By "Net.cop" Scott Keith

Let’s see if I can get this one out without Word 2000 crashing.

It’s late and I’m bored, so I figure as an alternative to doing something of substance I’d go through my oft-neglected mail backlog and clean out my Inbox here on Rantsylvania. And I have a BIG backlog. A lot of this is hideously old, but I’ve always been something of a packrat anyway, so I do my best. Anyway…

Steven Towler wrote me way back in July and asks…

Just wondering....

In 1991, Damien really did die. The years of being on the road took a lot out of the snake, and the writers of the WWF needed a reason for Jake to get a new snake, so voila, one dead snake at the hands of Earthquake. Since then, various other snakes have played the role of Jake’s python, but none as famous as the first. The debate on the king cobra marches on, although most assume it was just a devenomized (and probably sedated) snake and Randy Savage did an excellent blade job for dramatic effect.

As for Davey Boy, I have no idea what happened to his dogs, sorry. The legal problems stemmed from a bar fight he got into in the early 90s. It didn’t really go anywhere.

Jason Hoffman writes me a question that I get all the time, and which was also covered on the nWWWo Board once:

To answer the question: It depends on when and who you’re talking about. The WWF generally DID allow title-holders to have their own copy for memory’s sake, but Eric Bischoff pretty much screwed that up for everyone. Once Madusa showed up on Nitro and tossed a copy of the Women’s title into a garbage can, that policy was scrapped in both promotions. Champions can BUY their own copies for whatever the WWF paid, but since only top-level wrestlers tend to make enough to afford this, it’s not common. In the 80s, the whole "personal copy" thing started because Ultimate Warrior freaked out and reportedly had upwards of 20 or 30 copies of the I-C (and later the World) titles made for him in a variety of colors. The gold variant was later used by Goldust (and Ahmed Johnson) and the white one was used by Mark Mero and HHH. The most famous belt recycling is of course the WWF Hardcore Title, which is a semi-repaired version of the WWF World title that was smashed by Curt Henning on a Saturday Night’s Main Event in late 1989. Having watched the tape again recently, I can verify that if the Hardcore belt isn’t smashed in exactly the same places that belt was, it’s remarkably close.

Regular nWWWo Board poster Everlit sent me the following chart, which I wanted to include somewhere, sometime, and now is as good a time as any.

Consider this my way of sucking up. A detailed....thing of all the matches you've rated **** or more, and how many for each wrestler. This isn't including the Thunder rants, just for the PPVs and Clashes. Both printed out here and attached:

A breakdown of wrestlers and how many ****+ matches I’ve had them in was also included. Not surprisingly, Ric Flair led with 14. Surprisingly, Lex Luger was second.

Rusty Johnson e-mails me with a question also posed by my frequent ICQ-companion Miss Linz:

        I can't remember if I've e-mailed you before, but i've e-mailed everybody else at WM and CRZ was the only one who even replied.  However, all of those were just me pissing and moaning, and this time I have an actual question.  Everybody spells The Road Dogg's name with to M's in James.  Is this some in-joke I'm not getting?

It’s not an in-joke, it’s copyright protection. The WWF can’t trademark "Jesse James" for obvious reasons, so they spell it "Jammes". Same reason you get other stupid misspellings like "Sycho Sid" and "Road Dogg".

Chad Costello asks…

I was reading your Retro-Rant about Luger and Yoko at Summerslam. The question I have is why did Luger win on a countout? Was he supposed to win the title, and if he was...then what the hell happened?

Sadly, Mr. Luger was never intended to win the title. The point of Summerslam was to build him as a sympathetic underdog of sorts, leading to him winning the Rumble and then the title at Wrestlemania X. However, people liked Bret Hart more, and everything changed in January of 1994. So while 94 provided a huge wrench in the works, Summerslam 1993 was always planned that way.

And on that note, I bid you adieu for another week. Until next week, remember, BUY ME A GODDAMNED DVD PLAYER.

Oh wait, sorry, wrong catchphrase.

MAKE MINE NETCOP!

- "Netcop" Scott Keith