Random Ramblings January Part 1

Firstly, a happy new year to one and all. Hope you all managed to get through the Christmas holidays and all that!

So let's get down to business somewhat. What's been going down? Well, let's start with a subject that has interested many a wrestling journalist of the Internet variety for a few months now. Yours truly, while trying to promote the good name of the World Association of Wrestling, has taken quite a verbal pasting at the hands of the good folks over at the UK Fan Forum. Why?

I admit that at times I may be a little overeager in promoting the work of my buddies, and the work I do on their behalf on the old World Wide Web, but it really annoys me when some people on this particular forum make stinging and personal attacks on yours truly, and the forum moderators, already annoyed at what I have done, apparently do nothing to stop these verbal attacks, even though they are against forum rules. They then ask me to discuss the situation via e-mail, but insist on airing the dirty laundry in public, something which, when I do it, they protest against.

So what to do? I truly believe, as I said in a recent posting on the forum, that with over 1200 members, the UK Fan Forum could be used to promote all aspects of British wrestling. But the rules of the forum prohibit plugs of web sites dedicated to wrestling promotions and wrestlers themselves, unless you submit your site for their "Plug-O-Meter". This really doesn't help, in my opinion. I recently submitted five WAW-related web sites, as well as my own web site, to the Plug-O-Meter. I recently checked the site statistics to these sites, and no-one has logged onto a WAW site via the UK Fan Forum. But let's get back to the matter at hand.

If the rules of the forum were changed, and the moderators let people promote web sites via the forum, then perhaps this sort of problem would cease. Yours truly probably wouldn't take a verbal pasting for doing the job he's meant to do.

My fellow Wrestling-X writer Greg Lambert recently stated that he would no longer post on the forum, because of the verbal battering he was taken for merely speaking his mind (which is what most of the members of the forum do anyway!). In the past couple of weeks I've posted recent columns on the forum. So my upcoming plan of action will be this - I will continue to post WAW-related news about upcoming shows and all that, but I will no longer post my usual Two Sheds Review column. This column will not be posted on the forum either, although I get the feeling that parts of this column will be taken out of context and posted on the forum, because of it's subject matter. It's my view that if people really want to read my column, they will either subscribe to one of the e-mail newsletters it appears in, or log onto one of the web sites it appears on. I can no longer see any point in offering my view on the forum, because the
members will just shoot down every aspect of my view, and lambaste me if I make any typing errors, which, as a self-confessed awful speller, I very often do. This is why Bill Gates invented the spell-checker. If it wasn't for that particular geek, this particular geek would quite often look quite daft.

But enough of the forum. Onto other things! Awards! Sadly, I haven't won any yet! The good readers of the A1 Wrestling Newsletter voted me joint-4th in their Columnist of the Year awards, with "The Busiest Man on the Internet" SamJerry polling a massive 70 per cent. I've been a massive SamJerry fan since the back end of 1999, and losing to the guy who makes Old Baldy look positively young is nothing to be ashamed of. I look forward to reading his somewhat warped view of the wrestling world every week. For me, this guy is the best wrestling writer on the Internet. Well done mate!

As I write this, I am awaiting the outcome of the Wrestling-X "Marvin" awards. Wrestling-X is the online home of the aforementioned Greg "The Truth" Lambert, a fellow Anglophile Wrestling Journalist, who also writes for one of the most popular wrestling rags published in Britain, Power Slam. Yours truly, to his surprise, was nominated in the Wrestling Journalist of the Year category, alongside such luminaries as Greg himself, Bill Apter, Jon Farrer, Mo Chatra, Fin Martin and Tom Lancaster. Last time I looked, I was in third place, ahead of many people whose work features primarily in print publications. I'm pleased with this standing, because it says a lot about how my work and my writing career has progressed in the near-three years since my first article was published on the Internet, and when you also consider it was third place behind Bill Apter and The Truth, it says a lot. I'll let you know how I get on in my next column.

It also says a lot for the progress I've made when, despite the fact that I'm WAW's resident reporter, I've had a couple of offers from other promotions in Britain to report on their shows as well. The most notable one came from Jon Farrer, whose Global Wrestling Force is running their second show, Aftermath, on February 2nd in Blackburn. Transport worries aside, I am really looking forward to reporting on this show. Not only will I be able to see wrestlers I've reported on before, but a few from abroad I haven't seen. Needless to say, my report will be available for viewing in the usual places. I'd like to say a personal thanks to Jon for making this offer to me.

Now, because I'm not allowed to do this in THAT place, I recently conducted a couple of interviews for the WAW web site, with WAW Tag-Team Champions the U.K. Pitbulls, who recently returned from a trip to America, and with WAW regular and Ultimate Wrestling Alliance co-owner Paul Tyrell. The Tyrell interview, in particular, I'm very proud of. You can read both interviews by logging onto www.wawwrestling.cjb.net. I'm looking to do some more interviews in the next few months, not just with people connected to WAW.

