A rambling on Wrestling

Growing up, TV was and remains a big part of my life, and family. Growing up when I did, we had a large satellite dish in the backyard. It got us movie channels, PPV, scrambled adult channels that sometimes weren’t scrambled.

Thanks to this massive dish, and I do mean massive. Seriously, the satellite dishes you see in the movie CONTACT? Yeah, that’s about the size we had in our yard, and any time it had to re-align. You heard it. Damn I miss that.

Being a product of that time growing up. We were right in the prime time of the greatest fun on TV, and our family.

Wrestling PPV.

A lot of families were like this, and its what makes these memories special for me. Back then, we didn’t have a wrestling PPV each month, let alone two per. Back then we had what they now call the “Big Four”. Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Summerslam, and Survivor Series. It wasn’t until later we got the treat that was King of the Ring and the somewhat forgettable In Your House.

Whenever those 4 popped up. We’d end up paying for them and always with a house full. Either they’d just happen to land on a holiday, or we’d celebrate late holidays with family and we would all gather and watch WWF(Now WWE) events. It sounds funny by todays standards, and I am sure somewhere there is a redneck stereotype as well about only those type of people would gather for wrestling. But, and here it comes. The official old man saying…..it was a different time.

It's always funny now, looking back on this and how it worked. Somehow. But Wrestling in the 80’s was a serious thing. You had storylines that continued on. Good versus bad. Shakey alliances and forged friendships. Anytime a bad guy would sneak attack a good guy in the ring? All the good guys would come out to help them out.

It was a well tuned, ran and operated thing. To the point that even when traveling, the wrestlers had to maintain this illusion. The good guys or ‘Babyfaces’ would always be booked and traveled together. The bad guys or ‘Heels’ also traveled only with other baddies. They did all of this to keep up the idea these stories, these mythical heroes and villains were truly feuding and the matches we watches all carried a heavy price behind them.

Even when you knew it wasn’t real, you enjoyed the stories and the fights. I still have very vivid memories of watching these events and my family screaming their heads off cheering when Hulk beats Andre the Giant. Watching on TV when the ‘The Mega Powers’ team of Hulkster and Macho Man was formed.

Man, I even remember getting pissed off at the satellite feed because the station wasn’t coming in clear and there was issues with getting any satellite feed of the event. We HAD to watch! Otherwise all was lost.

It seriously is funny that you had a house with 2 kids, and 10 adults sometimes. All watching these matches and acting like it was an actual high stakes championship sports game. Then going to School and talking about it with friends. Then arguing with friends over who was the actual best superstar of the WWF, and what the bad guy did in the PPV that ticked us off.

But all of us, family and friends all able to agree that Referee’s in wrestling were the weakest glass jawed human beings and absolutely blind to anything going on in the ring.

Seriously one slap and these guys were out for the night. Too damn funny.

One memory that will always stand out as something me and my sister laugh at still. Was when my parents bought me for Christmas a Hulk Hogan workout kit. It had jump rope, an orange and red sweatband. A cassette tape. Dumb bell weights you filled with water. I was using it in our parents bedroom and I was getting tired, I laid my torso on my parents bad chuckling and just at that moment on the cassette tape, you heard the Hulkster bellow out “Get back up brother! Don’t you stop now!” We all lost it laughing.

Between Wrestling on Weekends, PPV four times a year, the WWF Cartoon, Nintendo game, Wrestling buddies(which I loved) and your own toy ring and figures. The stuff was everywhere and everyone I knew at school was into it.

Just one of those times were it seemed everywhere we went wrestling was everywhere. Even theaters. I remember we saw No Holds Barred in theater. My god that movie was horrible. But now it’s a treasure, for reasons.

But as we got older, we started to drift away. Hulkster was leaving. Other superstars were too. And No one I knew of wanted or bought Lex Lugar as ‘The All American’who would carry the WWF with Hogan gone..

But also becoming a teenager, and then hearing about, and again get ready to laugh at this shocking news everyone had to report on. But hearing news stations and papers declaring the shocking truth that wrestling was FAKE. Because Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the Iron Sheik thought it’d be a good idea to do blow while traveling to a show.

