Racism Can Play in Peoria. What About Your Local Wrestling?

October 30, 2020.

This blog post was originally posted in July of 2015. It was written in response to how I was told that the likelihood of being booked for the Midwest Impact Pro promotion in Peoria was doubtful. The reasoning was, after the Charlottesville Historic Black Church Mass Shooting by a white supremacist, I used social media to call on them to quit promoting babyfaces who took pride in the Confederate flag. One of these top babyfaces was Tracy Smothers. He had passed away on October 28.

I was always going to repost this blog at some point, but with his passing, I am conflicted if I should address this article now. The reason why is because I have an opinion on Tracy as a person and even to a lesser degree mentor.

My personal experience with him were from five to nine years prior. That was definitely a time when I was not as sensitive to what the meaning of the flag. I first met him at AAW in 2006 when I was training there. In the end, I think he made two appearances for the Chicagoland promotion and the only problem people had with him was that he wanted to use the mic to get himself over and play his ECW hits (dancing and mocking yanks). These actions just made the show run long. Otherwise, he was great to have in the locker room.

In 2009, I partook in a training session he hosted before a Great American Wrestling show in Maroa that I was conned into attending. It was Gavin Alexander, a backyarder from Decatur who was crashing wherever he could, who talked me into going to a show I was not booked on after working for them the prior month. Needless to say, this meant I was just hanging out (when I was not driving him to say hi to his Soy City pals), but for $20, I jumped at the opportunity to learn from him ($10 for the training, I decided to try to win favor by giving the promoters the means to purchase a folding chair to use.).

It ended up being a great experience for me because Smothers appreciated the fact that I could work and that I just wanted to better myself despite the bullshit that led me there. He was very accessible in terms of talking shop and very respectable. That is more than I can say for everyone else who gets ripped in the post below. Joey Grunge, MIPW's owner/promoter straight up said I was nothing more than a mark (the man who was emulating an over tag team gimmick 15 years removed), so that kindness shown by Smothers will be forever appreciated.

Would I have gotten that respect if from him if I was not complicit to allowing his gimmick? I believe I would. Tracy Smothers was a man who treated everyone with respect directly. He was blind to how offensive his actions and gimmick were, but he wanted everyone to thrive and have fun. I think Tracy would want to be known as a good man and that is it. However you reacted, as long as it enriched the show to the audience, he did his job. If you would not accept the man he was, that was your problem, not his.

In the end, I wish he was a little more considerate about the world around him. After the last four years, that is what we need. It takes a few extra moments, but more people will appreciate you for not being insensitive than by having a Trump supporter attitude.

This might have been a hedgehog dilemma. He was scared or ignorant to the concerns of people. Smothers would give you the shirt off his back if you asked. You just had to want to give him that chance. If you did not take that up with him because of politics and his gimmick, you are missing out.

Racism Can Play in Peoria. What About Your Local Wrestling?

I did not think the most challenging thing about this blog would be coming up with the most appropriate derogatory term to describe a white American.***

White trash pretty much covers every Caucasian who displays pride in the immoral elements of their nature. Since this is a wrestling blog, it seems to be the misconception placed on the majority of American fans (and because this blog discusses one of the best-known test markets in this country, Peoria, it may end up being a fairly accurate term). But with the issue being about the misplaced Southern pride, redneck is probably the best term when I posed the initial question (my only issue with the term is that having a sun-burnt neck from exerting themselves farming is not a shameful thing...at least till the invention of sun screen...).

Which sport is more redneck, NASCAR or wrestling? NASCAR is a sport-based in the South and founded by bootleggers while every region had its own style of wrestling at sometime. This may have already answered the question, but lets make sure I solidify the concept that wrestling is seemingly more prudish.

I am certain wrestling historians can come up with times where money-making promotions north of the Mason Dixon line celebrated Southern rebels and their flag, but I cannot recall the paramount promotion of the region (and eventually world) under its current ownership bringing anyone in with that as their gimmick. Big Boss Man's state flag happened to feature the Stars and Bars and The Fabulous Freebirds' Giant shortened stint* are the only occurrences I remember (35 years old) the Confederate Flag made it to the USA Network and Madison Square Garden. The opening scene from "Highlander" does not count.

Did Jamie Noble ever wear his "Dukes of Hazzard" trunks in WWE? If so, was it just cross promotion with The Broken Lizard film of the same name?** To them Duke boys' credit, they were inclusive of an Indian-American director. And to TV Land's credit, yanking dem boys may allow us to forget that movie as well.

If you take into account how The Monday Night Wars ended, one would wonder why anything as Southern as the battle flag of an army that fought for a racist government is a gimmick worth getting over. Eric Bischoff ridding WCW of its Southern taste allowed that promotion to at one point rule the wrestling world. The greatest star of the era was the Bionic Redneck "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, a redneck who never sported the garb of Michael "P.S" Hayes to tell the world he will not bow down to yuppie politics.

Wrestling is not necessarily a sport of higher class, but the competition between WWE and WCW made it into a form of entertainment that is easier for everyone to accept. It is a form of entertainment that does not have fans fighting to express divisive messages or banners, unlike NASCAR.