While on the subject of WAW, their next big Norwich show, Valentine's Day Massacre, is shaping up quite nicely. The show will he headlined by Rowdy Ricky Knight going against his son, the Zebra Kid, in a 2/3 falls match - with a difference. In the first fall, only pins will be counted. In the second, only submissions. And the third, which will very probably be needed, will be fought under TLC rules.

Even though I've watched these two go at it god knows how many times over the past year, I never tire of seeing these two in the ring against each other. I don't think I've ever seen a bad match between these two guys. Some may say that's because these two work together so often. That may be the case, but with the special match stipulations, I would have to say that this will definitely be a match of the year candidate.

The voting for the second annual WAW awards is coming along nicely. Obviously, I can't divulge any details, but in a couple of categories, the voting is extremely close. It could go down to the final's day of voting on January 31st. So if you haven't voted yet, log onto the aforementioned WAW web site, for details on how you can cast your vote. Of course, you'll find details of the upcoming Valentine's Day Massacre show there as well.

With no WAW shows until next month, I've been spending a bit more time watching the product put out this week by good old Uncle Vince. A shame, though, that so far I've only watched one completely original programme! Although the cockles of my heart have been warmed a great deal by seeing some classic matches from 2002, just how many times can you watch the same programme? Raw, Heat, Afterburn, whatever else their other programmes are called have all been putting out virtually the same show. Perhaps my problem here is that Sky TV, in their infinite wisdom, decided to play one show after another during the weekend, instead having a few hours gap between them, as they did several years ago.

The only original show I've seen thus far has been Smackdown, and despite the fact that this has been the only success, in my opinion, anyway, of the brand extension fiasco, this week, again in my opinion, it left a little to be desired. I enjoyed the Kidman/Guerrero match, and John Cena's commentary was amusing at times. But perhaps the problem was with the fact that this week, instead of the show being recorded the previous Tuesday, edited over the next 36 hours and broadcast on the following Thursday, the show went out live in the States. The show just didn't have the proverbial "it" this week, much in the same way that Raw hasn't had "it" in the past few months. But then again, the smart marks would probably tell me that Raw doesn't have "it" because of the apparent political machinations of one Triple H.

If the "it" factor wasn't with Smackdown this week because it went out live, and wasn't recorded, then perhaps this could be the answer for Raw. The Smackdown product may be vastly superior to the Raw brand because of the fact that the show is recorded, and edited together. All of the mistakes the live crowd on a Tuesday night see are gone by the time the television audience sit down in front of their TV seats with their six pack and bag of heavily salted savoury snacks.

So could this be the answer to Raw's current problems? Perhaps if the show no longer went out live on a Monday night, if it was recorded say, on a Saturday night, all of the mistakes that are apparent for all to see could be removed, and backstage segments which were viewed by the arena crowd with a deathly silence could be re-recorded to better effect. Mind you, if Uncle Vince decided to go with this idea, which I very much doubt he would, Triple H could lose on the Saturday night show, but gain the victory sometime before the show airs the following Monday!

Another topic that has got the fan's talking is the demise of Jim Ross's weekly report on the WWE website. In his last fare, good old JR said that time constraints made it next to impossible to write his weekly reports. He also made reference to the fact that some wrestlers felt slighted when he didn't hype them enough. I myself have had a similar experience with regards to this aspect of Internet journalism. My view is that if a wrestler is more worried about how he is portrayed on the Internet, than how he is portrayed in the wrestling ring, then something is wrong with that person's career. Perhaps the WWE stars should have spent more time trying to impress Jim Ross, head of Talent Relations, instead of Jim Ross, Internet wrestling journalist. I'll miss JR's weekly look at what's going on in the WWE. Mind you, at least we won't hear about that damn barbecue sauce anymore!

Still on the subject of JR, and going back a little to the WWE's highlights shows, I noticed JR's commentary during the TLC match on Raw a few months back. You may recall that JR was without Jerry Lawler for that match. Just listening to JR on his own made me realise that in the right situation he is still one hell of a commentator. JR and Lawler have been a great team in the past, but in the past few months I've noticed that while the chemistry is still there, their work together has left a little to be desired at times. Although they probably won't do this, perhaps now is the time to shake things up a little in the commentary department. The problem is that outside of Jesse Ventura, the only other man I would consider for the colour commentator's job on Raw was released by the WWE a short while ago. Diamond Dallas Page would have made a fine addition to the commentary team.

Well, that's your lot for this week. I'm off to the UK Fan Forum to see what they're saying about me now!