THAT was what brought down the very thin veil that was hiding wrestlings fake secret. But honestly I feel by that point people had already caught on, and those of us who grew up on it were beginning to move on to other things.

Did we or the family ever watch WCW?

Hell no.

Sure we didn’t watch or follow Wrestling for a while, but we were loyal to the devil Vince and the gold and blue WWF.

I tried watching WCW around the time Hogan came out with the NWO. But it just felt different, and wasn’t that entertaining for me. I’d remembered hearing about Goldberg and the whole “Your next!” gimmick. Which for those unfamiliar. Goldbergs big gimmick was that he was a wall of pure man meat muscle and speared his opponents into victories. Everyone he fought, he defeated. Dude was unstoppable. Which I felt was kinda dumb. Because you will eventually have to lose. A wrestler who wins all the time, just gets boring. But a wrestler who comes back from a loss, or betrayal. That’s fun, that’s worth watching. But it worked for him so good on him. At least for a while.

But while in High School, a good friend and someone on par with my weirdness. Got me back into wrestling. Just in time for the big WWF shift that…well it was something.

The age of RAW is WAR.

Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mankind, and of course…Degeneration X.

Vince needed a safe and the answer they came up with. Was lets turn our wrestlers into actors. Make Wrestling an extreme soap opera. And it worked.

You had storylines of wrestlers sleeping with other wrestlers. Porn star Val Venis and The Godfather pimp taking on a religious pure virtue tag team. A super gay tag team making straight wrestlers defend their masculinity. Grandma wrestlers getting pregnant and performing the ‘bucking bronco’ on people, because old woman crotch bouncing in your face. The Undertaker and his dark ministry kidnapping and sucking the souls out of wrestlers, and of course Vince and The Corporation being taken out by Beer drinking flip you off at a moments notice Steve Austin.

There wasn’t much technical wrestling, just entertainment. And it really was. Even my parents got back into it.

My friend Daniel and I used to do submission holds on each other and my cat. It was the coolest cat who had zero fucks to give. I could carefully choke slam him to the couch and he’d just look at you like ‘okay cool bro’ and sigh. I loved that cat.  We also played hours of wrestling on the N64.

Wrestling was genuinely fun again. Just for different reasons. We all loved hearing the Rock and his now classic skits. Between telling everyone to know their role and shut their mouth, to my still favorite “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!” But all of us collectively loved Mick Foley. The guy was just damn funny to watch. I still laugh about him trying to hunt down the Godfather, so he went to a strip club with a sock full of quarters for the dancers. Fuckin dude…tossing quarters at dancers just…goddamn.

And of course Mr Socko. My parents losing their shit laughing, when a grown ass man pulls a sock out from his crotch and jams it into the mouth of another wrestler. Gold.

It was just fun. Watching these characters play out and entertain people. But the best part of it all. Was the few moments they created something truly special, and having been there to witness it.

Like the hardcore Tables Ladders and Chairs match between the Hardy Boyz and the Dudley Brothers.

The Hell in a Cell Undertaker vs Mankind match. Now knowing Mick Foley was knocked out several times and couldn’t remember getting up but doing so, knocking a tooth out and up then OUT his nose. One of the best technical lets show off our skills matches between The American Badass Undertaker and Ken Shamrock. Seriously seeing both men walk the top rope, perform and escape from multiple submission holds. Dudes were showing off and it was impressive. These were seriously impressive holy shit moments.

And they even helped create for the WWF the fan chant Holy-Shit. The same as watching people like Sabu and Taz wrestle and destroy themselves in ECW. Things were still changing and evolving in wrestling and it was insane. But also very dangerous. Which began a spiral.

When hardcore became the thing. Intense cage matches. Triple cage matches. More TLC matches, First to bleed matches, You were always promised by the final match everyone in the main event would be bleeding everywhere. It was insane. But so was the demand on the wrestlers having to push themselves to do this crazy shit, and then top it all over again.