Thankfully, NASCAR is doing their best to get those fans to realize that inclusion is the only way to further the sport. Stock car racing at the highest level is bigger than wrestling, so imagine how popular it could be if it the American Swastika was not being waved, intimidating people certain people from making a weekend of their events. RV rentals would increase.

Perhaps making money is strictly a Northern value, hence the resistance of NASCAR's message board fans. They see making money as the only reason to ban hateful imagery, so oddly enough to them, waving the rebel flag shows that they have a greater value for the common people than money.

If this was science-fiction, they see themselves as the Brown Coats against the greedy Alliance from "Firefly" (and I've lost the rednecks reading this blog). Since Nathan Fillion was fighting along side the darker complexion of Gina Torres, rebellion and simpler values cannot be racist. If Captain Mal can wear his brown coat with pride, why can't people wear the Confederate Flag with pride?

That's because that side of the Civil War were the ones fighting to enslave people. It maybe more profitable to be politically correct, but that does not make it a bad thing.

It is possible that you are not racist if you support the public display of the Confederate Flag, but it shows you are comfortable with the values of the Confederate States of America. You can make the standard state rights argument was the cause of the Civil War. In eight grade (thanks Morton Jr. High), I was taught in eighth grade history that the war was about the need to keep the country together, so no state could secede. State rights allow South Carolina to fly the flag. Secession is always brought up as a course of action when the party the state voted for does not get the power in D.C. The only argument the Civil War settled was that you cannot own other people. That was settled when the general who flew the Stars and Bars surrendered to a lieutenant general of the country that abolished the concept his opposition's government stood for.

I maybe overthinking things as I finally get to the meat of my blog.**** It could be that the concept of what makes money is unimportant. This blog was inspired by small independent in Peoria, Illinois (my hometown and where I started wrestling before I found an established trainer in Davenport/Chicago), a town that never drew money. They may wrestle for the love of the sport, but it is not for the creativity this business allows to be expressed. If they are only going to draw their friends who are among the common people, it is easy just to rely on the common gimmick. It has always been that way for the locker room's true veteran, Tracy Smothers. I guess they fail to recognize the the most inclusive and over gimmick he had was the Full Blooded Italians.

My issues with Midwest Impact Pro Wrestling started over this tweet I posted:

Queen of Wednesday, the 1998's Interim King, and the Screwjob Was a Work

 *Blog post started on October 28, 2020.

Oh the things you will write about when time crawls. And a stimulus will not occur till January at the earliest if ever. I just need the traffic. Too bad my station has a tablet and desktop at it. It would definitely look like I am not doing my job to have a laptop out on top of that.

On top of coming up with stuff when time is crawling, I have gotten myself into a situation where I need freshish wrestling takes. My "Ring Draft - Monday Night Raw 2020 - I Can Book with That" post held up pretty well (Just one more episode will prove I am a soothsayer.) from the time it was posted to when I started tweeting that out, but when I do not engage with the WWE product directly (Tony Khan needs those numbers.), I am starting to question my expertise on the business as a whole. My failure to use my remaining vacation days to catch indie shows does not help, but NJPW World still needs my time.

For my readers who solely follow MainEventoftheDead.com (I may need to spread out my promotional tweets over all for of my Twitter handles (@russthebus, @catbusruss, @ninetyforchill...I suppose this one should get a third of them for the accompanying website NinetyForChill.com, but my primary website needs @maineventzombie.), I do need to provide a decent amount of content per post to warrant the forwarding on to a sister site (like Russ's Remnants of Anime or Disgruntled Real Championship Wrestling). Fortunately, there has been a wrestling title change that needs to be addressed before I tell you why Bret Hart was not screwed in 1997, at least in terms of his WWF departure.

The 47th Current Disgruntled's Real World Women's Champion:

AEW World Women's Champion Hikaru Shida (Reign began on 10/25/2020):

After the lengthiness of the Bayley versus Sasha Banks storyline and a near five-star match to conclude Bayley's reign, I understand if you think this is the wrong decision. Especially after acknowledging that I am a devotee of AEW. Obviously, I must ask you to hear me out.

Banks has never defended her championship successfully since NXT five years prior. Hikaru Shida's defeated the best big woman, Nyla Rose, to earn the championship and proved to be superior than NWA's champion, Thunder Rosa. The word on the street is Thunder Rosa has signed with WWE, so they cannot trade wins, so AEW has themselves a more legitimate champion than a past Real Women's Championship. Banks can blame WWE talent relations for me not choosing her.

Time is definitely going to tell when it comes to who is the better champion, but I think Bank's reign cannot end before Shida's to take this title.

Now, I would like to suggest that Io Shirai may have a better claim than Banks. When then NXT champion Shayna Baszler won the triple-threat match between the past two champions, Becky Lynch and Bayley, it showed that the NXT title should be on the same level as Raw's or Smackdowns. But, she failed to hold the title longer than the other title holders and falling to Lynch at WrestleMania. With no title being on the line at the past Survivor Series, what were the real stakes?

You can refer to my "The OCHO or the Disgruntled's Real Secondary Championship" and say that I made Roderick Strong a part of that history because of his success at the 2019 Survivor Series over WWE's US and IC champs. But, the champions he beat lost their titles before he lost his. He proved that his reign as North American Champion was not a fluke. Hence, Baszler did not elevate her championship, so Io Shirai cannot qualify yet.

