Fred Trump, Sr. vs. Chris Benoit: Contenders for Father of the Year

 

Perry Saturn vs. Dr. Dre

 

Joey Styles vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

 

Your winner by KTFO: "Stocky Balboa" Joey Styles!

Rhino: ECW's Motor City Monster

 

Andrew "Test" Martin (Rest in Peace)

 

Jim Cornette

 

Mitch McLeod Puts the Death in Death Match

Clockwork Orange House of Fun. New Orleans Street Fight. No Holds Barred. Death Match. Hardcore Rules. In professional wrestling, there are thousands of ways to describe a match having no rules, where the only ways to win are by pinfall or submission. No rules rules, right? Well, as Mitch McLeod found out in a message board wrestling RPG, you still have to work within the limits of the law. You can’t shower your opponent with an AK-47. You can’t strap a dynamite vest to a random audience member to extort your opponent into quitting. You shouldn’t be able to do what Stone Cold Steve Austin did and raise a car that Triple H is in with a forklift before dropping it upside down from twenty feet high. Don’t worry about Trips, though, because he was back on TV the next night with only “contusions” on his medical record. There are lots of ways you can win a Death Match, none of which include murder. You can’t take the world championship to prison with you.

As a side note, Mitch McLeod shouldn’t be confused with Kentucky politician Mitch McConnell. One of them will inflict so much pain on you that you’ll develop an addiction to Oxycontin. The other is a hardcore wrestler. McLeod was OTT Wrestling’s version of Tommy Dreamer: the hardcore heart and soul of the company. Mitch would scramble your brains with a steel chair and deduct a hundred IQ points from your test. He would scissors kick a glass water pitcher over your head and deduct another hundred IQ points from your test. He would put a set of steel stairs over your head and leapfrog over the top rope onto them…there go another hundred IQ points. By the time Mitch McLeod was done fucking with your brain, you’d be more than qualified to vote for that Kentucky politician I mentioned earlier.

Unfortunately, none of those credentials would be enough to earn him a victory in his first OTT match ever against the seven-foot tall behemoth known as Yeti. No, I’m not talking about the toilet paper mummy from WCW in the 90’s. This version of Yeti was a legitimate powerhouse. He towered over everybody and made them look and cry like children. His breath reeked of human flesh and sour blood. His horns gave you the impression that the devil himself was standing across the ring from you. And those muscles…so many fucking muscles, but not the kind that belong on the cover of a cheesy romance novel. If Yeti wanted to hurt you, the National Guard would merely delay the inevitable…by about five seconds. He was the perfect first opponent for Mitch McLeod.

With Yeti already waiting to feast on the walking corpse that awaited him, Mitch McLeod’s music hit and the crowd went ape shit, no pun intended. Then again, how do you not go ape shit when “Wollt Ihr Das Bett En Flammen Sehen?” by Rammstein is blasting out of the speakers? German heavy metal for an American ass-kicker. You would think that Mitch would have all the (literal) tools necessary to beat Yeti like a war drum. But prior to joining OTT, he didn’t know that every match in this organization was contested under hardcore rules. Therefore, he did what every good baby-faced hero did in wrestling and attempted to cheat. What a great guy! Such a role model for the youngsters in the crowd!

The rules of the RPG were simple: each player would post a series of moves to perform in the match and whoever had the best writing and most impressive showing would be declared the victor by the GM/referee. At this point, the only thing that dwarfed Mitch’s opponent was my ego. I didn’t want to lose. I didn’t want to “do the job” as they say in the wrestling industry. Sixteen-year-old me didn’t make sacrifices for the good of the story. I just wanted to see Mitch be undefeated in everything he did, because I believed in my own hype. I was my own “mark”, to use another wrestling term. So when Yeti and Mitch locked up, it was game on, motherfucker.

While I don’t remember the exact choreography of the match, I do know that it started off with some actual wrestling maneuvers. Yeti hit a few body slams, suplexes, and clotheslines, each of them rattling Mitch’s bones like a Haitian earthquake that would surely be referenced in a Max Caster freestyle rap if given the opportunity. Max had already made fun of Simone Biles’s mental health, the Duke LaCrosse rape case, COVID testing, and Julia Hart’s vagina, why not a Haitian earthquake? You know what Max didn’t do, though? Put Yeti in a torture rack before slamming his spine across the knee. Mitch did that. He also spiked Yeti on top of his head with a brainbuster. He also hit a power bomb. And a spinebuster. And any other move that a man with Mitch’s size disadvantage had no right to use. Remember, I wanted to win and make Mitch look good, even at the expense of a much bigger star like Yeti.

Mitch would do anything to win at this point. Anything, even “accidentally” knocking out the referee so that using weapons (which was already legal) could be a thing in this match. He pulled a fire extinguisher from under the ring, sprayed Yeti in the eyes with it, threw it at his face, and gave him one final brainbuster onto the extinguisher. A normal man would have died from these wounds long before he had the chance to vote for unsavory Kentucky politicians. Not Yeti. He kicked out just as the referee was about to slap the mat for a three count. What kind of military grade weapons would it take to keep Yeti down? A Sherman tank? A nuclear bomb? Space lasers? Mitch could have used them all and Yeti would still no-sell everything and defeat him with a move called “The Heart Slam”, where he literally grabbed Mitch by his heart and slammed him to the mat before pinning him, one, two, three.