Some wrestlers land wrong and ended up paralyzed. Shawn Michaels got dropped on the wring post and fucked his back. Stone Cold snapped his neck, Undertaken had to wear a face mask to not die. Then you had things like Chris Benoit murdering his family then taking his own life. Owen Hart falling to his death.

That one really got me.

I’d ordered the Over the Edge PPV and was recording it for my parents. Me and my sister, my cousin Mike and Daniel were all there to hang out and watch it and it was really just. I dunno. One minute they’re doing the promo with Owen as The Blue Blazer talking about fighting the Godfather. The next all you see are wide shots of the crowd and J.R. telling us that there was an accident in the ring. You could see people in the stands mimicking with their hands what they saw. A figure falling from the ceiling and landing on the mat. You knew it was something serious and the announcers were constantly reminding people of that. They never showed you the ring until Owen was taken out of it on a stretcher. The announcers told you they were doing heart resuscitations and that alone was just. You knew it was.

I bring this up because it showed a side of wrestling, possibly more a side of Vince that was, depending how you choose to look at it. Either the dumbest most insensitive thing you could do. Or making what he felt was the right decision with a hard sell.

J.R. had the unfortunate task and job of being a ring commentator, and having to give updates to the people watching as they became available. J.R. behind the scenes was a very incredibly close friend to Owen and his promoter/manager. He was told 10 seconds before they’d continue to the next match, that Owen had died. Guy had no time to let that sink in and absorb that. He just had to tell millions of people watching that owen had died at the hospital and now lets begin our next match.

It was hard watching because you could see on his and Jerry Lawlers faces they knew things were grim. Jerry left his post to go to the ring, he was worried and did all he could to help. When you saw him come back to the announcers table, you could read it on his face. You knew the outlook was grim. But then hearing J.R. tell us, and the two of them trying to hold their composure. It was rough.

But Vince had a choice to make right then.

He could either stop the show. Offer a refund to people. Tell them we’re sorry but in light of events, we feel its best to stop the show out of respect, or. You continue the show with the hope that doing so would be best in helping people get off their minds the fact they saw a man fall to his death.

So yes Vince continued the show. Did it help? No. It was a horror show. Literally.

One thing you could not avoid seeing. Everyone knew what it was, what it was from, and not only stayed, but marked every wrestler that night after. Was a large pool of blood where Owen had fallen. What’s more fucked up, is the match that had to go on right after. Was with Jeff Jerret. A tag team partner of Owens and good friend. He had to wrestle and both he and his opponent ended up with Owens blood on their backs. Every other match that night. If they landed in that corner. They were marked in it. Jeff could not hold it together during the match. He tried his hardest. But the guy understandably just. You could see tears. There’s just no way that isn’t going to further tare into someones heart.

Owen was a really great and fun wrestler. Dude had skills and was fun to watch way back with the British Bulldog and the Hart Foundation. It’s just sad what happened and more so because the WWF had to mock a gimmick used by a rival wrestling company to do so. Not to mention using the worst possible people you could for safety.

After that there was a huge HUGE shift with things in wrestling. They were moving away from insane stunts. Safety protocol was being put first and foremost. Then they actually got stricter on their talent about using drugs. Once it came out Chris Benoit had 10 times the amount of adrenaline in his system that a normal human should have, but somehow passed their wellness and drug testing programs. Yeah they had to watch their asses.

Not all of wrestling then was a tragedy. But you did have other wrestlers getting shafted and leaving. China was in a real life relationship with Triple H, Which he ended when he decided to bang Stephanie McMahon. She dated Xpac, who was abusive to her. She was turned into a gimmick instead of a serious wrestler and mix that with substance abuse and you get fired. The Road Dogg Jessie James was fired for testing positive a few too many times for pot among other things, Stone cold was constantly needing rehab for his knee since you can’t let your top talent and draw card rest. People began to leave and go work for WCW. Some wrestlers who tried making a comeback unfortunately ended up landing wrong and, boom, career gone.