When it comes to the other gender's Disgruntled's Real Champion, it all depends on what you believe in terms of kayfabe. Did Bret screw Bret? I think his pay days say otherwise.

"Wrestling with Shadows" Is a Docudrama at Best.

I was doing my damnedest to cheer on WCW through out the rest of the Monday Night War. It was difficult come the Russo Era of that company, but I was also spending my late teens and early 20's at home on Friday nights to watch "ECW on TNN". That was the promotion I dedicated myself to, so hoping for the fall of WWF while enduring two awful hours of television on Mondays was bearable as I looked forward to Friday to wash it all away.

This all also shows I am a bit odd for choosing not to party with my friends in the name of the lead in to "Roller Jam". If only "American Pie" did a better job emphasizing the importance of getting laid.

I guess I never transitioned back to normal immature stuff. By the start of my sophomore year, wrestling was what I wanted to do with my life. There was no point getting hooked on Peoria tail when the action was in Philadelphia. Also, being a Sega Dreamcast mark made things easier along side the awful FMW tapes. And when you are watching tapes multiple times, you start to see things you are meant to.

Like Julie Hart trying to become eligible for an Oscar as she berates Hunter Hearst Helmsley after the screwjob occurs. Or the sound quality of the hidden microphone. Every overly prepared interaction when the camera was rollingbrvm. I can go on and on, but it all comes back to the first lesson Danny Daniels taught me about pro wrestling.

Everything is a lie. You lie about everything. Do not put yourself in a position to hurt yourself. You lie to the crowd. You lie about the money you make.

It is interesting looking back on this. These paraphrased teaching came from a lesson about taking the buckles. Primarily, do not actually connect with them. He did not have an answer to our obvious question, "How else did Bret make it look so good?"

The Interim Disgruntled's Real World Championship

By saying that the Montreal Screwjob was a work, the title had changed hands in a legitimate match. It was a bullshit finish, but that does not disqualify Shawn Michaels from having a claim to the DRCW World Championship. I think Shane Douglas is more deserving of the title when Hogan lost it at Starrcade 1997, but his reign having so few defenses  in spite of the length means another DRCW belt needs to be created.

Philadelphia’s Underappreciated Championship: Disgruntled Real World Champ - Part 2

SHANE DOUGLAS MEANS MORE TO WRESTLING THAN THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR!

I suppose I should be thankful for the downtime of a Monday (and strangely a Friday). With a youth soccer tourney coming in next weekend, it is best to make use of my moments of sanity (especially after the kids from the Bar Mitzvah were discouraging my limited Yidish go to expletive phrases). Writing a new blog with this time is better than reloading the stats page to see if I got any views for the previous volume.

Tomorrow maybe a good time to watch the AAW matches to construct the opening scene to the pilot I am trying to write. Then again, its my one day off from making somebody else serious cash. Considering my stance that I am pro-wrestling’s premier Cubs fan, it may be best that I head up to Wrigley. Of course, as long a CM Punk is holding out on Colt Cabana, I doubt anyone would allow him to take that claim from me.

A writer has got to write, and piss people off in the Internet age, so again, do it when you get the chance and imagine the wage is going towards that.

This “Real World Champ” series may not be worth much if I do not get any discussion about it. Thankfully, I got a few likes on Twitter and amused the newest mark at my retail job. Otherwise, the lack of discussion is not getting to me. Until I hear people tell me that Shane Douglas was not more important than the Ultimate Warrior, I will let my fingers march on about this topic with the knowledge that I am right.

When I left off the last blog, I stated that Shane Douglas had elevated the ECW World Heavyweight Championship to the most important belt of gold in professional wrestling. Some of you may agree with the circumstances for the claim to the title, but not for the length of his reign. I believe he did not have a title defense between May 3, 1998 and his loss of the title to Taz on January 10, 1999. I believe the self-professed critic KB from KB’s Wrestling Reviews would agree with this (but his review of ECW Wrestlepalooza ‘98 shows he may not have an understanding of context).

If we cut the reign off on May 3, your championship options would be Steve Austin (whose reign would end in a swap with Kane, to be followed up with a vacating of the WWF Championship), Hollywood Hogan (who would lose WCW’s Big Gold Belt to Goldberg, whom most marks would disqualify because of his limitations) and the NWA’s Dan Severn (if it is not being seen, is it happening?). I do not see any of these reigns as qualifying for the Real World Championship.

A way to recognize the importance of the so called Attitude Era would be to give the REAL title to Austin, who will lose it to Hogan. The hiccup in Austin’s reign makes it so you cannot put the belt back on him, so you give it to Goldberg, but he would lose it to Kevin Nash who would lose it back to Hogan via the finger poke of doom. The Rock could not take the title from Goldberg since his WWF title win was a sham, so Mankind could not win the REAL title from Nash.

Five hall of famers, but no great reigns. But through all this talk, the importance of Austin’s game-changing title win can be recognized if we include the most extreme American version of the World Heavyweight Championship.

 

 Master Blaster - Pinterest (@tombokong)

1st Debatable Real World Heavyweight Champion - WWF’s Steve Austin (1)- 5/3/1998 - 6/28/98

2nd World Champion - FTW’s Taz (1) - 6/28/98 - 12/19/98

This was Paul Heyman’s best way to keep your interest in the ECW Championship, by knowing that the baddest man would be his next contender, and have him not be afraid to prove it by claiming he was the champion. If your interim champ is not the top, but he is excelling, imagine what your real champ should be capable of.

