Garrison vs. Miguel (YouTube Troll)

 

The Marsellus Wallace Speech: AEW Edition

 (OOC: I read a blog post today about how Marsellus Wallace's speech to Butch in Pulp Fiction can be applied to any relatable scenario, so I did a parody myself, just like the author did. Ready? Here we go:

We fade in on Bryan Danielson, a 44-year-old pro-wrestler who’s one broken neck away from being confined to a wheelchair. He sits across the table wearing a plain white T-shirt (because he doesn’t believe in consumerism). Sitting on the opposite side off screen is Tony Khan, the Head Honcho at All Elite Wrestling, where Bryan works. Tony sounds like a cross between a delusional billionaire and a giddy fanboy.

TONY (O.S.)

What do you think you’re gonna find when your decades-long career is over? I think you’re gonna find yourself one broken down, sad-ass motherfucker. The thing is, Bryan, you have a shitload of five-star matches. But as painful as it may seem, five-star matches won’t save your life, and yours is over the minute you take another bump. That’s a hard motherfucking fact of life, and it’s one your ass is gonna have to get realistic about. The wrestling business is filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfuckers who say they’re gonna retire but never do. Motherfuckers who thought their asses would age like wine. If you mean it turns to vinegar like Ric Flair and Chris Jericho, it does. If you mean it gets better with age like R-Truth and Trish Stratus? It don’t. Besides, Bryan, how many five-star matches do you got left in you? Two? Wrestlers don’t have an Old-Timer’s League. It was called Heroes of Wrestling and it sucked ass. You came close, but you made it only a handful of times. If you were gonna make it again, you would have done it already. 

Tony holds release papers just out of Bryan’s reach.

TONY (O.S.)

You actually gonna retire this time?

BRYAN

Certainly appears so.

Bryan takes the release papers from Tony’s hand.

TONY

Night of your final retirement speech, you’re gonna feel a slight sting. That’s pride fucking with you. Fuck pride! Pride only hurts, probably about as bad as Jon Moxley suffocating you with a plastic bag. It never helps. You gotta fight through that shit. ‘Cause a year from now when you’re at home banging Brie Bella and hanging out with your two kids Birdie and Buddy, you’re gonna say to yourself, “Tony Khan was right”, which is something I hear from Dave Meltzer pretty much regularly. 

BRYAN

Yeah, me too.

TONY

At AEW Revolution, you job to Jon Moxley. Say it.

BRYAN

At AEW Revolution, I job to Jon Moxley.

The original blog post: https://www.kingdomoffailure.com/post/f-ck-pride-it-only-hurts-it-never-helps

Show Don't Tell

PRE-VERSE 1

Don’t tell me about the ghostly music

Show me sound waves liquefying his brain

Don’t tell me he’s about to lose it

Show me twitchy faces as he’s going insane

VERSE 1

Reading about scandals in the newspaper

Won’t give you the most intimate flavor

An old man’s gyroscopic wiener in motion

Leaves her trapped above the Atlantic Ocean

Few seconds of assault becomes a life of trauma

But they’ll brush it off as SJW drama

She’s a hero for telling a story that pains her

And showing the old fart he’s a walking failure

PRE-VERSE 2

Tell me you’re hurting without telling me so

The hangover turns your head into a bomb to blow

Tell me why you’re drunk without telling me why

Because it’s better than letting monsters see you cry

VERSE 2

A fictional world becomes real in a hurry

When the lines of fantasy become so blurry

Is the author a racist or just bad at his craft?