The Rock became a movie star, Mick Foley needed to retire if he wanted to be able to walk again. And one of the funner events, which still cracks me up. One of my favorite tag teams outside of the Bushwackers. The Acolytes.  Farooq and Bradshaw. The founders of the APA Acolytes Protection Agency. These two suddenly poof off from wrestling and made me sad. Their sketches were hilarious. Their ‘office’ was just a frame holding up a door in a lunch room. What happened? Well apparently he’s amazing at money management which unfortunately is not common with most wrestlers, he gave out financial advice to other wrestlers including his tag partner, and the man wrote a book on money management, retired to Bermuda. Started a company and organization to help keep kids out of gangs.

There’s a lot to love about old wrestling from the 80’s thru to 2000. There’s also a lot to miss there too. Like managers. Both male and female. There’ll never be another mouth of the south Jimmy heart, or Bobby the Brain, Captain Lou and his rubberbands. Hell even Paul Bearer and my favorite annoying personality of all time. Brother love.

It was fun having quick witted guys like that who not only played great and horrible cheating managers, but also did a good deal behind the scenes too. Having your hero with a hype person was fun seeing. They’d save them from dirty tricks, or perform them themselves and you hated them all the more for getting away with it. Things now adays are more focused on the star. Which I can’t bash, it takes talent to be entertaining. The Rock is a prime example of that. He did great improve, had good scripts. He could really work a crowd and he had a gimmick that really worked well. Some superstars are just like that. Where others like Ultimate Warrior just….well there’s always one, or a dozen.

I decided to write this, with no particular goal in mind other than. Well I loved wrestling. I spent a few weeks rewatching. In order mind you. All the PPV’s from the WWF/WWE. During the pandemic  with not much else to do, I saw they were offering all of their ppv for free(for a short time) so I revisited all these matches and. Hot damn that was a fun trip. Between watching classic matches I only remembered the main event of, And experiencing as an adult all the things I missed as a kid. Like the absolute amazing drunkfest that was macho man and Bobby the brain commenting during Wrestlemania 9. It’s seriously the funniest stuff and you can tell one if not a few of these guys are drunk and having a blast KNOWING the other is drunk and trying to do their jobs. I remembered watching it live on tv and still stands as one of those events that while rewatching I knew moments that were coming up.  I love it despite other people online saying it was one of the lamer Wrestlemanias.

But it also stood out in my mind recently because of news about Razor Ramone, Scott Hall.

When he first debuted on WWF, He wasn’t among my top three. Yes he was a bad guy, and a damn good one at that. But he was one of the few bad guys I loved watching. He had a great cocky entrance that matched his theme music. The tooth pick and gold. It was great. He was one of those bad guys you enjoyed seeing wrestle, even if he’d cheat, or managed a fair win over your favorite. Guy was just good at what he did and who he was.

When he turned from heel to babyface? Yeah I bought it and loved it. I mean it was hard not to laugh when you got a man giving the thickest accent and saying shit like ‘Heyo” “Say hello to the bad guy” and still my favorite, “Oozing with macheesmo”

This stuff was just great, and it was always entertaining to watch. Honestly one of the first fights he had with the 1-2-3 kid, still stands out as a great and hell of a match. Both were selling the moves and razor really helped push the kid up the ladder. Which says something because I was not at all a fan of the 1-2-3 kid. They were annoying and I hated the selling of the ‘he works hard trains hard and always does his best’ role they had him in. Even if the guy is kind of a piece of shit, turning him to xpac was a much better idea. But between their match and him at his first Royal Rumble. Honestly I really dug the hell out of him and Bret Hart fighting it out for the championship belt at the 93’ Royal Rumble.  

Was a good time for both of those guys. Both were getting huge pushes, and Either would’ve made a better replacement for Hulk.

Which by the way, for those who do remember back then. Yes having Brett lose the belt to Yokozuna, who then immediately loses it to Hulk, just to have him be champion and return again. Yeah that was bullshit. And brett got screwed, which happened a lot.

But I digress, as always.