That should have been the end of it all. Mitch McLeod should have picked up his own carcass off the mat and gone back to the locker room to shower. It would actually take a lot more effort to do that considering Yeti gave Mitch another Heart Slam after the match was over, that cheeky heel. But instead of swallowing my pride and selling the injuries, I had Mitch throw the fire extinguisher at Yeti again and then lure him backstage with insults. Yeti, being an angry yeti, took the bait and got clobbered with another fire extinguisher for his troubles. Mitch then tied Yeti’s ankles to the back of his car and drove into town while dragging his big ass across the cement. A normal man would have died after thirty feet, the skin on his back shredded like Floydian beef. If that wasn’t bad enough, Mitch drove Yeti to a suspension bridge, tied cement blocks around him, and threw him into the ocean. Isn’t Mitch such a great role model? Dexter Morgan would be so proud of him! Wait a minute…

In the same way that Mitch no-sold everything Yeti did, Yeti in turn no-sold the attempted murder. I say attempted because Yeti was napping during the whole time he was being dragged. He woke up from his nap, jumped out of the water, and destroyed Mitch’s car so badly that it exploded in a climate change-like fireball. Yeti then advised Mitch to keep all the action in the ring, which would only be bad advice if the match was contested under Falls Count Anywhere rules, which is yet another form of no-disqualification rules. My never-ending ego would have taken this murder spree to the ends of the earth if the GM didn’t intervene when he did. He deleted all of the post-match violence and I was half-relieved that he did. Yeti then gave me a congratulatory “Good match” without a hint of irony, which meant we as players were still on good terms.

The one thing I would like to unpack from this story above all else is that good storytelling comes with sacrifices. If Mitch McLeod won all the time against all challengers in brutal apocalyptic fashion, yes, he would be elevated, but the story would be boring and he would be labeled a Gary-Stu. Flawless characters aren’t fun to read about because they’re not relatable to the reader. Even Hulk Hogan and John Cena, as big as their egos are, wouldn’t be able to relate to Mitch McLeod if he was an indestructible Gary-Stu. The role of the characters is to create a cohesive story through teamwork, and teamwork requires sacrifices. If the heroes have to lose every once and a while to make the stakes believable, so be it. If the villains have to look strong until the very last match when they’re finally defeated, such is life.

Mitch McLeod should have had flaws during his time in OTT Wrestling, but those flaws shouldn’t have been evil attempts to make himself an unstoppable god. In other words, he shouldn’t make himself so unlikable that nobody in their right mind would ever cheer for him. Baby-face heroes shouldn’t have “go-away heat”, or the kind of audience anger that isn’t born from good character work, but from a genuine desire to see them disappear forever, even if that means death itself. No-selling an opponent’s offence in wrestling is a big taboo in the industry, because it completely kills the illusion and undermines the team effort in building a narrative. 

After Mitch took his second Heart Slam, he should have stayed down. Let Yeti have his heel heat, let Mitch train harder and grow as a wrestler instead of turning into a whiny serial killer. When Mitch starts to win matches again and develop his skills, then maybe he can have another crack at Yeti and get even closer to victory this time. Mitch would look impressive as a plucky underdog who has to constantly overcome the odds by the skin of his teeth. Beat him down until he has nothing left, so that when he finally earns his big comeback, he will have worked for something he can be proud of. 

That’s what you have to remember not just with wrestling, but with every story you tell: the protagonist has to work for everything he has. Sometimes he has to work so hard that his body and mind fail him when he needs the energy the most. Sometimes he has to work hard enough to bring him to death’s door. But unlike in a capitalist society where unsavory Kentucky politicians hold the brass rings hostage, Mitch McLeod actually has a chance of having his hard work pay off. A theater teacher I had once advised us to, “Throw rocks at our protagonists and make them run up a tree.” In other words, make life difficult enough so that when those difficulties are conquered in a believable way, the protagonist will have something to be proud of. And so will you, fellow writers. So will you.

Pimp Daddy Edge Lord

 VERSE 1

It’s the year 2000, so grow a set of balls

Get your individuality from Pink Floyd’s Wall

Watch ECW like it’s going out of business

Arena covered in blood as god as my witness

You’re too good for corporate ass-kissing

Too underground with your vinegar pissing

Photoshop videogame chicks into bikinis

Give yourself a reason to stroke your weenie

Watch Newgrounds videos until your brain rots

Watch Dragon Ball Z while smoking crack rocks

Play Tekken and become a badass karate master

Play DOA and become a future boyfriend faster

Become a comedian who punches down low

Smoke fifty reefers in a motherfucking row

No way the pen is mightier than the sword

Such is the life of a Pimp Daddy Edge Lord

CHORUS

Pimp Daddy Edge Lord! X4

VERSE 2

You’re a grown ass man, all the jokes are gone

Now it’s time to figure out what’s right and wrong

The edgy shit that you’ve come to depend on

Leaves you an empty shell singing a sad song

There’s a world out there that needs your help

Good intentioned politicians pave the road to hell

The old you is now a ghost of your distant past

Along with the jokes about fucking some ass

“Georgie-Porgie pudding and pie

Fuck the girls, make their pussies cry”

You laughed back then, but it’s disgusting now

Like the way you compared fat people to cows

Like the way you compared every race to animals

Like the way you wrote a cook book for cannibals

We’re ready to fight, are you standing beside us?

Or have you always been a slacker-ass D-minus?

