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I AM JOHN GALT.
Right Thoughts...not right wing, just right.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

For no reason, pro wrestling

We watched TNA Impact earlier off the TiVo, and I guess that prompted me to post this: I haven’t watched a single minute of WWE programming in almost three months, and I don’t care.  TNA is doing it right.  I have known wrestling was fake since I was about 9, but some days when I watch Samoa Joe, I’d swear he’s actually beating people near to death.  Been watching him since the early days of ROH...so it’s not anything new for me, but if you’re not watching TNA, or you used to watch it and remember the Russo era...it’s way, way better now.  Check it out.  Some of the most talented guys in the business now work for TNA...AJ Styles, Chris Daniels, Joe, Chris Sabin, Christian, The Dudleys...the list goes on.

Also, Check out Carl’s post over here.  He highlights an article on how the past can make pro wrestling better and adds his own thoughts on the demise of managers and allowing guys to talk without a hard & fast script.  To answer your implied question, Carl, TNA does let their guys talk.  Christian is shining without the WWE restrictions, he’s really really growing both as a performer and a wrestler.  Great on the mic.  Works both ways, though.  They let Monty Brown talk in his own voice, unfortunately he’s as graceful with language as The Big Show in a tightrope.

If TNA has a fatal flaw, it’s the relationship they still have with Jeff Jarrett.  The duller, older ex-WCW wrestlers still play too much of a role in the headline events.  Sting, Jarett, Nash, and they’re bringing Scott Steiner in soon.  If I were TNA management, I would cut all ties with the past and focus on the former WWE stars like Chrostian and the Dudleys as your top stars, and make your own new stars with guys like Daniels and Styles and Samoa Joe.

Other TNA stars to watch: Abyss, Sonjay Dutt, Petey Williams, Jay Lethal.

Posted by JimK at 05:54 PM on March 07, 2006
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Categories: EntertainmentCombat Sports
Tags: wrestling TNA

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Dear Vince McMahon

I kept watching when you had Triple H screw a fake corpse named Katie Vick.  I kept watching when you started firing good workers because they made decent money and replaced them with stacks of shit that can’t work in the ring.  I kept watching when you buried anyone who was exciting to watch, like RVD or Paul London.  I even kept watching when you had an Italian guy play an Arab terrorist and then blamed him when the angle failed.

I kept watching as there was less wrestling and more talking on every show.  I kept watching as the quality of the backstage bullshit got worse and the in-ring action slowed down.  Shit, I even put up with Bradshaw as champion for what seemed like 15 years.

I even kept watching as wrestler after wrestler dropped dead and you told the world it wasn’t your ridiculous attitude that only pussies get hurt, your no one deserves time off pressure and the fact that you think steroided-up monster physiques are the only thing fans want to see that was causing it.  Truth is, your policies have killed a lot of young, talented men, Vince.  But I stayed.

I’ve finally had it.

Your shows suck.  Plain and simple.  They aren’t entertaining anymore.  It’s a chore to watch them.  It’s embarrasing to tell people you like wrestling again, and it’s all your fault.  Please retire.  Or don’t...TNA will eventually eat your lunch as soon as wrestling fans get wind of the fact that they actually wrestle over there (and Jeff Jarrett gets hit by a car).

You suck at this, Vince.  You were ruthless in the old days, and you had Hogan.  The next time you got successful, you had Vince Russo and Stone Cold Steve Austin and a guy named The Rock.  Now?  You’re an old, old man who still thinks he’s fighting the battles of 8, 10, 20 years ago.  WCW is dead.  Brett Hart is out of the business.  Ass jokes only go so far.  Grow up, step aside, and let someone who isn’t 60 years old run the company.  But before you leave, for God’s sake, fire your daughter.  She’s the least creative woman in the history of television.

None of that will matter to me, though.  I have removed the season passes for your horrible shows, Raw and Smackdown, from my TiVo.  I’m done with you.  WWE can kiss my ass.  You made me hate the very idea of watching wrestling, Vince.  Luckily for me, there is TNA on TV and ROH on video, and I can get my fix that way.