Not long ago Scott Hall had hip surgery done, and after had serious trouble with blood clots and ended up unfortunately having three heart attacks. When I heard about that, then discovered he was on life support, it really got me. But shortly after, like literally a day after. Hearing that his family would be taking him off life support. I don’t say it often, because I kind of hate the word when not being used in comical context. But it really did feel tragic.

A majority of people, unfortunately. Are going to remember him for his substance abuse, and being an asshole. Was he? Yeah he was and admits he was back then. Guy was very far from perfect, and he did mess up his life. A lot.

Thanks to podcast interviews with various wrestlers, and SpikeTV’s show Dark Side of the Ring, we know a LOT of wrestlers fucked up their lives AND their careers.

We know these things and clamor to hear them, because everyone wants to know bad stories and sad endings.

Working in restaurants taught me that as well. Everyone reads in the paper when your restaurant gets a strike from the health inspector. But no one reports about the place when its doing well after.

That’s how it feels with a lot of these guys, and was one of the few unexpected joys I got out of DDP Yoga.

A long time ago a documentary came out called Beyond the mat. It was being sold as “The Film Vince McMahon doesn’t want you to see”, and one of the most depressing parts in that, was the segment they did on Jake the Snake.

Hearing him talk about what life was like on the road back then. Showing him drunk off his ass, pissing in a bucket, high as a kite and just looking like the saddest most pitiful thing of a man. It was shitty, and sad. It also hurt him a lot. Which I get. When you know you fucked up, are fucked up. You don’t want everyone around you knowing you are, and you sure as shit don’t need reminders of it. That documentary just fucked him up inside.

He ended up some time later turning to Diamond Dallas Page for help. Diamond was taking off with a yoga program he was heavily building. It was originally YRG yoga but later rebranded DDPYoga. Its not Broga for dude bros. It’s a specific focused dynamic resistance form yoga. I’m not plugging them, but I am because shit works. I lost 40 lbs in 3 months when I tried it and have struggled to get back into again and lose more. But he brought Jake on and even with Jake falling off the wagon a few times. Sticking with it, then dropping off. He managed to keep going. He never gave up and eventually it did stick and he got better.

They made a film off of that too, which was a hell of a lot better and far better an ending for his story.

Scott hall was in a real bad place a few years ago, and when he heard about, and saw what was going on with Jake. He basically had the thought ‘well shit if they can help him out, there’s hope for me.’. So he too went to Page and soon you had both of these guys working out and trying to clean themselves up. Scott definitely had his lows. A lot of them. But Jake really pushed him to keep at it, keep going. Addiction is a bitch of a struggle, and Scott struggled hard. Even when he got better, he still dipped down. I believe eventually he did find the ground under his feet.

But I honestly wonder how many people will know that. Versus those who will think he was truly the worst he could be up till the day he died.

That’s why this hurts. You never really get over addiction. You just learn to cope, and put it behind you. It’s a hell of a struggle for a lot of people. It’s a struggle trying to repair relationships when you acted out and didn’t care when you destroyed them. God knows I have my struggles same as everyone else out there. You fight to show the best of yourself, but when all they see, and you feel they see. Is just the worst of you, or the past. It takes a lot to commit to changing that and seeing it through. Giving up is not something you want to do, but you do get those days you just don’t care and wonder why bother.

Seeing your heroes go through that, Seeing people as human beings instead of superstars. It’s really something. You hope the best for them, and knowing your own struggles and problems, knowing where some of these people are coming from . You hope for the best and pull for them. Because you know if they can do it, you can do it too.

I would honestly much rather think of them as the guy that  worked to become. Which seemed to mirror his career in a way. He was the bad guy that turned good. It just always feels sad. When people, be they famous or otherwise. Finally seem to be turning their lives around, unfortunately leave us all soon after.

It all just struck me in an odd way. That someone I never met in person. Didn’t know or follow. Only watched wrestle on weekends and in PPV’s, then caught in segments in cooking videos for DDP Yoga, and in a documentary. That I felt that much in their passing.