CHORUS

Pimp Daddy Edge Lord! X4

BRIDGE

The world is in ruin and you are a shoe-in

To be the next savior of misbehavior

Population is sick while you stroke your dick

To the machinegun chick holding dynamite sticks

The country is fucked and it’s going to suck

But you’re still in luck, you’ve got your big truck

You couldn’t let go of your comedic shit show

Enjoy the next civil war, Pimp Daddy Edge Lord

CHORUS

Pimp Daddy Edge Lord! X4

Dark Side of the Ring

TV SHOW TITLE: Dark Side of the Ring
PRODUCER: Viceland
YEARS: 2019-2020
GENRE: Wrestling Documentary
RATING: TV-14 for language and violence
GRADE: Extra Credit

Is it any wonder why Dark Side of the Ring was voted Best Wrestling Documentary in the 2019 Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards? I wouldn’t be surprised if it became the first ever two-time winner in the 2020 awards, whenever they come out. Viceland might rack up an undefeated streak if they keep putting out new seasons, which they should if they haven’t already. There isn’t a single bad episode in this entire series. Every story will fascinate you whether you remember that particular generation of wrestling or not. I’m not old enough to remember Bruiser Brody and the early days of The Fabulous Moolah, yet I was engrossed in their stories all the same. Dark Side of the Ring might even invoke those same feelings within non-wrestling fans. The episodes are dour and depressing enough to milk even the toughest eyeballs dry. Are these sixteen episodes of pure sadness and anguish appropriate during the COVID-19 pandemic? Will they worsen the world population’s already strained mental health? Well, that’s the biggest knock on this show, but I would argue that feeling sadness is part of the human experience and it beats being numb all the time. But that’s just me talking.

If it’s sadness you’re looking for, check out the first two episodes of season two, which deal with the Chris Benoit double-murder-suicide. There’s no clear explanation as to why Chris did what he did, but the documentary does a good enough job of exploring every avenue there is to consider. Wrestling was his first and last profession, which means lots of concussions along the way, especially when chair shots to the head were commonplace in the 90’s and 2000’s. Chris also had substance abuse issues, particularly with steroids. He also had wear and tear from being on the road all the time. And he lost his best friend Eddie Guerrero in 2005. It wasn’t just one thing that sent him over the edge. It was life in general. Murdering his wife and son before killing himself was disgusting enough, but his other son David Benoit had to bear the brunt of it all. Watching David fall to pieces as he was being interviewed was heartbreaking to watch. He needed those shoulder squeezes from Chavo Guerrero (the last person Chris Benoit texted before he died). David needed that long embrace with his aunt. He wanted to feel good about going to wrestling shows again. The emotions of everybody interviewed in these two episodes were like a punch to the stomach from a loaded boxing glove. I came so close to crying myself.

Another time when I almost lost it was when I watched Owen Hart’s episode. Owen was portrayed as a friendly guy who made everyone around him happy, including his family. But in the ring, he was a technical wrestling genius who could also fly through the air. Think of the possibilities that could have been if he hadn’t fallen to his death at the Over the Edge pay-per-view in 1999. This wasn’t just a tragic accident. This was blatant negligence on the part of not only the riggers who hooked Owen up to the harness, but also on the part of WWE in general for making Owen go through with his unnecessary stunt. It’s bad enough that the world lost a loving human being, but it’s made even worse when Vince McMahon, the owner of WWE, continued the Over the Edge show anyways and tried to screw over Owen’s wife in court when she wanted to sue. The cesspool of emotions you will feel from watching this will range from sadness to anger to depression to borderline insanity. This death didn’t need to happen and Viceland did a great job of making sure that point came across and that Vince McMahon looked like the scumbag he was and still is today. He just discarded Owen like a piece of meat. If your blood isn’t boiling after this episode is over, you don’t have a soul.

Want a completely different emotion to haunt your mind? Try fear. You’ll get all the fear you came for when you watch New Jack’s episode. He has a permanently angry face made even more hideous by the scars on his forehead from busting himself open for his craft. New Jack wasn’t just a wrestler. He legitimately tried to hurt and kill his opponents if he didn’t like them. He legitimately felt anger towards the all-white crowds when he used racism to draw heel heat. When he talks about incidents such as slicing Mass Transit, throwing Vic Grimes off of a scaffold after tasing him, and beating Gypsy Joe’s face in with a bladed baseball bat, he does so with the attitude of either a psychopath or a sociopath. If New Jack did these things in an ordinary job setting, he would be in prison for the rest of his life. He came across like an uncaring murderer, which was further fueled by his back story of growing up in an abusive home. New Jack legitimately terrifies me and Viceland’s documentary on him intensified that feeling tenfold. Now that he’s a bounty hunter, this would be a good time to pay your bail before he beats the daylights out of you and drags you to justice that way.

There is a chance that you’ll become disillusioned with wrestling by the time you’ve watched all sixteen episodes. It’s a sliver of a chance, but a chance nonetheless. Whether you do or not, you’re not walking away from your viewing experienced unscathed. You’ll be angry, terrified, and sorrowful for a long time to come. I don’t want to say you’ll get PTSD from watching Dark Side of the Ring, but you’ll definitely have a lot to think about, probably when you’re lying awake at night or crying yourself to sleep. Dark Side of the Ring seasons one and two get an extra credit grade from me for not only keeping my interest as a wrestling fan, but opening my eyes to the sick world behind the scenes. I’m happy I never became a professional wrestler. I’ve considered it in my high school days, but I’m glad I never followed through on those dreams, or should I say nightmares.