The only problem with this debate is that Taz laid down for Sabu to assure he could challenge Douglas for the heavyweight championship. When will pro-wrestling adopt the Interim Championship concept?

Actually, that was 2003 when the NGW Light Heavyweight Championship was vacated. I felt justified in calling myself the NGW’s Interim Light Heavyweight Champion (complete with Jakks Pacific toy replica of the WWF’s Light Heavyweight Championship) since I was the ruler of Peoria’s division at the time of “Wrestle America’s” 2004 deadline for promotional submissions. Sadly, practicing a spot for the unification match that afternoon with the man who won the eight-man tourney for the belt, IWA-Midsouth’s Ryan Phoenix, broke my wrist. So the angle did not work, but I tried.

If only WWE would have gone that route with Wrestlemania 31. Bryan v. Lesnar would not have delayed the never-to-be empire.

Until Vince McMahon watches a UFC event, we better stick to the path I have laid out thus far.

Philadelphia: The Center of the World.

25th Real World Heavyweight Champion - ECW’s Taz - 1/10/1999 - 9/19/99

More reason to dislike the WWE, the Network has made it difficult to find his “Living Dangerously '99” promo where he called out the WWF (Austin) and WCW (Flair) champions. This promo made me believe he was the real thing, and since ECW was not a land of giants, it was not until February 2000 that I realized he may suffer from leverage issues.

26th World Heavyweight Champion - ECW’s Mike Awesome - 9/19/99 - 12/17/99

He was the height and mass ECW needed.

27th World Heavyweight Champion - ECW’s Masato Tanaka - 12/17/99 - 12/23/99

No shame in swapping the titles overseas to the home countryman. Big Show’s title reign was a bit weird and the WCW title was either vacant/or being vacated twice during the reign.

28th World Heavyweight Champion - ECW’s Mike Awesome (2) - 12/23/00 - 4/13/2000

The Only Game in Town

The Doorman - Die Hard with Girl Power and a Norwegian Knock Off Bill Burr

*Blog post started on October 27, 2020.

My prior vacation day, I felt I was clinging to my past. This most recent one(s), old is how I feel.

With a three-day weekend, I think I got a lot accomplished. There is a new tattoo. Peoria bars were fun with genuine interactions, and I made it to more of them than usual. I paid my respect to Stacia Marie Hardin and discovered a cool block of shops in Pekin. Who would not call the last Co Op records in the Heart of Illinois being located by a thrift shop and a used bookstore operated by TAPS No Kill Shelter (featuring kittens and a polydactyl cats) a little slice of heaven in a town whose mascot was once the Chink? To the town's credit, the appropriation of the dragon into their municipal logos is cool.

I spent time with my folks with only the hourly mention of Hunter Biden's emails. Perhaps I should have spent the night and watch the Michigan State game, but a day where I did not leave my apartment and caught a lot of Pokemon was good (It was "Pokemon Let's Go Eevee". Perhaps the games are becoming to expansive. 20 hours of story is all you really need.). Sunday I was back at the retailer, but with a Redbox $0.75 off coupon and groceries to grab. With NinetyForChill.com back in working order, a review of "The Doorman" at 1 hour 37 minutes would be perfect content. Too bad I called it an early night. Catching up with the G1 Climax finals led to me being exhausted. This obviously felt odd since I did nothing extraneous on Saturday.

...

This left me with a dilemma. I had a movie to watch and I would not be back from the bank until 6:15 pm. There was still dinner to make. So apologies for rushing through about five minutes of this Ruby Rose feature. The feeling of victory getting it back to an appropriate vending machine with 10 minutes to spare warrants this action. And it at least gave me some good vibes from this film.

The Doorman

Check out the rest of review at "Ninety For Chill: A More Acceptable Runtimes

Ring Draft - Monday Night Raw 2020 - I Can Book with That.

 *Blog post started on October 20, 2020

I guess we are in a holding pattern until after November 3. That sucks in when it comes to coming up with blogs. Tentatively, this post would be published (I mean promoted.) on the fourth of next month. It could be a whole new world by that point, so how could the exercise of going into my head be relevant by that point.

30 Minutes Later:

Working on a tattoo design did kill some of the time. I suppose I could go to The Ringer or AV Club to amuse myself till closing time. A Letterboxd account is something I should establish at some point. It might be a good way to promote NinetyForChill.com. If it serves as a database for my knowledge, that could take up an entire shift.

But I do not have an entire shift, so lets return to the initial blog title, Ring Draft - "Monday Night Raw". There is no question that I would like to be a part of the Screen Drafts Podcast, but I do a lack the bibliographic fame and accreditation outside Illinois Central College's mass communication department from the 2001 to 2010. Thus, that is territory I shall not walk directly on. Fortunately, someone has to do a wrestling draft right. 

Too bad my draft response will probably be promoted a month after relevance. I guess I better hope my other posts have knocked it out of the park. Perhaps my ex-girlfriend is right and I should just do YouTube videos. That requires less thought from the audience.