In conclusion, your shows suck, your company sucks and you’re responsible for almost every death under your watch.  Go fuck yourself, and take your TV shows with you, jagoff.

Posted by JimK at 07:01 PM on December 27, 2005
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Categories: EntertainmentCombat Sports
Tags: WWE Vince McMahon

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

UFC talk

I finaly got a chance to watch the last UFC, main-evented by Randy Couture-Chuck Liddell 2.  If you have not yet seen the event and plan to order the replay or download it, I’ll put the discussion behind the “More” link so as not to be a dick and spoil it

Posted by JimK at 09:02 PM on April 26, 2005
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Monday, February 07, 2005

WWE is losing me, and here’s the proof

Yes, I watch pro wrestling.  No, I’m not going to get into another discussion about it.  :)

So Raw and Smackdown have been just absolutely terrible lately.  I mean almost unwatchable even for a die-hard fan terrible.  One of the reasons is that Vince McMahon, in all his “I know what you want better than you do” wisdom, has flooded the shows with nameless, faceless hot babes who don’t mean a damn thing to any story lines and don’t have any character to speak of.  Even the one chick they got the public to care about, the Diva Search winner Christy Hemme, is relegated to shooting the t-shirt gun when they come back from commercial breaks and sometimes being attacked by one random guy or another so another random guy or another can come out and save the day.

The only woman that matters on the show is Torrie (link NSFW), who is perfect and you will not speak ill of her or I will find you and do bad things to your housepets and/or children.  I must stop speaking of her now for fear that the WIFE FILTER will engage and ruin the flow of this post.

*cough*

Seriously though, Trish Stratus and Lita can work in the ring.  Molly and Victoria are good workers too.  Every other woman on the shows, and there are like 15 or more, are strictly window dressing.  Right now Lita is out for knee surgery and Victoria needed surgery over a year ago and has been working on a bum leg.  They fired every other woman who can wrestle and replaced them with a faceless see of clone hotties.

So my point: Here I am, making noise about the Go Daddy girl, right?  Here name is Candice Michelle (pic semi-SFW).  Guess what?  She’s been on Raw for months, and I didn’t notice.

image

See, this is what happens when you just throw hotties around will-nilly.  Hotties, like any other character on television, must have a purpose.  Except for Torrie Wilson (NSFW).  She gets to just be hot.  There is a way to have hot women on a wrestling show and still have them be women who are workers (jargon for someone who actually wrestles).  They don’t even *have* to be workers.  Just give them things to do on the show that don’t begin and end with “See this thong?  Put it on.” In other words, there is a way to use hot women to boost ratings without it being about *nothing* but the fact that they’re hot.

Unless you are Vince McMahon, who apparently sees women as interchangable Lego pieces...as long as they have the right number of holes and bumps, any one is as good as the other to build a wall of stupidity.

In conclusion: Random hotties = bad.  Hotties that are germane to the story (be it a commercial, a movie or a dumb-ass wrestling show) = good.  When I can see a 60 second ad and go “Hey, who’s that woman?” and it turns out she’s been on a TV show I watch every week...well, that show must be doing something very, very wrong.

BTW, there are a few new Torrie pictures in that NSFW link.  Don’t say I never gave ya nuthin’.  :)

Posted by JimK at 06:05 PM on February 07, 2005
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Categories: Beautiful WomenEntertainmentCombat Sports

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Why you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover

People like to mock pro wrestlers, but try mocking this.

This wasn’t about politics. You weren’t there. Those troops loved what Vince said because they are sick of the media sitting in a hotel in Baghdad trying to report on something they have not seen. We visited about twenty bases; there was not one reporter to be seen. I talked with hundreds of soldiers who said the media was wrong in what they report. Vince merely voiced what the soldiers felt, listen to their response and you will see this is true.

I was surprised to see how wrong our media is about the war. Not one vehicle leaves an Army base without armor, not one. This is not reported. The soldier who asked Rumsfeld the question was not even in Iraq, I feel that is irresponsible.

And there’s so much more.  Read it, especially if you think Iraq is a quagmire.  John Layfield pisses me off a lot (the man, not his character on TV) but he’s always spoken straight from the heart about the troops.  They are one of his soft spots.