When the audience screamed, the Nazis laughed

Five hundred pages of knights and mages

And lovers so fine with questionable ages

He’s a villain for telling a story so awful

And showing why he’s still on the side of lawful

PRE-VERSE 3

These stories don’t connect in any meaningful way

They’re just random thoughts barfed onto the page

Get a nice editor to tell you that you’re full of it

Test your resolve, we’ll see if you’re full of quit

VERSE 3

In the end, we all have our stories to tell

But it’s all a matter of if they’re told well

We don’t mind a little bit of being disturbed

As long as there’s substance to go with big words

Everyone has potential to live beyond themselves

And see their very best efforts on library shelves

You’re a human for telling a story the world needs

And showing them all you despise corporate greed

ESPN 30 For 30: Nature Boy

 MOVIE TITLE: 30 For 30: Nature Boy

PRODUCERS: ESPN

YEAR: 2017

GENRE: Pro-Wrestling Documentary

RATING: TV-14 for violence, language, and suggestive dialogue

GRADE: A

Putting “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair in the Mt. Rushmore of professional wrestling is right on the money and I’m glad the folks at ESPN agree. Sixteen world championship reigns, a WWE Hall of Fame induction, a multi-decade career full of great moments, and the gimmick of a charismatic bad guy who drew the most fans to the arena throughout the 70’s and 80’s. Watching clips of Ric Flair showing off his expensive possessions, horny fan girls, and hardcore partying would make any blue-collar fan pay good money to see him get his butt kicked. Jealousy was a great way to get under the common man’s skin, but more often than not that jealousy would have to sit and stew for a while longer. Ric Flair wasn’t just a handsome rich guy with a big mouth. He was a technical genius in the ring and his long string of victories proved it. You want to see a living legend? You want to see a true wrestling god? You want to see brilliant character arcs that would work wonders in any other story? ESPN will make sure you get all of that and more. This was a superb documentary that could appeal to not just hardcore fans, but also laymen. Ric Flair transcended the wrestling business and you get to see his greatness on full display in this documentary.

But in real life, Gary-Stus don’t exist no matter how many victories a wrestler has. With the fame and fortune came drawbacks. Yes, Ric Flair got to party and have a good time everywhere he went. He got his extroverted needs met not just outside of the ring, but in it as well. But he did so at the expense of not being able to see his family as often as he needed to. He openly admitted to not being a good father and husband and it certainly showed in the reactions and emotions of everyone who loved him. Being a willfully absent father is atrocious no matter what, but ESPN made Ric Flair look like a flawed human being rather than a real life villain not unlike his wrestling persona. Nothing said against him came off as slanderous or detrimental; it was god’s honest truth. Every storyteller knows that creating flawed characters is endearing to the audience, but it must be done in a way that doesn’t turn people against the story. ESPN knew that Ric had his regrets about being a terrible family man, yet he’s still the living legend we’ve all come to admire. Everybody makes stupid mistakes and some of them hurt more than others. But it’s still a very human experience. In the end, that’s what Ric Flair was: a human. ESPN did a great job in showing these flaws without making him out to be a monster.

Easily, the most heart-wrenching part of the documentary was watching Ric Flair fight his tears while talking about the 2013 death of his youngest son Reid. Ric was a hardcore party boy who drank so much that it’s amazing he still has a liver after all these years. Unfortunately, that attitude rubbed off on Reid and he took it to the extreme, including pills and heroin into his self-destructive routine. Something the documentary thankfully left out was a storyline in WWE where Charlotte Flair (Ric’s daughter) and Paige (her opponent) were feuding over the Divas Championship. Reid’s name was brought up and Paige said, “Your baby brother doesn’t have much fight left in him now, does he?!” WWE won the award for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic in 2015 from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter due to this storyline. It was such a pointless and damaging TV segment that Ric Flair would have had an even harder time fighting back tears than before. He probably would have continued down an alcoholic path if he was forced to delve into that situation again. Good on ESPN for not putting that 2015 storyline into their documentary. Raw emotion is relatable, but it would have been too much if they’d gone through with it. We don’t need more heartache than we already have. Shame on you, Vince McMahon, for green-lighting that angle to begin with.

For Ric Flair, wrestling was both an escape from reality and a detriment to his physical and mental health. The money line at the end of the documentary was that he didn’t want to be remembered as a father and husband (because he was bad at both), but rather as the greatest professional wrestler of all time. Due in part to the respectful nature in which ESPN handled all of the sensitive topics, they deserved the award for Best Streaming Documentary, another honor voted on by readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. They are true professionals not just as filmmakers, but also human beings. They deserve an A for their hard work. Don’t you agree? WOO!

Jim Cornette's Name Test

***JIM CORNETTE’S NAME TEST***

Another blog entry about wrestling? Well, not entirely, though Jim Cornette is one of wrestling’s most recognizable personalities. This blog has a little bit more of a universal appeal since it’s about character names. Whether the genre is wrestling, fantasy, sci-fi, or even contemporary, you want your characters to have good-sounding names. A guy named Michael Hickenbottom doesn’t stand a chance in the limelight. But Shawn Michaels? Why, that’s Hall of Fame-worthy.

Here’s how the name test works. You have two opponents, the protagonist and the antagonist. When you say their names and stick the word “versus” in between them, you want it to sound like it could be a big deal. Examples from wrestling that could pass the name test include Ric Flair vs. The Undertaker. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Makes you want to know more about this conflict. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat vs. “Macho Man” Randy Savage. That also sounds exciting.