"USA Network" Draft 2020:

1. Drew McIntyre (WWE Champion)
   
2. Bray Wyatt
3. The Hurt Business (featuring the US Champion)
   
4. Randy Orton
5. AJ Styles
6. Braun Strowman
7. Jeff Hardy
8. Matt Riddle
9. Ricochet
10. The Miz and John Morrison
11. Retribution
12. Keith Lee
13. Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods (Tag Team Champions)
    
14. Elias
    

Why did I list these out and why twice as many as a Screen Draft? First off, this gives me a pool of who Vince McMahon deems important. Secondly, wrestling is all about dance partners, so you cannot stop at an odd number.

Why are there no draft picks for the women's division? Because the division is not deep enough for two shows.

Monday Night Raw currently has two remaining story lines (McIntyre/Orton and Hurt Business/Retribution) and one that came over from Smackdown (Hardy/Elias). The last Raw quickly established a Strowman/Lee feud. Once the current WWE Championship feud resolves itself, all of the remaining feuds should create the next contender.

Basically, I am just going to book the feud results out to WrestleMania 37. When I think there is no place for a performer, an NXT guy will be called up to fill in the line up. If you were not drafted in the top 14, should be looking for bookings elsewhere.

Hell in the Cell:

1. McIntyre defeats Orton to end their feud. Orton goes on to feud with Ricochet to reestablish the high flyer.
2. Wyatt interferes with Strowman and Lee's quest for top contendership. The Fiend eventually pushes the two out of the picture. McIntyre and Wyatt feud to the Royal Rumble. It looks like they pulled the trigger early on this idea, but as of 10/27, I have not gotten the "Monday Night Raw" results yet.
   
3. Lee has a series with Styles to give him the rub.
4. Strowman and Riddle feud to show off Riddle's MMA's prowess.
5. The Miz and Morrison feud with the New Day into TLC. With Miz now having the Money in the Bank Briefcase, this could be shot.
   
6. Jeff Hardy and Elias become a tag team to challenge Miz and Morrison at the Royal Rumble and Elimination Champber.
7. Retribution and The Hurt Business blow off at TLC.

Ignoring Survivor Series:

It is probably a good idea because we do not know what kind of variant of brand warfare it will be. Again, I have yet to find out what has happened on the 10/26 Raw. No titles changed hands anyhow at the last Survivor Series event.

TLC:

1. McIntyre Orton loses the WWE championship to Wyatt. There will be a rematch at the Royal Rumble.
   
2. Orton defeats Ricochet. Ricochet will eventually be inserted into the Hurt Business.
3. Orton is in a holding pattern till Elimination Chamber.
4. Miz and Morrison take the tag team title from the New Day.
5. Elias and Hardy blow off their feud to team up against the tag champs.
6. Riddle upsets Strowman.
   
7. Lee defeats AJ Styles.

Royal Rumble:

1. Wyatt retains over McIntyre Orton. McIntyre will return in the Rumble match and fight valiantly in defeat. Elimination Chamber will decide Wyatt and McIntyre's opponents at WrestleMania.
2. Elias and Hardy vs. Miz and Morrison will end up in a DQ after Retribution interferes.
3. No other matches for Raw will occur at this event. Randy Orton will probably be set to face off with Edge at this event.
   

Elimination Chamber:

1. Wyatt loses the championship to Randy Orton. Styles, Strowman, Mustafa Ali, and McIntyre will also be in the bout.
2. Lee will the New Day win a six-man tag against the Hurt Business. It sets up Lee vs. Lashley for WrestleMania.
3. Retribution defeats Miz and Morrison for the tag team championship.
4. Riddle and Ricochet tear the house down. Ricochet joins the Hurt Business.

WrestleMania:

1. Orton defends the WWE Championship against Edge.
2. Lee defeats Lashley for the US Championship.
3. Retribution defends the tag team championships against New Day, Miz and Morrison, and Hardy and Elias.
4. Riddle vs Strowman vs Styles.
5. McIntrye and Wyatt feud concludes.

This gets us through WrestleMania. Suspecting there will be another draft in October 2021, the only thing I can do is take this out to Summer Slam. To do that, I think some cuts will need to be made and some call ups or actual pushes for those who did not make the top 14. But if I was to start a wrestling promotion, this is a great base to begin with.

The Disgruntled’s Real World Heavyweight Champion

Do we really want to call Roman Reigns THE champion?

Even if we can all be satisfied with Drew McIntyre at the top of the game, there have definitely been times where the WWE offers us no one worthy to hold the top belts in their company (Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar after Wrestlemania 33). During the Monday Night Wars we could have the argument of who was the best in the business based on waist wear. The fun of going to the magazine aisle of a pharmacy was to see how Bill Apter ranked grapplers based on hardware.

Working night audit on week nights at a hotel that was overstaffed and to scrutinizing about bettering oneself (the owner at the I Hotel “allegedly” fired a kid for doing Big Ten schoolwork on the clock), jotting down notes in regards to the concept of which championship was the championship helped keep me sane for a few weeks. In other words, I tried to also determine which title was the one to claim in the tag team and women’s divisions.

This brings me to my biggest issue with working for a biker for Trump (no allegedly on that) or some asset a conglomerate is trying to sell while leaving everyone with unrelenting repetitive tasks with no encouragement or benefits. You can be creative with those moments that allow you to breathe, but how are you going to find the strength to regurgitate those moments on to the keyboard?

