By "Net.cop" Scott Keith

Chris Bird posted an excellent little diatribe over on what used to be the nWWWo board about the whole online situation in general, much of which I agree with, but I thought that since I had a few pages worth of thoughts on the whole thing to share, I’d make it a column and thus BRING THE REVENUE, BABEE!

I’ll print Chris’ bits in italics (in no particular order), followed by own random thoughts in reply:

But even with Rantsylvania, I have my qualms. Say, for example, the Rant Crew. Who the fuck needs the Rant Crew? Let me be quite honest: the Crew, as a whole, turns out redundant, shitty columns. Yes, there are good writers (I refuse to name names) among the morass, but they're a very distinct and small minority -- and let's not forget that the Crew is basically just a duplication of CRZ's entire site, complete with the same quality level. Do we need TWO "major" sites providing Amateur Hour?

Better or worse, the Rant Crew has become an entity unto itself, and whether or not it is what I envisioned it to be, it just is what it is. I filter out the junk as best I can, but I'm a firm believer in letting the author express themselves as they wish and not interfering with that in the form of editing, so que sera sera. I agree that the crossover between us and [slash]/wrestling is pretty huge, but people *like* the Rant Crew (and read it in pretty impressive numbers) so I'm not going to tinker with a winning formula. And if the Crew affords the opportunity for great talents like Scott Christ and Mickey Alderson and numerous others to expand their horizons elsewhere by getting the experience needed to write a column on a regular basis, then I’d like to think we were sucessful by those criteria alone. People such as Sven Mascarenhas and The ICON may "outgrow" us sooner rather than later, but for most of the submitters, that’s not the case, and it affords them a chance to post their thoughts that they may not have elsewhere, or else it affords Sean and myself a chance to see possible contributors to RS.com in action before we move them up to the front page. And just as an example, no one would ever suspect Rick Scaia to be a future "net guru" based on his 1993 work in RSPW. To quote Chuck Berry, "’C’est la vie’ say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell".

Jeez, seriously, how many "supersites" does the net need, anyway? WrestleLine sucks, so I can understand the reason for establishing Rantsylvania. […] I think my overall point is this: most of these new MegaSites (tm) are more or less inspired by the memory of WrestleManiacs (not the corporate version. The REAL WrestleManiacs, before they sold out and brought Mark Madden on board and Rick Scaia decided to become "the Rick"). WM was cool because it was alone in what it did -- you could go to the Torch or the Lariat for good news, and you could go to a board for shitty news, and you could go to a fanpage for masochistic punishment, but WM was the only site run by fans, for fans, with a professional attitude and intelligent demeanour. That was what made it different.

Yes, Wrestleline is bland and corporate, but the exposure I and others get there is unreal. I've gone from "cult favorite" to people e-mailing me "just to let me know" that, for instance, DDP reads my reviews and thinks I give him solid match ratings for such-and-such a period, but I'm not being as fair for such-and-such a period. I mean, like, WHOA. And I did three interviews last week. How fucked up is it that there are people who want to interview ME and use it on a term paper? Or for a newspaper? And I'm basically set for life in terms of high-profile internet jobs through Mike Samuda, as I seem to have assumed the Dr. Doug position for WM. And there seems to be a serious push from the Wrestleline producers to actually get me a job with WCW thanks to the booking thing. So really, the corporate sellout may suck for Joe Internet Reader, but it's been the best decision of my online career from my end.

All the intersite cooperation is creating a stuffiness and likemindedness of opinion that's frankly getting scary. Take WCW. Yes, it sucks lately. But what's amazing me is that this new unionist attitude is taking COMPLETE MISTRUTHS (my favorite is "3Count aren't over as heels", but "Jeff Jarrett shouldn't be a World title contender" is rising up fast -- or at least it was until last week when Scott did a 180 and said JJ should be the champion, at which point the lockstep was frightening) and proclaiming them friggin' gospel.

Frankly, I can't really speak one way or another on the subject, since I seem to be the leader being followed in a lot of things. In all fairness to myself, I can't control the opinions of my readers. In regards to Jeff Jarrett, my opinion of him as champion only changed because really there's no one else. He's the least-stupid choice out of the bunch. It's not so much of a 180 as it is an elimination of every other decent choice for a champion. And I’ve never really made any stance on Three Count (although that comment wasn’t directed at me) aside from "they’ve been used as jobbers, so that’s what they’re perceived as". I like them as a gimmick and as wrestlers, but I think the handling could have been better.

That brings me to Emzee, which, quite honestly, brings redundancy to a new level. The "because you demanded it" tag seems particularly silly. I don't recall demanding an ugly site design mixed with average-quality writers and an order of overinflated self-importance on the side. The one draw EmZee offers that other sites don't have is a live audio show, which is admittedly okay but doesn't really compare to Meltzer's, the LAW, or even WCW friggin' Live. Other than that, their main advertising feature is that they occasionally put up columns from people who RUN OTHER WRESTLING WEBSITES (which remain the only reason I ever even bother with EmZee). Oh, and the name *sucks ass* and it *always has*.