And like I said at the top of the journal, this logic could apply to any two sets of people. Harry Potter vs. Voldemort sounds as magical as its canon suggests. It makes you want to read the books or watch the movies, so you’ll spend top dollar to know how that story ends. Lion-O vs. Mummra also has a mystical aura to it, which makes sense coming from a cartoon called The Thundercats. Goku vs. Freiza has a martial arts feel to it. Mario vs. Bowser sounds like something that would happen in a comically mischievous world.

As much as I don’t want to toot my own horn, I’m going to use examples from my own stories to show that I’m following Jim Cornette’s advice to a fault. I’m currently writing a high school drama called Silent Warrior, so there better be a positive name test result to back up such a hot title. Scott George vs. Tom Simpson? Well, it doesn’t sound like much on the surface, but if you shortened their names to just their family names, it sounds like a Supreme Court case. George vs. Simpson? I’d say that has a Supreme Court ring to it, which is funny because chapter eighteen features a criminal case against Mr. George.

And then you have examples that not only fail the name test, but fail them on an epic scale. The Undertaker sounds like a creepy enough name on its own, but not when his opponent is named Stinky McFarts or Chilly McFreeze. Ever wonder why you never saw a main event WWE match in the 1990’s between Doink the Clown and Bastion Booger? Look at the names of those two individuals and run them through the test. Epic fucking fail!

As much as I hate to admit it, one of my back-burner novel ideas fails the name test as well. Booger the Clown vs. The Orc King. There’s nothing wrong with The Orc King. In fact, it sounds rather intimidating. But when you pair him up with a guy named Booger the Clown, you can see how the story gets dragged down by guffaws of laughter. Then again, Booger is supposed to be an ironic name to begin with considering the character is a depressed, suicidal marine who moonlights as a birthday clown and can only feel happy when he’s listening to violent gangster rap.

If you’re an author penning the next bestseller, take your naming system seriously and make sure the final conflict doesn’t feature Nut Sack McGee vs. Penis Breaker III. Of course, no self respecting author would ever do that to his or her own product, but it’s worth pointing out anyways. You want to know what sounds like a spellbinding feud? Reverend Jesse Custer vs. God. A lot of whacky shit takes place in Preacher, including that same feud I just mentioned. I don’t know much about the TV show, but I’ve read volumes one through four of the graphic novels. It’s every bit as fucked up as the feud sounds.

So that’s all I have for you today. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses and leave online reviews for your favorite indy authors. I’m Garrison Kelly and I’ll see you next time! But before I leave, now that we’re on a wrestling-related topic, yes, I will do a blog entry about 2017’s Most Disgusting Promotional Tactics as awarded by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. My love for shocking the shit out of my audience hasn’t waned a bit. And goddamn, we’ve had some good ones this year! Bye!

***LEGAL QUESTION***

For the next chapter of Silent Warrior, I’m planning on having Scott George rushed to the hospital to be treated for anxiety and malnutrition. I’m not sure if court cases actually work like this, but I was thinking about having the trial broadcast to Scott’s room via satellite so that he can at least know what the hell’s going on. Would a court actually do that or do they just wait for the suspect to stand trial? You don’t have to be a member of the bar association to answer this; you just have to know more about it than I do.

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Accept who you are…unless you’re a serial killer.”

-Ellen DeGeneres-

Watching Paint Dry

***WATCHING PAINT DRY***

I’ve done a lot of journals over the past few weeks talking about real life commitments. These commitments have kept me from meeting creative deadlines, but I don’t sweat it, because these house chores need to be done in a timely fashion. I’ll admit that all of these concerts I’ve been going to have been extracurricular when it comes to managing my energy, but there’s a reason I categorize them under life events on Face Book: because I may never get another chance to see these kick-ass bands in my home state. I’m pretty sure this is what that DeVry University commercial is talking about when they say, “Life is rich, full, and beautifully exhausting.”

The beautiful exhaustion will continue over the next few days, maybe even weeks. Ever since coming home from the Pain in the Grass festival on Sunday, I’ve been helping my family paint the walls of Reina and James’s bedrooms as well as helping them replace their flooring with new and fresh material. The next bedroom to be painted and remodeled will be mine. This whole process involves moving everything out of that particular room before the work is started. In my room alone, I have a computer desk, a Sleep Number bed, a book shelf, two chests of drawers, god knows what else.

