? I’m not a movie director or a pro-athlete by any stretch of the imagination, so I don’t have as much influence over television as I do with books. I’ll admit that there are times when I feel down about people not caring about my television reviews. But then I remember that this is the internet and people get ignored all the time. If I give up writing television reviews just because of the lack of demand, then that goes against the whole idea of writing: because it’s good creative fun.

Now that I’ve said that, I want you all to pay attention to the date October 25^th, 2015. On that Sunday night at 8:00 pacific time, there will be two different shows going on at the same time. The first will be a pay-per-view event only broadcast on the WWE Network called Hell in a Cell, in which the two titular matches will be Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker and Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt. The other TV program going on at that time will be The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror 26, which is a Halloween tradition for the Haines-Temons-Stevens-Wilson household.

Normally, I would have to choose one or the other, but thanks to the magic of my Roku streaming device, I can watch one show on that Sunday night and watch the other one at a later time at my leisure. The point of telling you the significance of the 25^th? Because both TV shows will be ripe for the picking when it comes to reviews. That would lead you guys to believe why I didn’t review any matches on the NXT Takeover special called Respect. That NXT pay-per-view was so damn good top to bottom that writing praise for it would be overkill. Not so much with Hell in a Cell, where anything can and will happen.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays for many reasons: good candy, creative costumes, kick-ass TV shows, and the all around frightening spirit of that night. I may be 30 years old, but acting my age is not one of my virtues. I’m definitely dressing up for Halloween and it’s going to be fun! We’ve got ears, say cheers!

　

***READING PRIORITIES***

With “The Girlfriend Wager” and “Silence of the Lambs” in my rearview mirror, it’s time for two more books to go on my currently reading shelf on Good Reads. One of those books is called “January First” by Michael Schofield, in which the author recounts his experiences with raising a daughter who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the tender age of six. As you can tell, this has a special place in my heart since I was diagnosed at age 17. I’ve heard the other book I’m going to read has mental health implications as well. It’s called “Love Me Today, Kill Me Tomorrow” by my very own beautiful beta reader Marie Krepps. I can’t wait to get started on these!

　

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

October has been unofficially dubbed by my good friend Zero Urrea as “villains month”. He’s been pumping out MS Paint pictures of various villains that catch his fancy and I will be doing the same with my pencil and paper drawings. The next villain on the horizon for me is Colleen Owens, the machete-wielding eco-warrior who along with a crew of pirates slashes the shit out of Riff De La Luka’s weed-smuggling crew in the short story “Bleed For Weed”. Riff already has a drawing of him online and he’s bearing resemblance to Dee Jay from Super Street Fighter II. I haven’t decided yet who I’m going to use for Colleen Owens’ reference picture model, but I’m leaning towards Brie Bella from the WWE since they both hold strong pro-environmental views. Although to be fair to Brie, she would never hack random drug smugglers to pieces with a machete…as far as I know. Hehe!

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What’s Edward Davies’ favorite kind of shotgun?
A: Sod-Off.

The Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club

TEAM NAME: The Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club
CANON: Ode to Jeffrey Dahmer


NAME: Otis Norman
AGE: 30
OCCUPATION: Unemployed


NAME: Courtney Robyn
AGE: 28
OCCUPATION: Unemployed


There once was a time during the life of Garrison’s Library that I would blog about weird dreams I had. My blog was a place for creative fuel of all kinds, dreams being no exception. The reason I don’t do it anymore is because those small bursts of creative fuel usually don’t lead anywhere. They’re just a sequence of weird events that have no application to real life. And thus, we have a short story called Ode to Jeffrey Dahmer, where a psychopathic couple go on a rampage in the name of the same serial killer they worship so much. It was a short story so nonsensical that it was eventually dumped when I had to choose stories to publish in American Darkness.