"Wrestling, Issue Three" by What Culture

BOOK TITLE: Wrestling, Issue Three

AUTHORS: What Culture Staff

YEAR: 2017

GENRE: Nonfiction

SUBGENRE: Wrestling Bookazine

GRADE: Mixed

Ah yes, the third edition of What Culture’s Wrestling magazine, complete with a list of one hundred greatest wrestlers of all time, Adam Blampied’s creative take on how to do the anonymous Raw General Manager angle, an article on the hyperbolic WWE videogame All-Stars…and also…typos. Lots and lots of typos. It appears the second verse is the same as the first when it comes to these What Culture magazines and their typos: they’re so frequent that it’s hard to give them passing grades. Some readers can easily forgive these typos. I can be forgiving from time to time, but not when they happen so often that it’s painfully obvious. Please, What Culture, find a fresh pair of eyes to read over your material before publishing it.

And while we’re at it with the negative aspects of the magazine, I could have done without a certain interview question for ring attendant SoCal Val. Yes, the questions are supposed to be wild and crazy fun and not to be taken too seriously, I get that. But when the interviewer asked, “If you could punch any animal, what would it be?”, my heart just sank. The answer wasn’t any better; SoCal Val said she would gladly punch cats because they’re “entitled and lazy”. Even as I type this, I’m visualizing an ASPCA commercial with Sarah McLaughlin’s music playing in the background. Why would this question even be considered comical or silly? It’s neither. It’s psychotic.

But even with these glaring flaws, this magazine is actually fun to read in hindsight. I particularly enjoyed Stephanie McMahon’s Crimes Against Wrestling because it’s brutally honest when talking about someone like her who hates criticism. In short, Stephanie took up too much screen time on WWE television, condescended to wrestlers more deserving of the spotlight than her, and didn’t get any comeuppance for her sins. This isn’t just annoying villain work; it’s downright disgusting. This article was so well-written and so fleshed-out that I’m legitimately hoping Stephanie McMahon reads it and gets something out of it. She won’t, but I’m still holding out hope. Kudos to the author for calling her out like that. We need more of that in our wrestling literature.

Another article I enjoyed was the one that extensively talked about the art of blading, or drawing blood in a safe and believable way in a wrestling match. When done correctly, it can enhance the drama of any match and make the wrestlers look like a million books. When done stupidly and excessively, it can shorten careers and numb the audience. As a wrestling fan growing up in the 1990’s and 2000’s, I loved ECW and their ultra-violent matches where disqualifications didn’t apply. As an adult reading this article, I have a new perspective as to why such bloody wrestling isn’t sustainable. The litany of injuries caused by excessive blood loss was one of the many factors that led to ECW’s permanent closure in 2001. This article on blading was educational and fascinating at the same time. You learn something new every day. I know I did.

Just like Issues One and Two before it, Issue Three of What Culture’s Wrestling magazine can actually be an enjoyable read if you’re willing to overlook the typos. As an author myself, I try my best to avoid typos as often as possible and it gets to a point where even I need an unbiased editor to look at my writing for me. All in all, typos are easy to fix and I hope What Culture can learn something from this experience. A mixed grade will go to this fun, but flawed reading adventure.

Escape From Chehalis

***ESCAPE FROM CHEHALIS***

“You’ve escaped from New York! You’ve escaped from Cleveland! But this is LA!”

Yes, that is a direct quote from the movie “Escape from LA” back in the 90’s. But I have to ask: is it really that hard to escape from Cleveland, Ohio? Well, if I had a hard time escaping from Chehalis as a teenager, then the answer must have been yes. It’s true. With my screenwriting skills at the time, I could have written a movie called Escape From Chehalis. Actually, it wouldn’t have been very exciting since all I had to do was move to an apartment in Bremerton and go to school in Silverdale. But hey, as long as the best part of Chehalis is leaving, let’s explore some other routes I considered. Those of you who know about my Chehalis past know that I was bullied in high school, so getting out of that toxic town was good for me. But what if I needed an earlier exit? What high school dropout careers could I have embarked on to give me a parole from that rightwing dystopia? Well…

***ARENA OF DEATH***

It’s probably no surprise that I had an extreme fascination with death back in 1999/2000. I wanted to rent the first volume of Faces of Death, but the video store clerk wouldn’t let me because I was only fourteen at the time. It’s unbelievable…video stores actually existed back then! It would have been so nice to see one of my movies on the shelf, particularly an idea I had called Arena of Death. I could drop out of school, grab a camera, and film a bunch of gory fight scenes in an abandoned building. That’s basically what Arena of Death was supposed to be: an ECW-esque tournament where the winner…uh…actually, I hadn’t figured out a prize for the winner yet. If only I had a working video camera and friends who would volunteer for this movie. Oh well.

***BOUNTY HUNTER***

As a result of my verbal bullying, I got in a lot of fights and I won most of them simply by throwing one strike. I didn’t need a KO victory or even a TKO. Just one strike and it was all over. Having this kind of Goldberg-esque undefeated streak under my belt (which is easy to obtain in Chehalis), I actually considered a career as a bounty hunter. No shit! Just go around Washington state bringing criminals in with my fists and feet of fury. Hell, there was even a time when I considered entering a tough man competition; that’s how confident I was in my minimal fighting skills. Little did I know that most of the bounty heads might have carried guns or knives, neither of which I had in great supply (even though I one time asked for a gun for Christmas).

***EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING***

Yes, I did mention ECW earlier in this blog. Yes, being the “tough guy” I was, I thought a career in that wrestling promotion was the right move for me, as opposed to finishing school in Chehalis. That’s basically like saying, “I’d rather get cut open with razor wire or power bombed through a fiery table than go to school in Chehalis”. Haha! But seriously, ECW was a huge source of creative fuel for me back in the day (before they closed their doors permanently in 2001). Weapons were fair game, anybody could beat up anybody, blood was liberally splattered everywhere, and hardcore legends were born. Although, verbal bullying could never prepare me for actual broken bones and slashed skin. Plus, ECW was based in Philadelphia, so if I couldn’t afford a video camera for Arena of Death, I damn sure couldn’t afford a plane ticket across the country.

***FLORIDA***

Yes, it’s true, folks! Back in 2000, my mom got a job offer in Florida and I was secretly hoping that she would get it and get my ass out of Chehalis. Boy, you talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire! Knowing what we now know about Florida, that’s basically like trying to get away from Jeffrey Dahmer by hiding out on John Wayne Gacy’s crawlspace. I didn’t care about politics in the year 2000, but I probably should have since Florida is as red as ECW bloodbaths. School shootings, racist murders, Carl Hiaasen novel scenarios, natural disasters, crocodiles, good god!

***GUITARIST***

From 1996 to 2001, I practiced on an acoustic and later an electric guitar with the hopes that I’d be as good as David Gilmour from Pink Floyd. Starting my own rock band was the surefire way to get out of high school and I’d be doing something I loved. Except for one thing: I didn’t love playing the guitar. It was hard. It was fucking hard! Moving my fingers across the frets with lightning speed wasn’t my cup of tea, which is funny since I can do it just fine when I’m writing things on a computer keyboard. I would often play really slowly with the top string and only my middle finger holding the frets. Configuring my digits into chord positions was too much to handle and I eventually gave up that potential exit from Chehalis. Any more mediocrity and I’d have to smash my guitar to pieces like Billie Joe Armstrong did at the iHeart Radio Festival in 2012, when Green Day’s stage time was cut short.

***SUPER FINAL FANTASY***

Before settling on a career in screenwriting, my childhood dream job used to be creating videogames and one of them was Super Final Fantasy. I was in love with Final Fantasy VII and VIII, so naturally I wanted to give my own shot into creating a game in the series. My main character was a shotgun-wielding, trench coat-wearing teenager (don’t look for themes here) named Sage Gannon, who was out to avenge the death of his coal miner father. Guiding his path would be the fluffy blond haired swordsman Minra Durandose (if Cloud and Squall had a love child, it’d be Minra). The token female love interest (I didn’t know it was wrong!) was a bikini-wearing mystical goddess named Siren, who used a combination of seduction and harp playing to lull enemies into defenselessness (again, I didn’t know it was wrong!). Development was going swimmingly until Squall appeared in my head as a schizophrenic voice and told me to, “Write [my] own shit and stop copying other people.” Thanks, Squall. Great advice from a guy who can’t figure out how to trust people.

***UNDERTAKER***

Remember how I told you all I had a weird fascination with death? Well, try not to read too much into this, but I actually considered a dropout career of burying dead bodies at the local cemetery. Before you ask, no, I wasn’t planning on murdering my bullies and giving them their own graves. I’m not that sick. Hehe! No, being an undertaker is a legitimate career. And when I say undertaker, I’m not talking about the WWE wrestler who at the time was doing a satanic cult storyline. Yes, digging holes is physically exhausting for someone as small I was back then, but a paycheck is a paycheck and a lack of high school hostility is just that.

***CONCLUSION***

You’re probably reading all of these potential career choices and are worried sick about me. You’re probably thinking that I’m living in the past and refusing to let go of my demons. You couldn’t be further from the truth. My most recent blog entries have been about my childhood follies, so this one is no different. I’m glad I finished school and became an indie author. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Knowing what I now know about schizophrenia and autism, I most likely wouldn’t have survived these alternative careers. Every career has its own set of assholes and friendly people. Running away wouldn’t have solved anything. No matter where you go, you take your baggage with you. Only through claiming responsibility and seeking help can you overcome your problems. I’ve overcome my demons and I’m better for it. It took a long time to do, but it happened. Live your life without regrets. If you must delve into the past, find things to laugh about, not things to kick yourself over. I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“So you think you’re a Romeo playing a part in a picture show. Take the long way home. ‘Cause you’re the joke of your neighborhood. Why should you care if you’re feeling good? Take the long way home. But there are times that you feel you’re part of the scenery. All the greenery is coming down, boy. And then your wife seems to think you’re a part of the furniture. Oh, it’s peculiar. She used to be so nice. When lonely days turn to lonely nights, you take a trip to the city lights. Take the long way home. You never see what you want to see forever playing to the gallery. Take the long way home. And when you’re up on the stage, it’s so unbelievable. Oh, unforgettable how they adore you. But then your wife seems to think you’re losing your sanity. Oh, calamity, there’s no way out. Does it feel that your life’s become a catastrophe? Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy. When you look through the years and see what you could have been. Oh, what you might have been. If you’d had more time. So when the day comes to settle down, who’s to blame if you’re not around? Take the long way home.”

-Supertramp singing “Take the Long Way Home”-

"Wrestling, Issue Two" by What Culture

BOOK TITLE: Wrestling, Issue Two

AUTHORS: What Culture Staff

YEAR: 2016

GENRE: Nonfiction

SUBGENRE: Wrestling Bookzine

GRADE: Mixed

In all the time I’ve spent reviewing books online, I’ve never been more conflicted than after reading this one when deciding what grade to give it. I went into this wanting to give it four stars, maybe even five depending on how deeply the articles affected me. But then came the typographical errors, one after another until they stood out like a sore thumb.