Not only is this kind of intensive labor going to be taxing on my body and mind, but since my room is next, it means I’ll have to unplug my computer and move that somewhere else. I already have a bad internet connection now that the range extender in James’ room has been temporarily unplugged. Having an unplugged computer means minimal creative output and missed deadlines for beta reading and book reviewing. With that being said, I owe Andy Peloquin and Marie Krepps the biggest apologies for not being able to keep my commitments to them. Yes, I know that real life gets in the way of the most brilliant projects, but that doesn’t make it any less painful.

The entire month of August has been one chaotic cluster-fuck of physical labor and mental exhaustion. It’s taken a toll on the entire family. Forgive me if I sound whiny, because that’s not the message I’m trying to send. I love my family and I want us to live in a good-looking and clean house. All I’m saying is that if you don’t see me online for a while or if you’re getting impatient about a commitment I’ve made to you, this is why. I always pride myself on being there for the people in my life that matter the most. While my online friends fit that bill, my real life family fits it as well. This needs to be done and we’re not going to stop working until it is.

On that note, I’d like to thank all of you for being supportive and understanding during this tiring moment in our lives. Normalcy will be restored to this house soon enough. Until then, it’s time to shatter those millennial stereotypes of laziness and turn this house into a Port Orchard paradise!

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“We’re going to deal with this the way any reasonable adult would: by ignoring it.”

-Ric Flair on an episode of “Camp WWE”-

Exploiting Death

***EXPLOITING DEATH***

Even though I wrote a blog months ago about marketing my wrestling novella to the right people, I just now thought of another example when it comes to wrestling vs. real life. Only in wrestling would it make sense to do horrible things for the sake of ratings. In other words, the Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award only goes to wrestling and mixed-martial arts organizations, no where else, although the NFL had their fair share with the deflated balls scandal.

The year 2015 is almost over and in the WWE there was recently a late entry for the MDPT award. I don’t know just yet if it’s going to end up winning since the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards don’t come out until late January, but it’s a strong contender. I’m talking of course about an ending segment on an episode of Monday Night Raw.

Charlotte and Paige were signing a contract in the middle of the ring so that their Divas Championship match can take place at Survivor Series. Charlotte is the daughter of Hall of Fame wrestler Ric Flair and the sister of deceased wrestler Reid Flair. When Charlotte spoke tearfully about her family’s fighting spirit, Paige said, “I guess your baby brother doesn’t have much fight left in him now, does he!” Charlotte went berserk and beat the shit out of Paige while backstage, Ric Flair was crying his eyes out.

That’s right, folks: for the third time in a whole decade, WWE has exploited the death of a fellow wrestler or personality, the first two times being Eddie Guerrero (2006) and Bill Moody aka Paul Bearer (2013). The thing that has a lot of people upset is that nobody asked Ric Flair if it was okay to do this segment. The creative team just went ahead with it, showing that being assholes was the only way the divas division would earn attention.

Going back to my Occupy Wrestling argument, only in pro-wrestling does exploiting death make any sense. It’s wrong as hell, but it makes sense nonetheless. It wouldn’t fly anywhere else. People are already pissed off at the Westboro Baptist Church for all of their “God Hates Fags” protests. Ronda Rousey has had it up to here with Twitter users talking shit about her dead father. Don’t get me started on the NYPD wearing shirts that say, “Breathe easy: don’t break the law” in light of the murder of Eric Garner, and yes, it was murder despite what any cop apologist says.

Exploiting death also leaves a sour taste when it comes to fictional TV shows, movies, and books. Want some examples? Here they are. Let’s do a Star Wars example.

　

DARTH VADER: Luke, you keep looking at the heavens for Obi-Wan Kenobi. He’s not in heaven. He’s down there…in HELL!!

　

How about NCIS?

　

HARPER DEARING: Gibbs, you have just as much chance of catching me as Caitlin Todd does of coming back to life.

　

Ouch! But it gets worse. How about Final Fantasy VII?

　

SEPHIROTH: Well, Cloud, I guess Aerith doesn’t have much fight left in her anymore, now does she!

　

Luke Skywalker, Leroy Gibbs, and Cloud Strife would either cry their eyes out, scream in rage, or beat the shit out of whoever said those things. Not only that, but the audience would have a sour taste in their mouths and would hit the power button at the drop of a hat. And yet, we continue to watch wrestling because there are other segments that are fun to watch.

With wrestling, it makes sense to watch it for things other than the worst parts. You don’t have that luxury with a movie like North Country, which is swarming with sexual harassment scenes. Another example would be a movie I have no desire to see, but know about anyways: Iron-Jawed Angels, where women in the 1920’s were jailed, beaten, force-fed, and raped in their struggle for the right to vote.

The Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award serves the same purpose for wrestling and MMA that one and two-star reviews do for authors like me: they enforce accountability. However, they don’t always enforce humility, which is much different by comparison. At least when it happens to an author, there’s a slight chance he or she will go back and fix his mistakes, which is something I did with American Darkness and will do with Occupy Wrestling as both books hold a 2.75 star rating on Good Reads and Amazon. The WWE, on the other hand, has exploited death over the past ten years three different times.

I’ll be a wrestling fan no matter what horrible shit happens between the ropes. But if you’re an author with your own brand, you can’t always rely on people always being a fan of you if you exploit death. Sure, it will make your villains the ultimate assholes, but if they keep doing it over and over again like it’s their whole gimmick, then it’ll just frustrate the reader to where he or she won’t want to read anything by you again.

The one thing you can take away from this journal, if nothing else, is that villains were made to be hated, but it’s also okay if they’re liked every once and a while as well. And what do you know? The WWE has villainous wrestlers who are cheered (Kevin Owens) and heroic wrestlers who are booed (Roman Reigns). I just hope Kevin Owens doesn’t find out where The Ultimate Warrior is buried and piss on his grave. That would be bad for business. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

　

***POISON TONGUE TALES***

Would you believe it if I told you I only have three more short stories to write for Poison Tongue Tales before I meet my quota? I didn’t believe it at first either. I knew I had a lot of stories, but not 47. Number 48 will be one called “Wasteland” and it goes like this:

　

CHARACTERS:

　

Faye Blood, Human Monk
Marco Torres, Human Thug
Rook Maxwell, Human Dark Paladin

　

PROMPT CONFORMITY: N/A

　

SYNOPSIS: Faye has been wandering the desert wasteland for days and is exhausted from dehydration. Her monk teachings don’t allow her to attack other travelers to steal their water, but at this point, Faye has no other choice. When she sees Marco and Rook making out in their tent and wasting water by pouring it over each other for added effect, Faye figures that she’s justified in stealing their water. Her martial arts training will get her through almost any battle. Will it get her through this one if she’s caught?

　

***WRESTLING JOKE OF THE DAY***

Since NXT wrestlers Zack Ryder and Mojo Rawley like to call themselves The Hype Bros, then they probably won’t mind calling their tag team finishing move The Bro Job. Then Byron Saxton can make an awkward joke on commentary about how Zack and Mojo have an “in-your-face” style of wrestling.

WWE Night of Champions: Charlotte vs. Nikki Bella

MATCH: Charlotte vs. Nikki Bella for the latter’s Divas Championship, which she could have lost also by disqualification or count-out
PROMOTION: World Wrestling Entertainment
EVENT: Night of Champions
YEAR: 2015
RATING: TV-PG for violence
GRADE: Pass


For the longest time, the divas division of the WWE has been in murky waters. It has been plagued with short matches performed by smoking hot supermodels who fight more like cats than real wrestlers. If a WWE fan wanted to watch women’s wrestling that was actually entertaining, he or she had to get a subscription to the WWE Network and watch NXT. That all changed in a heartbeat one night. Almost a full year had passed since Nikki Bella won the Divas Championship against AJ Lee at Survivor Series in 2014 in a twenty-second disaster. Nikki, her twin sister Brie, and Alicia Fox all got together and danced in the middle of the ring thinking they had complete reign over the divas division.

And then Stephanie McMahon’s “Queendom” music played and out came the iron-fisted queen of WWE herself. She cut a promo about how female athletes all around the world were getting recognition for being just as good or even better than their male counterpart, whether it’s Ronda Rousey in the UFC or Carli Lloyd in soccer. Stephanie believed the WWE should be a part of that women’s revolution as well. So what did she do? She called three NXT divas up to the main roster: Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and Sasha Banks. Not just NXT divas, but badass battlers who could break a supermodel in half with just one punch.

And then the Divas Revolution was underway. The matches were longer, the women got better storylines, they got time in the ring to cut promos, and the matches were actually fun-to-watch wrestling competitions instead of just boring catfights. Despite this adrenaline shot to the heart of the divas division, there were still critics out there who thought pushing all of these women to the top was a waste of time. WWE Hall of Famer Greg “The Hammer” Valentine gave the most disgusting quote of the year when he said if he was in charge of the WWE, he would fire all of the divas and make them work in strip bars. I’m still waiting for Ronda Rousey to put this asshole in a shoulder lock and rip his goddamn arm out. If I have to wait forever, then damn it, I’ll wait forever.