Close your eyes and let me paint a picture for you of the two sole members of the Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club. If at any time you feel like you’re having an acid trip, you probably are and you should call 911, if not for yourself, then for Otis and Courtney. The two of them are unemployed, broke, and about to get kicked out of their poorly kept apartment. So what do they do about their economic situation? They start off by sneaking into an old man’s neighboring apartment and stealing clothes that would make Otis look like Jeffrey Dahmer: a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and a fedora. Whether or not Jeffrey Dahmer actually wore those things is something that boggles my mind to this day.

Otis and Courtney hold hands together and skip down the stairs and toward their car like a couple in love. Not that two serial killer worshipers know anything about love, but who’s keeping score here? They get in their car and speed away before their landlord has a chance to harass them about rent money. During this million mile per hour chase down the streets and on the freeway, they cause so many accidents that they could be accused of committing genocide. That’s a lot of dead bodies and not enough morgues and graveyards to fill them. The cops couldn’t pull the couple over because the police too were involved in these horrendous and lethal accidents.

The reckless driving and the psychotic laughter was all for the purpose of going to the airport and sneaking on an airline flight to Moscow, Russia. Why are they going to Russia? To celebrate Halloween, of course. I know Russia is a mostly conservative country, so they probably don’t take Halloween as seriously as they would in, say, New Orleans. I’m not sure, because I didn’t research this, which is another mistake I made when writing Ode to Jeffrey Dahmer.

By the time Otis and Courtney hit the streets of Moscow, prostitutes and partygoers were hitting on Otis because of his Jeffrey Dahmer clothing. There was even a swarm of women who pulled him inside a nightclub while leaving a jealous Courtney out on the streets to freeze to death. She was so bitter and angry that she engaged in revenge sex with an entire hockey team. Otis found out what his girlfriend was doing, so he vomited his teeth into a garbage can. The story ended with Courtney sarcastically wishing her now ex-boyfriend a Happy Halloween.

Now do you know why Otis Norman and Courtney Robyn are unemployed? It’s not because I don’t have a use for psychotic characters. It’s because the story they were a part of didn’t make a goddamn lick of sense. Of course, nobody told me that I could have merely manipulated the details of my dream to fit a traditional narrative style. Imagine that: I can actually embellish details of my dreams! Who would’ve thunk it? But I’d better be careful, because the same people who sabotaged James Frey could sabotage me for being a big fucking liar! Cue the eye rolls.

The choice of clothing for Otis is also something I’d like to carry on should I use him or Courtney again. The Hawaiian shirt and fedora look is something currently being used by WWE wrestler Bray Wyatt, who coincidentally enough has the gimmick of a backwoods cult master. Does Otis Norman have what it takes to be a cultist? Absolutely. He’s the president of the Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club, for shit’s sake. For all we know, Courtney Robyn could be his deacon. Or his altar girl, depending on how sick he can actually be. With so much potential surrounding a creepy cultist gimmick, it won’t be long before Otis and Courtney find work again. Hell, I already wrote a short poem about them. But they can do more. They certainly can do more.

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

(RE: Paige licking her face.)

“You don’t have to sexually harass me in order to have a good match with me!”

-Natalya from “Total Divas”-

WWE TLCS: Erick Rowan vs. The Big Show

MATCH: Erick Rowan vs. The Big Show in a Steel Stairs Match

PROMOTION: World Wrestling Entertainment

EVENT: Tables, Ladders, Chairs, and Stairs

YEAR: 2014

RATING: TV-PG for moderate violence

GRADE: Pass

The WWE broadcast team calls The Big Show the World’s Largest Athlete for a reason. He’s over seven feet tall and weighs a quarter of a ton. He’s not just a guy who hit the genetic jackpot. He’s strong, agile, and hits so hard his victims feel the pain for years on end. The Big Show started his wrestling career in the 90’s with WCW and won several championships there. He jumped to WWE in the latter part of that decade and is still a dominant ass-kicker in today’s wrestling world, having won even more world championships and being billed as a future first ballot Hall of Famer. I can’t say The Wrestling Observer Newsletter readers like him very much judging from all the negative awards they’ve given him over the years, but whatever.