Normally, I’m forgiving of these little mistakes as long as they don’t happen too often in the book. But at some point, I have to start holding the authors accountable and I think now is the time to do it. This bookzine clearly could have benefited from several pairs of fresh eyes when it came to editing. For Christ’s sake, James Dixon’s name was spelled Dioxn. CM Punk’s name was spelled with a lowercase P. And don’t ask me what Mssr is supposed to be, because I don’t know the answer myself. Bottom line: these guys need a more reputable editor.

But I’d be lying if I said those errors completely sucked the enjoyment I got out of reading this bookzine. The content itself is actually fun to read. Some of my favorite articles included Jack the Jobber’s analysis of Lucha Underground, King Ross’s Twitter responses, Axl Rotten’s biography, and Adam Blampied’s fantasy booking of Damien Sandow’s failed Money in the Bank cash-in.

The article about Lucha Underground reminded me a lot of a novella I wrote called Occupy Wrestling with its dark fantasy references and brutal matches. I’d watch the hell out of that show if I knew what channel it was on. Damn it, I want some cartoons and magic in my wrestling!

King Ross was his usual funny self when answering Twitter questions. My favorite response had to be his takedown of the Fastlane pay-per-view concept. “It’s the Fastlane to Wrestlemania! Most of your fans aren’t old enough to drive!” I got a good chuckle out of that one. I also liked his sarcastic butchery of the Divas Championship. Does anybody really mess a title belt with pink butterflies and stereotypical designs on it? Not really.

Axl Rotten’s story was easily the most heartbreaking of the entire bookzine. Here was a man who struggled with child abuse and drug addiction his whole life, but was really the most down-to-earth, sweetest guy anybody ever knew. His Axl Rotten persona was just a persona, nothing more, nothing less. He eventually died in 2016 from a drug overdose in a McDonald’s bathroom and it was before he had the chance to finish his own memoir.

And finally, sex scandal aside, I will always praise Adam Blampied’s storytelling abilities, especially as they relate to his fantasy booking of WWE angles. He actually is a bona fide creative writer, so he knows how to build tension and generate useful plot devices. In the case of Damien Sandow, he would be booked to be an arrogant authority figure who made the heroes miserable rather than be booked how he actually was in the real world: a jobber to everybody and their uncles.

This What Culture production is a must-read for any and all wrestling fans, typos be damned. Don’t let the three-star rating I’m giving it turn you away from the creativity and magic dripping from the pages. The guys at What Culture are hardworking, talented people and they deserve their slice of the literary pie. Enjoy!

"A Lion's Tale" by Chris Jericho

BOOK TITLE: A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex

AUTHOR: Chris Jericho (with Peter Thomas Fornatale)

YEAR: 2007

GENRE: Nonfiction

SUBGENRE: Pro-Wrestling Memoir

GRADE: Pass

From humble beginnings in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to landing his dream job in the WWE, Chris Jericho details the many hardships and hilarious moments he went through on his quest to be a well-known professional wrestler. As a child, he would watch Hulk Hogan, The British Bulldogs, and the Hart Family on TV and in the arenas dominating their competition and putting on a show. This prompted Jericho to want to train at the infamous Hart Dungeon, where students were pushed to their breaking point with painful submission holds and wrestling tactics. Jericho would continue to gain experience around the world in places like Mexico, Japan, Germany, and eventually in the good old US of A. It was only a matter of time until the Titan Tron counted down the seconds before Y2J’s official entrance into the WWE. A legend was born that night.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what the wrestling business was like behind the curtain, Chris Jericho was more than happy to tell you in his memoir. Every aspiring wrestler had to have an extreme amount of physical and mental toughness in order to take as many athletic risks as they do. Jericho didn’t even have a breaking point when it came to the abuse he took. Knowing how to wrestle was only the first half. The second half of what the industry entails is having the business sense and creativity to negotiate yourself into winning predicaments and having a good gimmick to go with them. Chris Jericho comes off as an encyclopedia of this kind of knowledge, which is one of the reasons he’s a respected legend in the industry today.

Of course, the other thing that made this book memorable was his quick-paced, humorous writing style. He can get away with using pop culture references and one-liner jokes, because neither of those two things bogs down the storytelling. Even the laziest reader could get through all five-hundred plus pages of this book and feel like a champion afterwards. Chris Jericho knows what the people want and it’s a chuckle-worthy and delightfully-honest memoir. An example of his sense of humor comes when he gets in a brawl with a former convict and says, “I’m going to throw hands with you Winnipeg style!” What the hell does that even mean? Yes, the ex-convict was laughing too. If the reader was to flip to a random page in the book, he would find a lighthearted line somewhere in there, even during some of the dour moments of the book. Never a dull moment!

The only gripe I have about this book is so minor that it doesn’t take away from the four stars I plan on giving it. I would have liked to see him go into a little more detail about some of his wrestling matches. I’m sure a few descriptions of the choreography and storytelling wouldn’t have slowed the pace down at all. When I read Ronda Rousey’s memoir earlier this year, she went into full detail about how she beat the crap out of her opponents on the judo mats and in the MMA cage. While Chris Jericho could easily be just as descriptive, it’s not the biggest flaw this book has. In fact, any reader will enjoy it no matter what walk of life he comes from.