The WWE went to twenty bases that even the USO shows rarely visit.  They were, as the movies like to say, “in the shit.” Literally.  In a way that these asshole reporters have NEVER been.  Vince McMahon, a billionaire and owner of a multi-national company, put his ass on the line and stood next to everyone else who was at risk from attack.  The event they put on was held in Tikrit for fuck’s sake.

Me personally?  I’ll take the word of people who were there every day of the week over the word of people sitting in hotel rooms in Kuwait or Baghdad.  I’ve been saying this since the beginning of the war.

Example of the media skewing the truth: Mick Foley, a dedicated lefty and a man that campaigned for John Kerry, came home from Iraq and the first thing he said on CNN was that he was shocked at how many Iraqis liked the Americans and were happy we were there.

Have you gotten any of that from the mainstream media?  Exactly.

Side note: Gotta give it up to Al Franken for making five tours of Iraq with the USO.  I think he’s a misguided jackass politically, but anyone who does that is a good man at heart.

Posted by JimK at 10:11 PM on December 29, 2004
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Categories: EntertainmentCombat SportsThe Fourth EstateWarU.S. MilitaryThe Middle East

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Mixed Martial Arts makes a statement

If you watched Smackdown this week, you saw legitimate Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle put in a kimura on television.  The unedited event took about two minutes, during which Kurt tried to shoot, or fight unscripted, a contestant in the new Tough Enough challenge named Daniel Puder.  Puder is an MMA fighter.  Kurt was unable to take the kid down until Puder chose to go down to the ground, where he wrapped Kurt in a half guard and grabbed the armlock.  The ref on the scene thought fast, counted a pinfall on Puder (which did not exist, Kurt was mere moments from legitimately and really having to tap out to this kid) in order to save face and salvage the segment.

Pro wrestlers like to think they’re tough, but what was demonstrated, even in the edited version that aired on TV, was that a young, green MMA fighter, someone who probably can’t quite hang with the top level UFC guys, can spank a gold medalist Greco-Roman freestyle wrestler with no submission training.  Kurt Angle is fast and tough, and was one of the best Greco-Roman freestyle guys to ever wrestle at 220 pounds.  Puder locked him up with little to no effort.

And they told Kurt to shoot.  “Shooting” in wrestling means do it for real.  And the kid embarrassed one of the best pros (and most well respected amateurs) in the business.  See the video here. (9.46MB, DivX, right click, save as)

image

My favorite part is after, you can tell Kurt is pissed.  The next day it was reported that Angle was livid at having been put in that situation.  I hope they aren’t pissed at the kid, he was just reacting as he’s been trained to do.

Posted by JimK at 04:26 AM on November 07, 2004
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Friday, October 01, 2004

Mixed Martial Arts

So as it turns out, I haven’t said anything about MMA in a long time...turns out doorik, a regular here, didn’t even know I was a fan.  Well, allow me to rectify that!  I am a huge fan of MMA.  doorik asked some questions...so let me hit those…

Posted by JimK at 02:27 PM on October 01, 2004
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Monday, May 10, 2004

Why, Jim, why?

In my FFTS post ”Dr. Powerbombo,” Paratrooper asked me a couple of questions.  The answer ran WAY long, so...now it’s a post.  :)

Let’s take them as they come…

Posted by JimK at 09:55 PM on May 10, 2004
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Saturday, May 08, 2004

Dr. Powerbombo, or How I learned to Stop Being So Uptight And Just Enjoy Pro Wrestling

I am a fan of professional wrestling.

I may have mentioned this before, but if not...there you have it.  I’m a fan.  A big fan.  I watch it ALL the time, I go to live shows, I belong to message boards about it, I even pay money to keep up with two of the premium “news sites” (known in the business as “dirt sheets") so’s I don’t miss nuthin’.