At WWE Night of Champions in the year 2015, the critics would have duct tape on their mouths forever. Charlotte had just earned a chance to face Nikki Bella at this event for the latter’s Divas Championship. With her father Ric Flair and the NXT staff’s training, Charlotte could accomplish anything she wanted to. She was tall, lean, athletic, and she could beat the crap out of anybody put in front of her. She once out-wrestled Natalya for the vacant NXT Title. Natalya was trained in wrestling and jujitsu in the infamous Hart Dungeon, so getting a hard-fought victory over her in a classic back-and-forth war is saying something. Now Charlotte looks to do the same with Nikki Bella.

Before this match started, Nikki Bella was being written off by fans across the world as a supermodel with a middle school mentality who got an easy path to success by beating other girls just as “weak” as her. When the match actually started, she showed how much of a vicious wrestler she could be. Nikki’s entire game plan throughout the match was to not just attack Charlotte’s left leg, but also maul it, destroy it, and cripple it.

And damn, did Nikki deliver on that game plan. She suplexed Charlotte into the ropes and turnbuckles with the victim’s knee landing right on those hard structures. And while Charlotte was sitting on the ring apron hoping to recover, Nikki grabbed her injured leg and threw her to the concrete floor in a hard-hitting move known as the Dragon Screw. To add insult to injury, Nikki applied Ric Flair’s patented submission hold, the Figure Four Leg Lock, across the steel ring post with Charlotte’s legs bound and twisted in ways they’re not supposed to bend. And then the champion applied more pressure on the leg by twisting it backwards in a Single-Leg Boston Crab. And then more suplexes into the ropes and corners. And then a shoulder tackle to the back of the leg.

The relentless assault took a huge toll on Charlotte’s mobility. She was so badly in pain that she couldn’t even walk straight, let alone run off the ropes for a decent clothesline. My niece Reina watched this match with me and though she wasn’t in it, she still had aches and pains going through her own body while she was empathizing with Charlotte. If competing in this match cripples Charlotte, then the viewers at home and at the Houston, Texas arena would leave in wheelchairs. That’s how torturous this match looked on TV.

Which is why it’s so rewarding for the underdog Charlotte to come back from this endless pain and pull off a big move that will win her the Divas Championship. As Nikki dove off the top rope for another shoulder tackle, she got a spear tackle of her own right to the gut compliments of the challenger for her title. And then Charlotte did the unthinkable. Even with her severely battered left leg, she applied not only her father’s Figure Four Leg Lock to Nikki, but also bridged backwards to make it The Figure Eight. She held this position for as long as she painstakingly could and Nikki Bella eventually tapped out to lose the championship, ending her reign at 300-plus days.

Overcoming adversity is something women have had to do not just in sports, but in life in general. They had to take beatings just to earn the right to vote in America, they had to live as pariahs just to have the right to divorce their husbands, they’re being shot at for wanting feminine healthcare, and even today in this somewhat liberalized culture, women still have to fight for recognition in this world.

After seeing Charlotte win a hard-fought match for her first WWE Divas Championship in which the referee almost stopped it due to injury, I only have one thing left to say to Greg Valentine and everyone else who thinks that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Would you really trust a red-hot warrior like Charlotte or Ronda Rousey with an iron skillet in one hand and a bread knife in the other? You want a woman to cook and clean for you? Okay. She can cook you with a flame thrower and clean the evidence of your existence off the floors so that the police don‘t suspect a thing. How does that sound?

WWE Summer Slam: John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar

TITLE: WWE Summer Slam: John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar

YEAR: 2014

GENRE: Professional Wrestling Match

RATING: TV-PG for moderate violence and language

GRADE: Pass

In order to appreciate the sheer brutality of this main event match for John Cena’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship, it’s important to understand the back story of both competitors, the champion John Cena and the challenger Brock Lesnar.

John Cena started his career in the WWE in 2002, won his first world championship in 2005, and ever since then has become the cornerstone of WWE as well as a 15-time world champion. In other words, he’s not just some schmuck from the gym. Even the heel announcers are calling John Cena a future Hall of Famer. He gave 12 years of his life to the wrestling business and has made epic memories throughout his entire career.