Not saying I have a stoneheart you fuckers. But It just hits different, you know? Because people like Razor Ramon, Owen Hart. Meatloaf. John Lennon, Betty White. They all gave us memories and moments. They entertained us and left a mark on us somewhere.

And in this day and age it’s almost a struggle itself just to tell the rest of the world ‘Shut the fuck up, I don’t care, this is the version I’m sticking too.” Because somewhere out there someone has to point out every horrible bad no good thing people did like there’s a scoreboard that matters. Which I mean, please do if they were genuinely a murderous terrible horrible person. But not people that slipped down a dark tunnel and tried getting out of. Don’t be a dick. Or do if you were born to be.

I’m a long way from when I was a kid cheering for the Hulkster, Keeping my old worn shirts just so I could rip it off myself like he would. Doing macho man impressions at both appropriate and especially inappropriate times. But I still manage to have fun with it.

I Remember in my early twenties wasting hours, days playing Smack Down on the ps1. Making a character and planning out PPV events for them and other superstars. Creating my own stories with all of them, feuds and alliances. Special matches. It was fun as hell and I got a huge kick out of it. Then they had to go and stop making good wrestling games. Literally I’m not even remotely joking. There are torrents of bad reviews for every wrestling game out there, and not long ago I got my interest peaked when I heard they were finally making a new one, and the possibility they actually listened to the fans and made something closer to dare I say it. Fun. Enjoyable even. But I did not pre-order. I’m holding out. It might be fun going back into a wrestling game and trying to do like I did before. But you never know. Honesty wrestling games and Boxing are my two guilty pleasure games. And unfortunately they stopped making boxing games as people seem to get their rocks off more to MMA games so….yay for them I guess.

I actually did want to write about wrestling a long time ago. I just never got around to it, and by then I watched all the ppv’s so I thought, ‘well there goes reviewing and ranking those’, but I always wanted to come back to it and write about it. Specifically because it really was something I grew up being absorbed into and like I mentioned already was part of our family gatherings.

I’m always going to love that, even if other people now a days will think it’s silly or weird. I think it’s more weird that people don’t seem to have something similar now.

I still think it’d be really cool to have something like that though today. But I don’t know if its really possible. Which again is kinda sad. Knowing that you grew up with friends and schoolmates that all got behind the same thing and how deep into it we all were, to the point our families were sold on it too. Even when you know or knew it wasn’t real. You still cheered for the character. You wanted to see them triumph and overcome. There was a pure and genuine love of wrestling back then.

Which is still fun to think about.

It’s also fun, I think to look at how far it’s come from the birth of wrestling entertainment on the grand stage to today. Yes people know its fake scripted feuds. Yes they know the winner is determined. But you look past it and enjoy the entertainment. Like soap operas. Yes someone will betray a friend, a wife will suddenly flirt with and sleep with a rival. There will be conflict. It will escalate and during a ppv event it will be resolved.

Or at least if you are smart it will be.

Back when I got into Raw is War, they brought on two storylines that absolutely did not need to be, let alone continued. But before we get into that glory. We should talk a bit about these stories and how they both worked and failed horrible. But also showed up how horrible some human beings are.

For many many years Vince has shown himself to be an actual shitty person and great businessman. To deny that he is why wrestling became the bright star and money maker it was during the 80’s and up is to lie to yourself. But yeah he absolutely fucked people over and gave zero fucks.

It’s just back in the early days of wrestling it wasn’t as widely known or discussed. Wrestlers in small circuits and big circuits did not usually talk bad about their bosses, let alone to the public. You could absolutely call them out, but when you looked for support from other wrestlers. You often found yourself alone. Because those guys needed their jobs, and going against the boss would not give you that. Which is messed up to think about, but it’s true.