On top of all those questions, I have to determine how to address the title history I developed in the most reader friendly way. Do I start back at Starrcade 1983 or work backward from me cancelling the incredibly sexist Network (it was not NJPW World)? The easy thing to do would be to start at Royal Rumble 1992 when the recently fired NWA champion won the WWF title, but that throws away all my effort to tell the story of the real world champion.

If I am going to do that, I might as well find somebody to podcast about it with. Hey Jake Lloyd (@liquidjake), you may need another podcast on Dragon Wagon Radio if listeners get sick of the WWE-centric podcast you have right now. You can find me @maineventzombie on Twitter and Instagram.

Ground rules probably need to be laid out, and they will not make much sense if I do not start at the beginning. This is the time when the 10 Pounds of Gold was the only gold that mattered.

 

http://robschamberger.com/shane-douglas/
 

There Was Only the 10 Pounds of Gold:

Verne Gagne is the first booker to try and put himself on TOP. This was pretty blatant, so the American Wrestling Association’s heavyweight championship cannot be called the world’s belt. The National Wrestling Alliance still maintained authority over everything outside the Midwest, so his claim could obviously be disputed.

Vince McMahon Sr. may have disagreed with Lou Thesz’s single-fall title victory over Buddy Rogers, hence Rogers becoming the World Wide Wrestling Federation Champion seemed reasonable. Except, Rogers was only given the belt to drop it to Bruno Sammartino, someone who only represented the world because of the attitude that New York City was the WORLD. After Trump’s win, I do not like to give the flyover states much credit, but the NWA represented the greater masses and it is common knowledge that Bruno could not do a 60-minute Broadway. This means the WWWF title would never be the world title.

Once Hulkamania was born, the national and international credibility to the World Wrestling Federation was undeniable, but Hulk Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik. Ric Flair was the NWA champ at the time of Hogan’s victory, so the WWF title still was not the title. Once Flair started swapping the title with Harley Race and Kerry Von Erich, the unbeatable Hulk could claim the title.

1st Real World Heavyweight Champion - NWA’s Ric Flair (3) - 11/24/1983 - 3/20/84

2nd World Champion - WWF’s Hulk Hogan - 3/20/84 - 2/5/88

3rd World Champion - WWF’s Andre the Giant - 2/5/88

4th World Champion - NWA’s Ric Flair (4) - 2/5/88 - 2/20/89

Andre the Giant treated the WWF championship like it a bed in a Japanese hotel room. We cannot have a vacancy in this championship lineage. The NWA never had a vacated world championship to this point, so it is only fitting to return it to them. Sorry Randy Savage.

5th World Champion - NWA’s Ricky Steamboat - 2/20/89 - 5/7/89

6th World Champion - NWA’s Ric Flair (5) - 5/7/89 - 7/7/90

7th World Champion - NWA’s Sting - 7/7/90 - 1/11/91

I know this has totally ignored the Ultimate Warrior’s sole reign on top. But, he lost it to a propaganda angle in Sgt. Slaughter. Sting lost it back to Flair after a lengthy reign. To paraphrase The Nature Boy, “To be the man, you got to beat the man…not the gimmick.”

8th World Champion - NWA’s Ric Flair (6) - 1/11/91 - 3/21/91

9th World Champion - NWA’s Tatsumi Fujinami - 3/21/91 - 5/19/91

10th World Champ - NWA’s and WWF’s Ric Flair (7) - 5/19/91 - 4/5/1992

This title reign was when Flair left NWA as champion, claimed he was the REAL World Champion, and he didn’t want to say he “told us so,” but he “told us so.”

"Me and My Mates vs. The Zombie Apocalypse" - A Mostly Positive "Oi, Oi, Oi"

 *Blog post started on October 20, 2020.

My weekend was not too bad. They have hired enough newbies at the retailer that my work, for the most part, is that I just have to make sure nothing goes wrong at check out and our customer service experts are now scheduled properly. Without too much pressure, I think I can work almost all the time. It keeps my mind off my existential crises and the pay makes it a net positive. Who needs a therapy when you could make $15 an hour?

...

Yesterday was turning out to be exactly the same after "Being the Elite". AEW really needs to get an HBO Max hub or its own streaming product (like every other "major" promotion). If there is a decent What Culture Wrestling/Horror/Gaming video that shows up after I finish "BTE", you can count on me losing another hour. I knew I had to make something of the day.

There has been some jonesing for Jim Jefferies's humor since he left Comedy Central and I had success with a previous Oceania horror comedy in "Bad Taste". It was time for an iTunes impulse buy in "Me and My Mates vs. The Zombie Apocalypse".

"Me and My Mates vs. The Zombie Apocalypse"

Check out the rest of review at "Ninety For Chill: A More Acceptable Runtimes

Bad Taste: Peter Jackson, The WWE Intercontinental Championship, and Billy Corgan

 *Blog post started on October 16, 2020.

Check out my review for Bad Taste at "Ninety For Chill: A More Acceptable Runtimes

My three day weekend cannot come soon enough. The Staley blog network (NinetyForChill.com, MainEventOfTheDead.com, Russ's Remnants of Anime, and Disgruntled Real Championship Wrestling) are scheduled out to early November, so it will be a nice change of pace to not keep stockpiling content. The biggest problem for my blogs right now is a dependence upon wrestling content.