I watch all kinds of wrestling.  I watch WWE, of course, all 4 shows broadcast in America that contain actual matches.  But I also watch videotapes and DVDs of every promotion you can think of, old and new.  I download stuff from Usenet all the time.  I watch NWA-TNA (not often anymore, but sometimes), I try NEVER to miss an ROH show until the recent scandal, I watch old FMW and ECW, WCW, Big Japan, All-Japan, New Japan, CZW, 3PW, old Smoky Mountain, Portland...you name it, I have probaly seen it at least once.  I think I must have at least 50 wrestling DVDs and probably close to 100 videotapes...and I’m a *lightweight* in that department among real dedicated fans.

It’s not cool to like pro wrestling anymore, although it’s starting to make a comeback again.  One of the reasons I think that is silly is because without pro wrestling, television as an idustry was doomed.

In the early days of TV, there wasn’t a lot of programming.  Someone quickly figured out that they could just point a camera at any arena on a Wednesday, Friday or Saturday night and have hours and hours of cheap, exciting TV.  It caught on, and everyone and their brother had to have a TV so they could watch wrestling, and *then* they started loving other aspects of TV, like soaps, the news, etc.  It was wrestling that birthed the beast, though, so if you love your MTV, and let’s face it, somebody must, then you can thank professional wrestling.

All you 51.5 million nutters that cried at the end of Friends?  Thank wrestling, before I dragon-choke your ass into submission.

I’m sick of apologizing for being such a fan.  I won’t do it any more.  So come one, join me, and add your voice to the chorus.  Say it: “I watch pro wrestling, I enjoy pro wrestling, and I don’t care who knows it!”

There’s no place else on earth where you can watch perfectly normal people pump ridiculous amounts of iron, beat the crap out of each other in an effort to pretend to be beating the crap out of each other only *moderately* worse than they actually are, and then watch hot chicks wearing very little parade around being little Alexis Carringtons and sometimes they get to wrestle too.  It’s the silliest, and most dramatic, stuff imaginable.  It’s dance, fighting, acting, comedy, tittilation and drama, set against the backdrop of a soap opera with violence, wrapped in a package that is socially acceptable for men to say they like.  You can’t admit that you watch All My Children with your wife every day (and fuck you, I KNOW you men are out there you lying sacks of shit, I’m not the only one), but you can say you saw Chris Benoit beat the tar out of Sean Michaels last week without fear of your masculinity being questioned.  :)

So from now on, you’re going to see more wrestling commentary from me.  If I have to lead the charge alone, and bear the brunt of the jokes and ridicule, so be it.  I’m willing to take one for the good of the team. 

Some of you rooty-toot nancy boys better step up and back me, or The Stark is gonna come lookin for you, take that keyboard you’re hiding behind, shine it up *REAL* nice, turn that sumbitch sideways and shove it straight up your CANDY ASS.

And that’s the bottom line, because Jim K. said so.

Posted by JimK at 11:41 PM on May 08, 2004
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Categories: EntertainmentCombat SportsPersonalThings To Ponder

Sunday, April 25, 2004

And in this corner…

Watched the Klitschko fight yesterday...now more than ever I believe this guy is the next big thing.  He demonstrated yet again that he’s a better fighter.  Seems everyone watching the fight agreed, HBO’s website poll has the fans calling him the world champ at 81%.

Sanders wasn’t a top fighter, but he caught Klitschko early, and Klitschko demonstrated great maturity and sense as a fighter, stayed out of reach, and proceeded to break Corrie Sanders’ defense down with expert jabs setting up a beautiful right hand that slipped in just behind the left.  Over and over and over he ducked and weaved and then *pip* *POP*.

To Sanders’ credit, he never left his feet...when the ref finally stepped in, the guy looked like he was in a coma, but he was still standing.  Bad fighter, but a tough guy.  He took a *beating*.

Lennox Lewis quit boxing so he wouldn’t have to face Vitaly Klitschko again.  He knew he was going to lose that fight last year, right up until that ref stopped it for a cut that Vitali said wasn’t bothering him yet.  THAT is some pussy-ass behavior right there by the ex-champ.  Sure Lewis could kick *my* ass, but he *knows* he can’t beat Vitali.

Go Vitali.  Unify the titles, dude.

Posted by JimK at 07:52 PM on April 25, 2004
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Categories: EntertainmentCombat Sports

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