Take for instance the unfortunate death I mentioned earlier of Owen Hart. His wife went and investigated his death, because she didn’t buy what they were telling her and knowing Owen was never comfortable performing the stunt, she wanted to look into it. She found a good deal that supported what she thought, which was cheap workers, bad equipment, and a lot of mistakes. She tried suing Vince and the WWE, and a lot of stories came out from her and others about family members having been approached by the WWE about not supporting her claims, some staying out of it in the possibility they could work for them again sometime, and a very small number supporting her case.  Much like back when people finally thought they’d take Vince down on charges of him forcing his wrestlers to take steroids. But either key witnesses decided not to speak out, or changed their testimony to “No I wasn’t forced to take steroids, I was already taking them.”. It’s just kinda…damn. And if you want to read some real fun stories look up WWF superstars and drugs. You’ll find a plethora of wtf, fun, and how did no one go to prison stories.

But the things I caught on tv that happened with Vince. Again were both a good idea to save your ratings, but also shiity.

If you’re familiar with wrestling history and know what the Montreal Screw Job was. Then you are likely aware where that lead things and what I’m getting too. For those who weren’t familiar? Brett Hart was leaving the WWF. Now what happens in wrestling, has always happened and is tradition. If you are leaving the business, and you have a belt. Even if you don’t. You lose your last match. That way the belt stays in the company, moves to the next person and a new champion is crowned. So Brett decided he wanted something a bit more respectful he felt, and I’ll say it. A bit to help his ego. He proposed that his match end in a draw or disqualification, and that he decide during the end of the match to hand off the belt to his opponent Shawn Michaels. That way he goes out on his terms, he doesn’t lose the belt but gives it up, rides off into the Gym sunset.

Vince apparently told him okay we can try it out. We’ll work on something. But behind the scenes his writers were struggling to find a good way to take the belt away and continue a story from there. So supposedly the idea was pitched that he’d be robbed of the title. The match was supposed to have an interruption and disqualification. Instead the moment Brett was put into his signature move The Sharpshooter by his opponent. You had Vince(supposedly) shouting at the bell man to ring the bell and declare that Brett submitted and tapped out. Therefor losing the belt. You could see on Brett’s face he realized what just happened and he was pissed off. He later would punch Vince in the locker room and storm out and over to WCW. Thing is people are split on whether this was a legit screw over and Vince is a dick. Or. The possibility it was all a staged thing. You just never know with Wrestling.

But Brett went and did interviews uncovering the last veil of wrestlings secrets. Which was telling people that winners were determined before the matches, and that the wrestlers would work together on figuring out how the match would go and when they’d end it. Which upset Vince and others naturally.

But Vince had a great idea. He knew he was hated. And more so now for robbing a Canadian icon in wrestling of their respectful send off. All the stories for years on him being a shitty person and boss. He had a grand idea. Since until that time he was only known as a ring announcer and sometimes commentator. No one knew he was the ‘boss’ boss, until this. So he embraced the asshole boss angle and began putting himself into the act and wrestling. He began the persona of. Well the asshole boss. He formed “the Corporation”, a group of corporate things and cronies that included his son and daughter. It pitted him against Stone Cold. Who was the blue collar hero standing up against the boss. It introduced new match types like contracts to fight for titles. The famous “Your Fired!’ matches where people would fight for their jobs. Firing people during shows to setup new angles and feuds. It worked and got peoples attention off of the real Vince the asshole, and more on Vince the performer. Which honestly had some fun moments. Like Vince doing a Rocky training montage in his big fight with Stone Cold. Which was not a fight at all so much as him running off. It was a good use of taking a real event, and turning it into an angle you could use.

What however wasn’t, a good angle. That they did use. Began after Owens death.

When J.R. had to tell audiences live with no time to prepare let alone take in for himself what had happened with Owen Hart. Vince recognized a new tool to help sell storyline injuries. Having his announcers react like they did when witnessing a real event. Telling people this is serious. Doing anything EXCEPT saying “This is real”

A wrestler at one point faked a heart attack. It was treated as real. An older wrestler was hit by a car speeding off in the parking lot under the stadium and it was treated as real. Hearing the announcers trying to sound as sincere and deeply shocked as they had during an actual event was pretty fucked.