And with that said, I may as well address recent championship title changes in pro wrestling. "Bad Taste" is in the title of this blog post, and that is the general consensus of what people think the fans of that industry have. My personal taste says we fans should lean into that more, but when I suggest the Katie Vick was a fun angle, that opinion maybe disqualified.

As a horror and occasional raunchy comedy fan, I respect when the creators take something further than what the audience considers far enough. If Triple H did not toss the brains at the end of the funeral parlor segment, my thoughts about the angle would be that it was in poor taste. Once that poor taste has been taken to the bad realm, the imagination of the audience has been destroyed. To gain that kind of control is something I admire.

Perhaps my opinion is not valid from a content creator stand point. I had met Billy Corgan once after an AAW show in 2011. My alcohol consumption was enough for me to stick my nose into a conversation in regards to a performer's height he was having with Scarlett (now with NXT). If anything, my in was trying to say she was tall enough at 5'6" if I was able to shit the bed in that night's dark match at 5'5".

Somehow it all devolved into a conversation between him and I about whether or not "The Hangover Part II" was superior than its predecessor. His opinion was that it was not. Mine was that because it took a bad movie to the furthest extreme, it was. I guess that means the reason he is or was (Running a wrestling promotion is usually a financial drain) making millions and I am struggling to get my B-Movie screenplay, "Main Event of the Dead" produced.

If you have any suggestions on how to get my pro-wrestling zom-com out of development hell or would like a treatment of the script to see if it worth any attention, email russthebus07@gmail.com.

Why is the Intercontinental Championship a part of the blog title? Because the recent Sami Zayn angle behind it was done in bad taste. How do you end up stripping a champion because of COVID-19, but Brock Lesnar was never rushed to defend his championships over the past six years?

It is great that Zayn won the title in the most despicable way. It is also great that he wiped out any meaning the Jeff Hardy and AJ Style's reign had. With Brodie Lee losing the TNT Championship, these two reasons suggest that the Intercontinental Championship is the most important part of the DRCW's Ocho Championship (Intercontinental, IWGP United States, WWE United States, Television, X Division, National, North American, TNT)

The 148th Disgruntled's Real Ocho Champion

AEW TNT Champion Mr. Brodie Lee (8/24/20 to 10/7/20)

Apollo Crews had lost the United States Championship to Bobby Lashley. This was a drawn out feud between Crews and the Hurt Business where the idea was to get Lashley further over by showing that he was better than MVP. Before this occurred, Lee destroyed Cody in three-minutes to become the TNT Champion. Cody had a wide variety of opponents while Crews had tag team matches.

As for Zayn's claim, Lee destroyed an opponent while Zayn was one of three opponents who had a chance to take the title off of a placeholder champion in Braun Strowman. Strowman did not seek a rematch, so the loss was insignificant.

The 149th Disgruntled's Real Ocho Champion

AEW TNT Champion Cody (3) (10/7/20).

It is tempting to declare Zayn as the champion because of the length of his reign, but again, he did not start his reign with a great win. Three-on-one handicap match against the champion versus a dog collar blood bath: Cody's title victory is the superior.

A blood bath serves as a perfect transition into how I finally got around to Peter Jackson's debut directorial effort, "Bad Taste". The prior night, I revisited the failed lesbian take on the already pretentious "Dead Poets Society", Canada's "Lost and Delirious". It ended up being a downer of a film on top of that, so I needed something to cleanse my pallet. "Young Adult" is still a disc that I need to open, but as a depressed writer, I did not think the feature was right to bounce back from patriarchal bullshit (The only valid thing about "Lost and Delirious outside a Graham Greene supporting role is that it took place in the current day, so making it about accepting teenage lesbians at an up tight boarding school a good premise.).

Your No Budget Screen Play

As I looked through my unwatched DVD's and Blu-rays, "Young Adult" was the only film under 97 minutes. Anything purchased on iTunes was either foreign or experimental, so I did not know if I had the attention span for those. So I turned to Amazon Prime's offerings, and "Bad Taste" beat out "Night of the Demons" as my choice to add to my 90-minute movie data base.

Was there really a choice between these two "classics"? It is an Academy Award winner B-movie versus the guy who directed the sequel to Charlie Sheen's "The Arrival". To director Kevin Tenney's credit, his movie called "Brain Dead" from 2007 did help inspire me to write my B-movie script, "Main Event of the Dead". Email russthebus07@gmail.com with any questions about my production.

Bad Taste

Check out the rest of review at "Ninety For Chill: A More Acceptable Runtimes

FMK: Full Metal Yakuza, Boredom, and Mystical Catholic C-Word

*Blog post started on October 15, 2020.

This Takashi Miike film is a celebration of bad video effects from the 1990's Cinemax and direct-to-video. Too many pixelated images and penis talk for my taste but what you should expect from Miike.

Check out the visceral movie review for "Full Metal Yakuza" by visiting MainEventoftheDead.com.

I would say it is almost to the point that I wish we had our next stimulus packages just so we could have a little more traffic in the bank. Then I thought about how we should have received that next package or at least have the Senate working on that out of principle. Instead, the conservative cocksuckers are trying to grant a mystical catholic Karen to the Supreme Court because hopes of destroying the lives of those not like them is more important than saving lives in general. It is almost like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are just trying to rub our noses in it.