Eh, I don't see the need, either, but they asked nicely and I like Jeremy Botter, so I agreed to help out. There's some stuff going on behind the scenes that doesn't particularly impress me and that seems terribly unfair to certain people, but it's not my site and it's not my cross to bear, so I just write the news updates and mind my own business. I REALLY enjoy doing the Edge and I’m glad that I’m getting a chance to hone my interviewee skillz there, although I think Greg is a bit of a pushover in terms of agreement with the guests a lot of the time. CONFRONTATION = RATINGS, to paraphrase another one of my fans. Meltzer’s show is great due to sheer power of DA MELTZ and all those little informational tidbits he throws around during the course of the two hours. And I stopped listening to WCW Live once Madden stopped mentioning me, so I can’t comment there anymore.

What I find even more distressing is how incestuous all the intersite proliferation is getting.

As for "The Good Old Boys' Club"…you know, it's weird, but I didn't even think about it that way until you mentioned it here. I personally seem to be Six Degrees (or Less) of Seperation away from almost everyone on the web these days so I don't notice it as much, but really I think it comes down to certain names being a "draw" and thus webmasters wanting to use those names. I mean, if I did columns for every two-bit website that e-mailed me during a given week begging for me to join them, I'd be overexposed in a matter of days. I think I'm getting to that point now, even, which is why the Nitro booking project has been a breath of fresh air for me -- it allows me to reinvent myself yet again without getting stale. God knows I'll need SOMETHING to write about once I've gotten every PPV ranted on, although I'll probably be working for one of the Big Three by then anyway. And on another tangent, if I do end up working for them, I will not only expect, but DEMAND, that people reem me a new asshole if I ever start shilling for their product at the expense of my real feelings on a show. Anyway, back to the original point: I don't really have many people who'd I'd consider "friends" in the traditional sense of the word online. Probably CRZ (oops, kayfabe, sorry, I meant "hated enemy"), Samuda, Sean, and a few others who most people haven't heard of. The rest are either "rabid admirers" (and hey, that's cool too, nothing wrong with that) or "frequent foes" or "business associates" and nothing more. The big advantage of the "good old boy" mentality, however, is that if one or more of us "gets made" in the business for real, then that immediately establishes a web of contacts for the rest, and even for some people on the periphery, which ends up benefitting everyone in the long run. I think.

Honestly, a lot of this current state of affairs is really ruining my interest in what someone-or-other called "Internet wrestling journalism" (and which, I might add, I thought of as "fanboyism with profit interest"). I find it hard to muster up the energy to write columns any more because everybody else has already discussed the same topics ten times over -- and badly enough that it kills my interest in writing about it.

Chris hit the nail exactly on the head there. I don't do general wrestling columns at ALL anymore, just because it's all been done somewhere else, generally worse, and I have no interest in competing with the general public anymore. Once I did Lear and Lazarus, 50 other people popped up with their own versions (and more are coming) and thus I had gone from trend-setter to status quo. That's the main reason why the nWo rant has never materialized -- because it's no longer DIFFERENT to do a pretentious, epic rant on the fall of a wrestling company. That's why I also won't do the AWA one until the whole trend calms down a lot. These days, unless I have something I REALLY need to get off my chest (like the spontaneous Muschnick rant) it's not worth my time to devote the two or three hours to it when I could do another PPV rant and make some money off it. It's really kind of a joke, because most of these sites are currently being run with a lack of professionalism that makes me blanch. The current trend of "we lost another WCW recapper! WOW!" is fucking *pathetic*, particularly when many of them are labeling themselves "internet journalists" (because, you see, when the news gets bad, journalists don't have to cover it any more!). (I actually think a lot of this has to do with the fact that most of the "old school" writers came from RSPW and RSPWM, where they'd been writing columns and recaps for ages without getting paid for it. Most of the new breed, to coin a phrase, weren't "raised" there, so they lost out on the commentary and challenging environment and endless flamewars. Pussies!)

Internet "journalism" is indeed a joke. Some of the 14-year old dipshits who run the newsboards and proclaim things like "Best source of rumors on the net!" as though that’s a GOOD thing drive me up the wall, because they give those others who I actually respect a bad name. Much like the truly influential greats on the net – people like Jeff Amdur, Dean Rasmussan (supplier of 25% of my material) and even Tony Gancarski – the majority of the good writers make absolutely no claim to either objectivity or journalistic standards. I personally have always never denied being nothing more than a very opinionated (and somewhat biased) PPV reviewer and general smartass much of the time, but one who is a good enough writer that the formula has carried me to bigger and bigger things as my online career has progressed. I was always completely upfront about my "selling out" when it happened, and any notions of "journalistic integrity" were attributed to me by others, not by anything I’ve ever said. I feel very comfortable about leaving the actual reporting to the Meltzers and Kellers of the world, because that way when they screw it up I’m not the one held responsible for it.

Anyway, my closing thought on the whole thing is basically this: Yeah, it’s all one big incestuous family rehashing the same news every day with different opinions, but it makes me money, and since this site is basically about me, that’s all that really matters in the long run. Besides, if I ever get in like Flynn with WCW, I’ll be sure to use my political clout to get a bunch of you jobs as coffee boys and assistants so you can live your dreams of fetching Kevin Nash’s snack foods and Scott Hall’s beverages and give your grandchildren a great story to tell in the process.

Isn’t hypocrisy wonderful?