See I love J.R. because the guy is good at hyping and OVER hyping events. Someone gets hit with a chair and your tv speakers start blaring out “OH MAH GAWD! OH MAH GAWD!” and my personal favorite “HE BROKE HEEM IN HAAF” It’s seriously great stuff and hysterical. But taking that out, and instead telling them to act like they just saw someone lost their life is pretty fucked. But they did it.

What’s more is it happened a bit more after people thought over in WCW that Ric Flair had suffered an in ring heart attack. Once that happened? Yeah. Suddenly everyone was having near death experiences and “This is unbelievable. This..I don’t really know if they are okay” just for the sake of selling drama. It’s pretty shit yeah. But Vince likes pushing past boundries of good taste for entertainments sake so. Which includes a storyline that even my dad at the time back then thought was distasteful. Kane and HHH

This is, well. It was something.

I won’t go into the whole thing, your welcome to look it up yourself but the short version, is that Triple H claimed Kane was a murderer. That he killed a woman named Katie Vick. Someone Kane was in love with, but never loved him. Had died in a crash after a drunken party.

This all lead eventually to a full on video segment of Triple H showing a recording of “Kane visiting Katie at the funeral home.

The whole video was Triple H wearing a Kane mask and shirt. Groping the chest of a mannequin dressed as a cheerleader in a coffin. Taking off and smelling the panties  exclaiming “God I love the smell of formaldehyde in the morning”, stripping down to nothing, mounting the coffin and banging the mannequin. Which ends with Triple H digging into the skull of the mannequin and saying “What? You mean I really did it? I did! I screwed your brains out!”

But it continued. Because why not. Triple H laughed his ass off during the show about the video he made, and then later went into the ring. With the mannequin of Katie, to perform a ventriloquist act on a ‘corpse’.

Which was then interrupted by a video they made to mock Triple H, where he went to a doctor for a surgical enema where he had a sledgehammer pulled out of his ass.

Pretty much a LOT of the Attitude era in WWF/WWE was pretty insane and absolute wtf trash. But you never knew what would draw in the ratings. Very few people remember but Vince even dropped the N word on tv when he was trying to be hip and cool with Jon Cena, asking him whats good in the hood and capping it off with a “Keep it real, mah N***” The only thing that makes the clip worth watching is after vince says it he looks back over his shoulder, Because well. When you have a wrestler present who could throw you out a window and happens to be a person of color. You kind of should. Even if you are the boss, check yourself.

Honestly it’s insane to think about how much wrestling has gone through. Between all the main companies. I mean we hadn’t even discussed really the insane mess that was ECW, the sometimes okay but mostly boring WCW, TNA wrestling and now AEW. It was nice seeing new gimmicks and new stables. You mostly heard about them when old wrestlers ended up signing with them to get away from the WWE or they just simply needed the money.

Wrestling is still around and still pretty strong. But it remains true that it never has reached the crest mark it set back in the 80’s, Or the wave that brought Attitude and Raw is War. But they’re still trying.

This whole thing is admittedly a jumbled mess of writing, I know that. I didn’t have a particular goal on it and I am sure I could’ve rewritten it and put it together but hey. I prefer the gonzo approach and I followed my mind as I did so. I just know when I heard about Scott Hall I wanted to finally write it and talk a bit about it. Lord knows I could keep going but I’ll be good and restrain myself from more rants. But I can still and safely again say that when I did revisit all these old PPV’s and some of the recorded shows from back then? It really was a hell of a lot of fun. As where the family memories.

For anyone curious yes we would do backyard and couch wrestling. Our aunt loved bulldogging people, and being a small kid having your cousin offer to body slam you into the pool. Well its highly unsafe but who cares. We played with lawn darts and lived! But man it was fun.

I will also end this with something I love that my Alexa can do. Whenever I finish a big project, I beat a hard as hell video game boss fight. I tell Alexa “Play Hulk Hogans Theme!” and she does, and suddenly I am the dream of America.

But then I always follow it up with the true heart of America, Mother fucking Dusty Rhodes American Dream baby. That theme song hits so good. And that’s the bottom line!