I was at Borders tonight and noticed an interview with Vampiro in Punk Planet, a magazine which [obviously] covers the punk rock subculture. Vampiro goes over his career and talks about politics at WCW.
Apparently, Terry Taylor was his major backer in the company, and when Taylor went to the WWF, things got difficult. The interview was done before Taylor's return to WCW, obviously. The interviewer seems to be a pretty knowledgeable fan, too.
It's a lot more candid than what you might see elsewhere, so I advise people to check it out. The magazine should be fairly easy to find.
If you check out the predictions, you will note that our own Mr. Monday Night, Wade, is batting 1.000 thus far, with every pick correct. However, if Jarrett makes it to the finals instead of Benoit, both James V. and I will overtake him on points, and we'll tie him on number of correct picks. As much as I love to win, it would be kind of neat to have Wade pick the entire tournament correctly.
For those of you who might actually care, it should be noted that since we all picked Bret Hart, his winning or losing doesn't mean anything to our relative scores against one another. All that matters at this point for determining a set of winning predictions is Benoit vs. Jarrett.
Understandably, a lot of web pundits, and I'm sure a lot of viewers, took tremendous umbrage at the Jim Ross impersonation. Not such much at the characterization, but the joke that was made of Jim Ross' Bell's Palsy.
I've got to tell you, I was pretty offended myself...at first. Then, last night, as I was sitting alone in my kitchen eating my dinner (a banana with peanut butter and a couple of bowls of Lucky Charms), I got to thinking. I'm definitely not going to say it was an "OK" thing to do, but I think it needs to be put in perspective. The WWF, and surely at some level Jim Ross himself, was the first to turn Jim Ross' affliction into an "angle". Over three years ago, in what I'm guessing was some sort of work/shoot angle, Jim Ross cut a promo where talked about how Vince McMahon had fired him because his Bell's Palsy made him an unattractive broadcaster.
So, does that mean the skit on Nitro wasn't in bad taste? In my opinion, no. Does it mean that the WCW was the first to "cross the line" with Jim Ross' disfigurement? By definition, no. The WWF, and Jim Ross himself, crossed it over three years ago.