And then there’s his opponent Erick Rowan, a seven foot tall, over three hundred pound Generation Y member who just arrived on the scene in WWE in 2012 as part of The Wyatt Family. Though he never won any major championships while he was with the group, he did make a major impact as somebody who was also strong and agile at the same time. He and his brethren Luke Harper and Bray Wyatt have dominated WWE by assaulting top tier guys and leaving them broken heaps. The three of them even won a Best Gimmick award from the WON in 2013 for being a backwoods cult. The Wyatt Family has since split up on account of Bray Wyatt “curing” Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, but these three ring warriors are no less dangerous.

Rowan and Show’s rivalry started when they were both on Team Cena at the Survivor Series 2014 pay-per-view against Team Authority, where Big Show betrayed his team at the last minute by knocking out John Cena and having him eliminated. Though Team Cena would still win the match, the anger towards Big Show from the WWE Universe was still strong for his cowardly act. Who would be the first to confront him and show him what an idiot he was? Erick Rowan, who in no uncertain terms said he doesn’t like bullies before dispatching of The Big Show.

And now we have this Steel Stairs Match at the TLCS pay-per-view the following month of December. In this match, there are no count-outs or disqualifications, only pin falls or submissions. Steel ring stairs are not only legal to use as weapons, they’re encouraged as such. Steel ring stairs weigh about as much as a typically-sized wrestler, which is somewhere north of 220 lbs. Erick Rowan and The Big Show are so huge and so strong that when they pick up steel stairs, those big pieces of metal look like toys in their arms. They make lifting the stairs look easy and make using them as weapons look even easier. It’s like a D&D-style gnomish rogue carrying a punch dagger. It’s that easy and that crafty.

To start off the match, Erick Rowan threw a martial arts spin kick and knocked Big Show down. I repeat, a 350 lbs. man threw a spin kick like he was Adrian Neville or Sami Zayn, both of whom are cruiserweights. Then the two wrestlers threw each other into the posts, into the barricades, and slammed each other on the outside floor, which is made of concrete and nothing more.

After the beginning flurry from Erick Rowan, The Big Show put on a dominant, squash match-style performance for the rest of the fight. Among the things the Big Show used the steel stairs for included as a battering ram, as a throwing weapon, as a slamming surface, as bowling pins for throwing Erick Rowan, he even put that huge piece of metal on the English announce table and scared the crap out of Michael Cole, JBL, and Jerry Lawler.

Over and over, Big Show smashed Erick Rowan with those stairs and knocked him unconscious several times. Rowan was dizzy and dumb after multiple blows to the head. His “high IQ” dropped a few points after this destructive ass-beating. And then to top it all off, Big Show figured Erick Rowan was going to kick out anyways, so Show held the steel stairs against Rowan’s gigantic chest and pinned him for a three count with all of that pressure. Even a zombie wouldn’t be able to kick out of that.

The creative ways to beat people with stairs, the impact of the blunt force trauma, the easiness of their use by both men, and the athletic displays also by both men are all what make me want to give this match a passing grade. There’s just one thing that bothers me, but it’s not enough to demote this match to a mixed grade, so don’t worry. Ever since this one-sided ass-kicking from Big Show to Erick Rowan, the latter was very rarely seen on television, and by television I mean Raw and Smackdown and not anything on the WWE Network.

The last time I heard of Rowan’s whereabouts was that he had a match with “The Swiss Superman” Cesaro on a minor league show called WWE Superstars. How exactly does a former Wyatt Family member with that much hype go from a deadly war at TLCS to being mingled with lower-status wrestlers? My theory was that Erick Rowan was only carrying the top spot until various injured wrestlers came off the shelf. It’s sad and unfortunate to think of Erick Rowan that way. He had and still does have lots of potential.