...

Am I becoming to Seinfeldian? This blog kind of seems to be about nothing. It started out about boredom and ends with me trying to justify that status. Now I am pondering if I just need to keep my hands away from the keyboard. Why would you want to continue writing after you told the Pikachu on your phone to go intercourse itself?

 

This leaves me fearing that is why no one is hitting me up to support or inquire about my B-movie, pro-wrestling zom-com script "Main Event of the Dead". I know no one is asking for "Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Movie", so drop me an email to russthebus07@gmail.com to request a treatment to verify that I am not bringing Larry David into horror sports. Thanks.

 

Student vs Influencer vs Haikus - Regret about Wregrets

www.deviantart.com

 Spring 2019:

I was able to make the most of a 13-hour work day. Or on Saturday, I just did not have much to say. Having hotel guests who seemed wise enough not to spread their seed over 20 years helped. 

An athletic event with only one demographic of participants, you cannot beat that in hospitality. Here's to the NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championship, undoubtedly the biggest draw in the whole of Central Illinois when it comes to men wearing tights. Good thing the Shield finale was on Sunday.

The best thing about it, from a writer's perspective, I got a blog out that let me actually express what was on my mind and now I have the time to go and take on an analytical topic that will take up a lot of page space. Sadly, because of the need to go to WWE.com to access their network, I cannot take on what I really want to analyze, the WWE Hall of Fame Legacy Wing, because the firewall deemed the site to be a streaming service.

So, ProWrestlingTees.com, do not get to ambitious and stay a t-shirt company. How will I take advantage of your sales that fall on slow weekends?

Truthfully, the problem with slow weekends is my difficulty to come up with a great introduction. I already expressed all of my thoughts the previous day. Getting to the point just lacks a personal touch. Again, there may not be much personality to get personable if I cannot make it last two days.

I guess I cannot be an Influencer like "Wrestling With Wregret's" Brian Zane.

I was not going to analyze how he became a YouTube star and just address his group of millenials' rankings of WWE Hall of Fame members. But, a suggestion of a theoretical was typed, and I can be long winded. With a glance to the top sentence of that paragraph, I realized a theory to his success was being broken down. A lesson was being made of it, but I was far from the topic I wanted to rise above and now it going to be the topic below.

Brian Zane's success is probably as simple as that he is a nerd about wrestling who would not shut up about it. And that is perhaps the only thing that makes him interesting. That statement is not an insult. In adulthood, do you actually make friends or just talk shop with similar geeks? My time making the towns weekly lasted five years, so I have seen plenty of dweebs on the wrestling scene who are unbearable when it comes to their fandom.

You may end up with guys who want to be your friend solely for a single observation they made. When they try to interact with you, it is solely about that observation.

Thanks for noticing I use the sharpshooter and thanks for the Bret Hart Big Gold Belt title plate, but do I need to give you five minutes to converse about the other interest you just assume I must share? Yeah, I have tattoos, but none of them are "Green Lantern" related. "Fuck Ryan Reynolds!" was my go to when it came to that movie at that time, but I cannot give you that because it means you have actual grounds to engage.

My fault was that I do not want to trouble anyone. There is a bit of an inferiority complex. I am not worthy when I know a guy has a name. And that resulted me missing a bunch of handshakes. And in turn, lots of missed chances to pick brains. Guess that means I am stuck being a survivor because I would make a shitty zombie.

It seemed every wrestler in Peoria thought they all had the skill set to not go and be trained by a reputable talent. Reputable talents were guys who you saw on TV in some manner or were at least a name from somewhere else that you heard of, a guy with buzz. I was "The Student of the Game" and I lived the gimmick, so I wanted to be trained that way. And this way allowed me to make a best friend who had to let me know what's what.

I can be bitter that the Peoria's wrestling scene never gave a guy who actually put the time in to be a good wrestler a chance, but they may have known how to mark out right. Kiss a little ass, let the rare veterans they would pay to put them over control the conversation, and you come out more knowledgeable. Why drive through Iowan snow when you could just do that?

If I had my head on straight when I spent the second half of my time killing my Chevy Cavalier, I know there would have been a spot for me in the business. My athleticism was good, but I was never too coordinated. But, if I could see a chance to be creative, I usually nailed it.

Master of alliteration disqualifies me from being a jack of all trades, but if you need gimmick names, I am your Stan Lee. If you need a quick history lesson to come up with angles to pull from, tap me on the shoulder. As long as it is not about me getting over, I am a savant. An idiotic one that is.

The reason I brought up my flaking out is because I lost touch with people who appreciated my opinion. Thus, your new opinions and ideas have no place to go. Zane only needed to amuse his friends in the business to get the buzz going.

I do not know the guy, but at least thinking about his YouTube channel making wrestling history accessible to the masses that need to hear the "Tosh.0" warning message instead of reading it at least gives me the knowledge to help others. Sadly, knowledge I cannot use is worse than useless information.

But I am the guy
Scraping a living serving
Unappreciative heads

Byrneless talking heads
They tell me the door has shut
God opens window 

This creative should jump
Haiku version of Raven
Is all I have left