Do you like stories about overcoming adversity, toughing it out, and making dreams come true in the end? Look no further than “A Lion’s Tale” by Chris Jericho. It’s fast, intelligent, and hilarious throughout the whole thing. The sorrowful moments are few and far between, but they’re still important to this man’s story and the writing about them was executed perfectly. There are a few people who would be uncomfortable with Chris Jericho constantly praising Chris Benoit (a wrestler who murdered his wife and son before committing suicide in 2007). However, as the author’s not clearly states, this book was published before Chris Benoit’s double murder-suicide, so Jericho had no way of knowing what the hell was going to happen. If you’re really bothered that much Benoit’s presence in the book, toughen up like Chris Jericho has throughout his career. This is an awesome book and you shouldn’t expect anything less from the former six-time WWE Champion and nine-time Intercontinental Champion.

Violent Fantasies

***VIOLENT FANTASIES***

Nobody will ever come out and admit to having violent fantasies about their enemies, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Everybody has that one person in their lives who they feel deserves double hand strangulation, a blast from a flamethrower, a Columbian Necktie, or any other savage means of torture or murder. Some fantasize about violence more than others, but it’s something we all do whether we’re open about it or not. Anybody who says otherwise is a goddamn liar. Even the most peaceful people have angry thoughts every once and a while. That’s what the mind is for: it’s the last sanctuary of privacy we have. If we actually had psychomantic powers (a.k.a. telekinesis), then we would all be shit out of luck.

Having violent thoughts doesn’t make you an evil person. Hell, it’s the sanest thing a human being can do without actually committing those acts. The moral crusaders like to complain that videogames make the youth of today violent people and we all know that’s serious bullshit. Videogames, martial arts cinema, horror novels, these things don’t promote violence, but they give the average human being a channel to release their most hateful thoughts. When I was in high school, my favorite form of violent entertainment was watching old school ECW (not the WWE revival of it, which sucked). Watching The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer smack their opponents with kendo sticks and suplex them onto barbed wire made me feel giddy inside. Did I actually do any of these things to my fellow classmates? No, I didn’t, because that’s considered assault and it’s highly illegal.

Being able to separate fantasy from reality is the most important thing a person with angry thoughts can do. There are kids who play Gears of War or Call of Duty on their X-Boxes and think they can go overseas and do actual military service. When you step on a landmine in a videogame, that’s okay, because there’s always a reset button. If you step on a landmine in the real world, you’ll either lose your legs or you’ll die instantly. And trust me when I say this: real life war has no reset button. The same thing is true when you are the aggressor and another person is the victim. If you think about shooting another human being with an AK-47 and that fantasy makes you smile on the inside, congratulations, you’re a human being. But if you actually shoot someone with an automatic weapon, it’ll fuck with your mind for the rest of your life.

There are plenty of ways to channel violent fantasies into productive and creative results. I, for example, wrote a heavy metal song last night called “Chainsaw Samurai”. Not only was it about a samurai who preferred a chainsaw over a katana, but that samurai was a murderous psychopath who left seas of blood everywhere he went. In the fictional world, a chainsaw-wielding samurai is cool to me. Hell, I’d even watch a movie, read a book, or play a videogame if that person was the lead character. But if someone like that popped up in real life, I’d be scared out of my mind. I might not even want to come out of my room for several months if I knew such a vicious person was coming to Port Orchard. Of course, violence in Port Orchard is about as unnatural as a fireball falling from the skies, so I don’t know why a chainsaw-wielding samurai would ever want to come here, but that’s beside the point.

So go ahead, ladies and gentlemen. Relax in your easy chair and visualize your worst enemies chained to wooden posts with tires stacked around their bodies and a blazing fire crawling up their soon-to-be corpses. As long as you don’t do it in real life, you’ll be just fine. That’s what made the 2000’s detective show The Shield so cool. We cheered like animals when Vic Mackey pressed Armadillo Quintaro’s face against a burning stovetop. If Darren Wilson did that to Michael Brown, however, the media shit storm would never end. It would just become a biblical flood of brown juices stinking up the entire country and making everyone sick to their stomach. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Speaking of violence and burning people alive, my next Dark Fantasy Warrior will be Debra Cameron from the “American Darkness” short story “The Pyrocrats”. Does it seem strange that a woman who burns everything to the ground for a living is considered the sensible one in that story? This is a violent fantasy at its most brutal level. I’ve already drawn a picture of her psychotic partner Eduardo Mendez, so Debra Cameron is naturally the next one to be featured. I probably won’t draw a picture of The Fire Marshal (because we never actually see his face) or Xavier Melanson (because he’s not a warrior; he’s a puss-bag).

***MUSIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

“Dear Diary, it was cold today. The sun came out later, so I strolled about looking at the shops. Didn’t see anything I liked, so I didn’t buy anything. On my way home, I posted a letter. It’s been quite a nice day. Somebody exploded an H-bomb today, but it wasn’t anybody I knew.”

-“Dear Diary” by The Moody Blues-

Violence, Blood, and Gore

VERSE 1
Enough of this G-rated garbage
Don’t cater to a flowery market
It’s time to put on our gloves
Fight like it’s all we ever love
Broken skulls, shredded flesh
Electric wire, steel cage mesh
Someone’s getting knocked out tonight
It’s a brutal battle, it’s an epic fight


CHORUS 1
Let’s see some violence!
Let’s see some blood!
Let’s see some gore!
Come get yourself some!