WWE Hell in a Cell: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

TITLE: WWE Hell in a Cell: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

GENRE: Professional Wrestling Match

RATING: TV-PG for moderate violence and brief language

GRADE: Pass

A Hell in a Cell match is more than a typical steel cage fight. In this case, the cage surrounds the entire ring and exposes the concrete floor. You can’t win the match by escape because there is no escape. It’s just you and your opponent inside a wire mesh cage with no rules or regulations to hold you back. As heel commentator JBL so appropriately puts it, the only limit to your attack is your imagination. Dean Ambrose has a wild imagination in case you couldn’t tell from his erratic behavior. Seth Rollins can be just as sadistic and crazy. The first Hell in a Cell match between John Cena and Randy Orton was…acceptable. But this main event match between Ambrose and Rollins was going to steal the show.

Normally a match of this caliber would start in the ring and the bell would sound off three times to start the battle. Dean Ambrose didn’t want that. Carrying a kendo stick like a samurai sword with him, he wanted to start on TOP of the cell. Seth Rollins along with his two stooges Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble were (kind of) happy to humor him. Mercury and Noble got kendo stick welts for their troubles and Rollins and Ambrose fell off the cage and crashed through the English and Spanish-speaking announce tables.

It could have been over before it started. Dean Ambrose didn’t want that ending. He got off of his stretcher and chased Seth Rollins down before throwing him in the cell to officially start the match. Once the bell rung three times, these two warriors brutalized each other. They used chairs, sticks, steel stairs, and wooden tables, all in an effort to achieve victory. Corporate Kane was outside the cell and interfered by blasting Ambrose in the face with a fire extinguisher. That didn’t cool off the fire in the Lunatic Fringe’s belly. He wasn’t just pissed off at Seth Rollins; he had a bloodlust for him. He wanted to torture and twist him in the most painful ways possible.

Dean Ambrose was so close to exacting his revenge when he put an unconscious Seth Rollins’ head on top of cinder blocks to set up for Rollins’ own finisher move, the curb stomp. And then the arena went black and strange tongues were being spoken with a lantern and a ghost in the center of the ring. The speaker of that tongues was none other than the hypnotic and frightening Bray Wyatt, who downed Dean Ambrose with a spinning face buster and allowed Seth Rollins to cover Ambrose for the 1-2-3 pin. The match is over, but the emotional scars bleed like waterfalls and the physical pains burn like hellfire.

And now for the actual critique. To put it shortly, this match was as violent and psychotic as anybody could ask for. The blood was minimal, but the pain was at its maximum with the creative use of weaponry and the multi-story fall from the start of the match. This wasn’t just a wrestling match; this was a fight for survival. Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins beat each other so badly after that fall it was amazing they didn’t have a hearse parked outside the arena. You’re damn right they were sore and bruised.

Believe it or not, the finish to the match where Bray Wyatt interfered didn’t bother me in the least bit. Yes, I wanted to see Dean Ambrose curb stomp Seth Rollins’ head into powder and slush. But then again, Bray Wyatt had been off of WWE television for a long time and needed a grand reintroduction. And now that the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view is in the books, we’re looking at a rivalry between Ambrose and Wyatt.

You know what that means? It means two crazies, two psychopaths are going to tear each other apart at some point. Dean Ambrose is like The Joker and Bray Wyatt is like Charles Manson. The two wrestlers have the mindset of serial killers and if they have to bleed each other out to get to the climax of their battle, well, let me put it his way: Seth Rollins is the luckiest guy on the planet. If these two loony tunes play enough mind games with each other for long enough, one of those minds will be running down a sewer drain while the other is bleeding with psychological trauma.

What you have to remember when watching WWE is everything happens for a reason. All you have to do as a fan is wait patiently for your favorites to triumph. It’s not an instant situation. It takes time for a climax to launch. Lots of time.

When Daniel Bryan was screwed out of the WWE Title at Summer Slam 2013, it took him until Wrestlemania XXX, which is an April 2014 pay-per-view to regain it. The point of this analogy is if you’re a fan and you want to see Seth Rollins get brutalized over and over again, but eventually for a final time, wait patiently. WWE waited patiently for Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins to climax and it paid off in the most violent way possible, which is why this match in particular gets a passing grade.