Brock Lesnar is an entirely different animal. He hates the wrestling business and hates people even more. He’s a mercenary with a lust for money and inflicting pain on others. He too started in the WWE in 2002, but after winning multiple world titles left in 2004 to pursue other athletic careers. His most noteworthy achievement outside of WWE is being a former UFC Heavyweight Champion with victories over Shane Carwin, Randy Couture, and Frank Mir. He returned to WWE in 2012 on a part-time basis and did the impossible: he defeated The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 30 and handed him his first defeat at that pay-per-view.

The hype surrounding this upcoming Summer Slam main event was epic. It was a battle everybody wanted to see. And when it was all said and done, Brock Lesnar shocked the world yet again. This wasn’t just a professional wrestling match. This was something John Cena would later call a “100% ass-kicking” at the hands of Brock Lesnar. The match was only 30 seconds old and already Lesnar hit Cena with his finishing move: a fireman’s carry face buster called the F5. But Lesnar was far from finished.

Using his MMA background, he delivered hard knees, wrecking ball fists, and battleaxe elbows to John Cena, rendering him so helpless that the offence he could muster was extremely minimal. On top of those hard strikes, Brock Lesnar delivered 16 German suplexes to his opponent and left him gasping for air and struggling for clear vision.

Did I mention already that John Cena is a 15-time world champion and a future Hall of Famer? Okay, I was just making sure. It would seem unrealistic that a man with John Cena’s illustrious credentials would suffer a beating as torturous as that and not have anything left to give of his own. But that’s the way it happened and Brock Lesnar won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in convincing fashion, as Michael Cole put it.

The hype leading up to this match along with the sheer brutality of Lesnar’s offence was enough to convince Dave Meltzer, a well-respected wrestling historian, to give the performance 4.25 stars out of 5. I’m not speaking for Mr. Meltzer, but I’m guessing the reason it didn’t get the full five was because John Cena took a long time to recover from each suplex and strike and it slowed the match down considerably.

I’m normally all about fast-paced matches, but in the case of Lesnar vs. Cena, I can make an exception. This match was maximum brutality and resulted in a huge push for Brock Lesnar. If somebody were to defeat him for the WWE World Title, it would be an admirable and heroic feat. You might have to search far and wide for a wrestler who’s willing to do that, but he’s there, trust me.

As for John Cena, his future was being questioned after taking such a devastating beating. Triple H, the man in charge at the time, considered not giving him his obligatory rematch. A panel of Hall of Famers, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, and Hulk Hogan, actually got together to debate whether John Cena would be ready for another rematch or if he should just retire since Lesnar’s unstoppable.

If John Cena ever did get another chance at the title, he would have a huge mountain to climb. If he climbed that mountain, it would give him the biggest boost in his career and would pretty much seal the deal for a Hall of Fame induction.

To prove he was ready, Cena did the exact same thing to Bray Wyatt during an episode of Raw that Brock Lesnar did to Cena at Summer Slam: delivered a 100% ass-kicking. Bray Wyatt’s a 300-lb wrecking ball, not some loser off the streets, so giving him a 100% beating is a heroic feat in and of itself.

Everything about this Summer Slam match from the in-ring action to the hype to the aftermath was well-executed on the part of WWE. Some would question their decision to make Brock Lesnar the champion since he’s on a part-time schedule and won’t defend it that often. I don’t question it, because main event pay-per-view matches in the WWE are still top quality without Lesnar’s presence. Isn’t that right, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins?

WWE NXT

TITLE: WWE NXT

GENRE: Professional Wrestling

RATING: TV-PG for mild violence

GRADE: A+

If you follow the yearly Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards like I do, you would have seen that the award for Best Weekly Television Show in 2013 was WWE NXT. You know why it won that prestigious award? Because when it comes to professional wrestling, there’s only one way to describe WWE NXT: bullshit-free television. That means there are no goofy stunt doubles, no tyrannical authority figures, no cranky divas, and no ridiculous endings to otherwise good matches. You want to know what wrestling is all about? WWE NXT is your answer. It can be all yours if you purchase the WWE Network for only…come on, people, what is it? It’s only $9.99 a month!

NXT is supposed to be the training grounds for wrestlers and divas who want to be featured on WWE Raw and Smackdown, the company’s two flagship shows. Judging from the way these “rookies” wrestle, it looks like they’ve spent their whole lives training. For many of the wrestlers, this couldn’t be closer to the truth.

Sami Zayn is a high-flying technical wizard who wrestled all over the world. Tyson Kidd is the final graduate of the infamous Hart Dungeon and knows how to cripple his opponents inside that ring. Tyler Breeze is arrogant and self-serving, but his own high-flying style justifies his otherwise obnoxious gimmick. Adrian Neville is called “The Man Gravity Forgot” for a reason: because every time he flies around the ring or even does a ground move, it looks like he’s in outer space. Four kick-ass wrestlers who always put on five-star matches whenever they’re in the ring. In fact, they downright steal the show. But these are just the main-eventers of NXT.

