Mid-Week Report

By Bill

Believe it or not, this guy used to frighten people.

Mom must be so proud...

There's no Thunder this week, or next week for that matter, so I thought I'd post what would have been my pre-show report. I'll have a similar report next week.
Trivia Question: Tiger Chung Lee was a bottom-rung midcarder in the WWF in the mid-1980s. However, earlier in his WWF career, he got a bigger push and had a manager. Who was his manager? Answer at the end of the report.
The mailbag:
- From Ben in Cary, NC:
  I was watching Nitro with my roommate's girlfriend a couple of months ago. The 'Wunderkind' is in the ring beating the smack out of some nobody when she pipes up "Holy shit, get that guy a cup or something!!"
  Since then we make it a point to check out the Wunderpackage everytime. And yes, it always appears to be recently 'fluffed.'
  Does this make me gay?
  Well, Ben, that's an interesting question. If you ask the religious right, they believe that sexual orientation is something that can be 'fixed', thus, in your case, could possibly have been 'broken'. However, if you ask a liberal, they would probably see it's been with you since birth, and it was just the narrow-mindedness of your peers that wouldn't allow you to recognize it until now. I vote for the first explanation because I know that the horror of dating me made a few women turn gay, so theoretically the studliness of Alex Wright might have the opposite effect on straight men.
- Todd S. checks in with:
  I was watching WCW Worldwide and Lee Marshall during an Interview with Alex Wright announced WCW is having a show at the Goodwill Games next Sunday, July 26^th. No word if it is telelvised but it does start at 3:00 p.m.
  Matches announced were Goldberg vs Curt Hennig, Chris Jericho vs Dean Malenko and Alex Wright vs Disco Inferno. I thought this was an interesting news bit.
- Todd B. sends in the following:
  Whenever I heard people mention the man who plays Kane (Glenn Jacobs), I always thought his name sounded familiar. And then I was surfing my university's website and came across this article from the athletic department's newsletter:
  Pro Wrestling Unlikely Home For Former Bulldog Two-Sport Athlete
  Former basketball and football player Glenn Jacobs (1988-90), who signed a free-agent contract with the Chicago Bears in 1991, can be seen nearly every week on television as a pro wrestler. Jacobs first came on the pro-wrestling scene in the summer of 1995 as Isaac Yankem in the World Wrestling Federation. That year, he participated in the federation's two big pay-per views. After a character change in early 1996, Jacobs emerged as 'The New Diesel' a character based on the WWF's most popular wrestler in the 90s.
  Following a brief stint as 'The New Diesel', Jacobs again needed a character change. He was reintroduced to WWF fans in October, 1997 at a pay-per-view event in the St. Louis Kiel Center as 'Kane', the evil brother of The Undertaker.This current feud has given Jacobs the opportunity to be on television each week to more than 10 million viewers on USA Network's 'Monday Night Raw.' He participated this past March in the WWF's 'Wrestlemania XIV' at the Fleet Center in Boston. At Wrestlemania XIV, Jacobs chokeslammed baseball great, Pete Rose, after Rose made derogatory remarks about the Boston Red Sox.
  His current angle as 'Kane' is receiving good fan reaction and should get a huge push in the WWF throughout the rest of 1998. Alumni may not recognize Jacobs in his current role, as he wears a mask as part of his act.
  The thing I was wondering is if on Parents Day, did Paul Bearer ever come up to visit?
A couple people mentioned to me that on Thunder, one of the wrestlers got hit with an egg and another was getting sweeped with laser pointers and I didn't report it. Actually, I didn't report it on purpose. I guess I'm starting to take the approach of major league baseball. If a fan runs on the field, you cut the camera away, otherwise it just encourages people to keep doing it. I'm taking the same approach with laser pointers and dangerous objects being thrown into the ring. Believe me, I'm not so narcissistic to think that my reporting or not reporting is likely to influence anyone, but as the saying goes, "Think globally, act locally".
I know I've reported such things before, but the laser pointer and the egg on Thursday just really pissed me off for some reason. I guess it's just a personal thing, and I was having a bad day. On the flip side, you've got the stones to run in the ring and go toe-to-toe with whoever's in there and take what's coming to you, I feel that's somewhat newsworthy...if for no other reason we get to see some jackoff get his ass kicked. However, if you're so gutless that you sit thirty rows back and shine a laser into someone's eye or throw an object that could blind someone, and think you're cool because you did it and can't get caught, damned if I'm going to give you the attention you crave.
If you think that this compromises my "journalistic integrity"...tough beans.
From the Out Of The Mouths Of Babes Department:
My girlfriend and I had a college buddy and his fianceé, Jeannine, over on Saturday. I'd never met Jeannine before. We finished dinner at 7:40, and me being on my best behavior since it was our first meeting...I of course suggested we watch the last 20 minutes of WCWSN. She had never watched wrestling before, and didn't even understand what the object was. I explained that the object was to pin the other guys shoulders to the mat for three seconds or have him in so much pain that he gives up.
So, we're watching the Saturn vs. Sick Boy for about a minute in silence. Jeannine pipes up, "Why doesn't the one guy just yank on that metal loop in the other guy's eyebrow?"
Like I said...out of the mouths of babes. I've been saying it since Raven arrived...the loops in the eyebrows...the nipple rings...they make the sport lose its credibility because it makes it impossible for a novice to suspend their disbelief.
I was thinking about "Rowdy" Roddy Piper the other day. I was thinking about how "things always happen" when Piper is around. Whenever he chooses to grace us with an appearance, everyone circles around him. Then I thought maybe I was being a little hard on him.
Then I thought about Goldberg...the hottest thing in pro wrestling since Hulk Hogan. Bringing in millions of dollars and has thousands of people chanting his name. Piper had the first opportunity to use Goldberg. How did Piper use him? To be a jabrone in the worst angle in the history of pro wrestling, Piper's Family. Gee, you think Piper only does what's good for Piper?
You may have noticed that Brushes With Greatness hasn't been updated in a while. About a month or so ago, Mike of MiCasa at WrestleManiacs was nice enough to feature a link to it and I got some 35 brushes in a week. At last check, there are 50 waiting to get posted. I will get to all of them at some point, but with reformatting them, editing them, etc., it's going to take a serious chunk of time. I'll get to it eventually. Of course, the longer I wait, the bigger the stack is getting...
On Nitro, I found something interesting. You can often figure out the pecking order of two tag partners by which one gets pinned in a tag match...usually the "weak link". For example, on the rare occasion the Outsiders got beat, Scott Hall would usually (if not always) take the fall. Likewise, when Ric Flair and Arn Anderson teamed, if they lost, it was usually Arn getting pinned. Screwjob or not, when a team loses, if there is a "weak link", that's the one that usually eats the pin.
Anyway, I found it interesting that in losing the tag team titles, Sting ate the pin rather than Nash. That may imply something about their relative position in the organization. Man, 15 months of build up and turning Sting into a superhuman figure, and they've pissed it away completely.
Also, another way to find who's the dominant one is who's music plays on their entrance if they normally wrestle as singles. That's why the Dancing Fools each getting their own entrance music is so damn funny.
In case you didn't catch this in my last update, the Arn Anderson autobiographies will start shipping July 29th and 30th. Arn's speech on Thunder last week should give you some idea of what the book is all about. I cannot say enough good things about that book. If you haven't ordered it already, you should. It's available on his official website.
Trivia Answer: "Classy" Freddie Blassie

Mid-Week Report

By Bill

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