VERSE 2
I’m sick of this PG-rated sewage
I’m getting ready to fucking lose it
Beat some ass, smash some heads
One of us is going to end up dead
Swing that Singapore cane with style
Watch the bruises bleed for a while
Leaking with pus and other sickly stuff
This is what we are, this is what we love


CHORUS 2
Let’s see some violence!
Let’s see some gore!
Let’s see some blood!
Let’s beg them for more!


VERSE 3
TV-MA has gone out of fashion
Lost forever to violent passion
Rated-R Superstar falling far
Down like a brawler in a bar
NC-17, you must be dreaming
Triple X, you’re not steaming
Lost innocence doesn’t have a limit
Bloodthirsty warrior’s my only gimmick


CHORUS 3
Let’s see some blood!
Let’s see some violence!
Let’s see some gore!
Let’s break the silence!


HOOK
EC-dub, bitch! EC-dub!
Join the party! Join the club!
The janitors will clean and scrub
The bloody stains, puked up grub
This is what I call mortal combat
With a drunken brawler and a conman
Nobody gets out alive tonight
Lace up your boots, get ready to fight!

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.

The Sandman

Throughout my whole life, I’ve seen three different examples of what a “Sandman” is supposed to be. First, there was the version we all heard as kids: that creepy dude that sprinkles dust in your eyes so that you’ll fall asleep faster. What he does to you afterwards is anybody’s guess. If you’re a wrestling fan, particularly hardcore wrestling, then The Sandman has a much different meaning to you. He was an antisocial beer drinker who liked to throw his opponents into barbed wire and knock them out with Singapore cane shots to the skull. Again, what this version of The Sandman did to his opponents after they were knocked unconscious, well, that’s up for debate. And then you have a version of The Sandman that comes from the works of Neil Gaiman. I had no idea Neil Gaiman even existed until I got a Sandman graphic novel for my 28^th birthday. The point was further emphasized when I saw Mr. Gaiman on an episode of The Simpsons that made fun of team writing. Speaking of team writing, I’d like to do a blog entry about that someday. Sounds like fun. But you know what? We still have to do something with this Sandman topic. What we have here are three different examples of what a Sandman is supposed to be. That leads me to believe that you can slap the name Sandman on pretty much any character you’ve got and it’ll sell like hotcakes. For instance, if you were writing the script for a manga series about giant robots, you could call the main giant robot The Sandman and he’ll be more badass for it. Maybe he can carry a fiery scythe and a chain gun while having a Mary Jane cigarette between its teeth. Or maybe you’re working on a horror novel and The Sandman can be a creepy ghost that sneaks into the bedrooms of little boys and girls at night. What he does with them is all up to your sick and sadistic imagination, you fucking freak. What if you’re writing a Dungeons & Dragons-style adventure novel and The Sandman was a seven-foot tall black knight with a battleaxe as big as his torso? It could very well happen. Being called a “Sandman” is a very good thing. Take advantage of the moniker as much as you can. Hell, I can be a Sandman myself because I’m probably putting you all to sleep with my mindless banter. If that’s the case, grab a blanket and put on some new age tunes, because it’s going to be a long night!

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What do horror movie monsters and trick-or-treaters have in common?
A: They like to eat airheads.

"Have a Nice Day" by Mick Foley

When WWE legend Mick Foley tells you to have a nice day, you can be pretty sure that the rest of your day is going to be filled with barbed wire bats to the skull and pointed elbows through the chest. But in order to get that kind of recognition, Foley had to go through a lot of personal trials that made him as tough as he is today. Even though “Have a Nice Day” was published in 1999, it makes perfect sense in today’s world of wrestling. Like a lot of wrestlers getting their start in the business, Foley was broke and could barely pay for training. He also had a hard time paying for everyday expenses when he eventually emerged on the independent scene. So how was it that a moneyless wrestler with a Buddha belly become a WWE legend over the course of his lifetime? By paying his dues, that’s how. After continuing to press forward in the independent territories, he eventually had a job at WCW, a company that paid him very well despite him not being used to his full potential. Being well-paid is never enough for a wrestler to achieve his dreams of being a big star. Following his departure from WCW in 1994, he went to ECW and garnered recognition as a hardcore badass who loved to use weapons. After taking so many weapon strikes and dangerous bumps to the point where his career would have ended, he then jumped ship to WWE. Like a lot of youngsters that went to WWE from another company, Mick Foley’s character was crafted to perfection. As the raving lunatic known as Mankind, he had memorable matches with the likes of The Rock and The Undertaker, which eventually led to him winning the biggest prize in the industry: the WWE Championship. While there will never be a carbon copy of Mick Foley and the things he went through, it wouldn’t hurt if the young wrestlers of today read this piece of nonfiction as a guide on how to pay your dues in this business. Even though it’s well beyond 1999, these words still hold true to this day. As long as you train religiously, put on stellar matches, listen to the elder members of the business, and know your net worth in the wrestling market, you’ll do just fine in the treacherous waters of professional wrestling. Mick Foley did all of these things and even years after going into retirement, he’s a household name that nobody will forget. Some of the youngsters in the business today have perfected these strategies down to a science and have great careers because of it. If guys like John Cena, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Sheamus, Randy Orton, and Rey Mysterio can become greats by paying their dues, then that opens the door to any athlete who wants it badly enough.

　

***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

MICHAEL COLE: That ambulance weighs over 5,000 lbs!
JERRY LAWLER: Why would you want to weigh an ambulance?