Even the wrestlers who haven’t been doing it for quite as long don’t show their inexperience very often. Bull Dempsey’s wrestling career started in 2006 and he fights like a 300-lb. wrecking ball, smashing and bruising everyone in his path. Charlotte’s career started in 2012, but she has so much going for her already: she trained under her father Ric Flair (a two-time WWE Hall of Famer and 16-time World Champion), she’s over six feet tall and is built like a powerhouse, and she had quite possibly the match of the year in 2014 against Natalya (daughter of Jim Neidhart) to win the NXT Women’s Championship. Anybody else that needs mentioning? How about Baron Corbin, a seven-foot juggernaut who squashed CJ Parker in his first match, which is a difficult feat in and of itself. Let me put it this way: when Pinocchio does another Geico commercial where he’s a motivational speaker, his nose won’t grow when he says NXT wrestlers have lots of potential.

Professional wrestling gets a lot of crap these days for being “gay porn” or “a redneck soap opera”. WWE NXT is quickly proving those two slurs to be wrong. The wrestlers are awesome to watch in the ring. The storylines are believable and are therefore easy to sit through. The commentary team isn’t constantly at each other’s throats nor are they trying to make corny jokes all the time. Like I said before, WWE NXT is bullshit-free television. If you want to make a layman into a believer, show them a random episode from this weekly series. Or if you really want to put your best foot forward, show him or her one of the two-hour specials. Bottom line: I can’t picture Triple H or Stephanie McMahon referring to the NXT staff as “B+ players” anytime soon.

Sid Underworld

We don’t have too many working class heroes in today’s society, because in order for that to happen, you have to survive the shitty economy. If there’s one character of mine who’s capable of thriving in the American darkness on less than $100 per wrestling match, it’s someone who will stick around like the “cockroach” he’s been referred to as by the higher ups. He’s a jobber named Sid Underworld. He looks like Sid from the SNES version of Final Fight and fights like him too. He also comes out to the music of “Otherworld” from Final Fantasy X fame and psychs up the audience by doing so. How many times has a wrestling crowd really been fired up for a jobber? Maybe in 2011 when Daniel Bryan was getting shitty storylines, but other than that, it hasn’t been done since the wonderful work of Sid Underworld has been known throughout every corner of my own goddamn imagination. If a really muscular badass like Monzo Bleeder from my book “Brawl Mart” spears him in the ribs, Sid won’t exactly do a 360 degree rotation in the air. He’ll do a 720 instead! If Mitch McLeod from that same book Occu-Punches him, Sid Underworld will wake up on the moon. Even if someone like Debra Winter were to gouge him in the eyes with her long fingernails, Sid would sell that as well. In fact, he’d scream so loud in a throaty and beastly voice that he could be the lead singer for Soulfly or Five Finger Death Punch. With this uncanny ability to sell his opponents’ moves, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that he stayed at the bottom of the barrel for so long in the wrestling industry. It’s also a shame that his corporate masters wouldn’t let him move up the ladder. He is so popular with the fans that the Yes Movement can’t compare. The difference though is that Daniel Bryan’s popularity got him into a Wrestlemania 30 match with the legendary Triple H while Sid Underworld, working for KDW, would probably submit to a Finger Poke of Doom from Keegan Day. Why exactly am I making all of these Brawl Mart references if Sid Underworld never made it on the character roster? Maybe it’s wishful thinking, I don’t know. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that Sid should have replaced Rosie Rogers in that story. Mitch McLeod had no right to elbow a woman in the jaw like he did to Rosie. At least if he did it to Sid, it’d be more believable. Plus, Debra Winter would be more likely to cheat on Mitch with Sid than she would with Rosie. Maybe I’m speaking too soon. Maybe Brawl Mart can be an instant classic despite Rosie Rogers getting the attention instead of Sid Underworld. I’m not entirely finished with writing pro-wrestling novels. Maybe Sid can make an appearance in one of them. Maybe he can poke his head out of a boiling pool of red liquid and say, “I’ll be back!” Bonus points to anybody who knows what movie that comes from.

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Let me ask you something, Ric Flair: what the hell is a nature boy? Does it mean you like nature? Does it mean you like boys?”

-Stone Cold Steve Austin-