By "Net.cop" Scott Keith

Okay, first things first: If you want daily updates on new stuff here at Rantsylvania.com, feel free to sign up for the mailing list, run by my lackey Ryan O’ Connor. Just enter your address in the box below and enjoy.

Okay, so onto other stuff…

The Starrcade Retro Rants are progressing daily on Wrestleline, although most of them are already available here on RS.com for YOU, the reader. 93 and 94 are still to come, however. Can YOU guess which one I’m looking forward to more? Actually, both pretty much sucked, aside from one good match on the 93 show.

Next major concept rant: The Royal Rumble, which I started last year, but crapped out once I got to 1994’s abortion of a show. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish this year without needing large amounts of drugs to handle the reviews.

RS.com staff members Brian Sullivan and Patrick Brandemeyer left last week, although honestly I didn’t really follow their work before they joined the RS.com fold. I leave that sort of thing in Sean’s capable hands, although having Steve Schroeder and the multitalented CubsFan in the fold is money in the bank for us, so I’m happy.

Speaking of money in the bank, of which I often have little, make sure to hit the Rantsylvania.com store and buy Xmas presents for all your loved ones. Maybe someday I’ll market a "Netcop shoved a hot poker up my ass and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" shirt, just to see how many buy it. Until then, feel free to buy me DVDs as Xmas presents from the store, since I’ve only got 5 so far and I have 300 videos to replace. As a guide, the more things in the movie that blow up, the better.

For lack of anything else interesting to say, let’s hit the mail!

Matt asks:

What was the match that you gave 5 stars to in ECW?

Well, regular nWWWo discussion board readers know what it is, so having a contest to Guess the Match would really be kinda pointless, I’d think, not to mention that I’d get tired of having replies flood my Inbox pretty quick. So I’ll just spill the beans right now: I gave ***** to the Pitbulls v. Raven/Richards double-dog collar match from 1995. So there you go.

Adam asks:

I remember seeing the Blondes face Flair/Anderson years ago.  Was this on a Saturday Night show?  I recently noticed a line-up for an old Clash of the Champions and saw the same match-up on the listing.  What I'm trying to get at is which is the best match between the two teams, the one on Saturday Night or the one on the clash?

You’re probably thinking of the 2/3 falls match they had at the Clash of Champions. Meltzer gave it ****, while I personally haven’t watched it since it originally aired, but I seem to recall liking it well enough. The booking made zero sense, however, and the DQ ending was lame, so I probably wouldn’t go much higher. I don’t recall a WCWSN match – maybe you’re thinking of A Flair For the Old, which was the precursor to the n.W.o. parody and one of the funniest bits ever done in WCW?

PUN711 asks…

Could you PLEASE do a rant on the 1997 and 1998 Royal Rumble for the love of Jesus?

Coming this January, my friend! Call your local internet provider!

Ben Welsh notes…

I got turned onto your site rantsylvania.com by Jeff Slemin, he writes an article on Pure Wrestling.com and I am on his prediction panel for his PPV articles. I have watched wrestling since I was a little boy and really didn't get into the internet scene until about a year ago. While I find your page's articles insightful and amusing, they seem to me to be a fine microcosim (or however you spell it) of what I see in internet wrestling. Since I have got into the internet scene I have not read 1 article about wrestling (outside of the oral pleasure given the Japanese promotions) that is not extremely jaded or negative. I was hoping you could try and explain to me why it seems everyone on the internet hates wrestling. It seems kinda peculiar to me that people watch the shows in a diehard fashoin and buy the products and make these pages but have nothing but bad things to say about anyone but what I like to call the Internet Trinity of Jericho, Rocky and Benoit. Just a Question. =)

We have nothing but bad things to say because most of it sucks, sadly.

I personally do not watch Nitro so I refrain from commenting on it 90% of the time, unless I’m forced into taping it for my roommate when he’s working. I don’t watch ECW on TNN if I can help it. I of course watch Thunder, which has gone downhill for months now. I watch RAW, but I find that trying to form a critical analysis of it ruins my enjoyment, so I just don’t bother. I occasionally watch Smackdown, but the show just doesn’t interest me for some reason. And of course I watch all the PPVs, plus whatever wrestling videos are out at a given time, plus a lot of older stuff as well. So really I don’t watch that much compared to others on the ‘net right now. But the bottom line to the whole situation is that after literally watching wrestling my entire life, it becomes second nature to watch something today and instantly find something else I’ve seen to compare it to, and most of the time it’s not favorable because almost everything has been done before, and done better. And in WCW, sometimes just a couple of months before! To put it most bluntly, if we as fans sit and blindly accept the crap that the Big Two are shovelling down our throats without speaking up about it, then that crap will continue to be shovelled until we’ve all found something else to watch. Hope that helps.

Everlit asks…

I know this is gonna start something...but who's Steve DiSalvo?

Man, why did I take this one out of the FAQ?

Steve DiSalvo was a running joke on RSPW that ran from about 1992 until 1995, when it finally died for good. Steve is an actual person and a wrestler, and he in fact was a personal favorite of mine for years in Stampede Wrestling. The joke started when Scott Hall debuted in WCW as the Diamond Studd, and no one could recognize him. For those who don’t know, when Hall started he had curly blond hair and a big Ron Jeremy moustache, and once those were changed he looked completely different. Resident RSPW smart-ass Sean Ryan suggested that it was Stampede mainstay DiSalvo (who was recently signed by WCW to portray The Minotaur) but when it was discovered soon after that it was actually Hall, Sean was made the butt of jokes in RSPW for that suggestion. The biggest one came when Ultimate Warrior made his grand return at Wrestlemania VIII, with a slightly altered look. Someone suggested that this too was a Steve DiSalvo repackaging, and it grew into a running joke that DiSalvo in fact portrayed every wrestler in the business at some point. It also ceased to be funny in 1993, but that didn’t stop the joke from making the rounds for years afterwards.

Oswald Jackson asks…

Where's the Netcop Revelation Rant, covering the epic rise and fall of the nWo from 1996-1999 and explaining just why Kevin Nash is such a tool.   Be the first on your block to get a copy!

The official title is now "There Goes the Neighborhood". I couldn’t make the biblical references work, so they’re gone. And in the words of ID Software, it’ll ship when it’s ready.

Stampedewrestling.com webmaster Trevor Giberson asks…

Is there a objective formula to the 5-star ratings system?  If so, what is it?  Also, do you, Meltzer and Kunze usually agree on the star ratings for matches?

1. No, there is no objective formula, no matter what anyone may say. The whole purpose of the star-rating system is to express how much you liked the match, and compare it to others’ feelings of the same match. The criteria that you use in rating a match may be entirely different from person-to-person, so that goal is ultimately futile, but it’s fun to compare anyway. I personally use a combination of workrate, entertainment value, psychology/transitions, difficulty of moves, accuracy of moves, highspots and crowd heat (in that order) to rate a match, but your mileage may vary by reviewer. For instance, when rating ECW matches, our own Sean Shannon appears to be blindfolded and thus unable to see anything actually happening on TV. [Note from Sean: Do you really want me to put up a "Shannon Rants" section, Scott?]
2. "Usually" is a pretty board term. I would say my ratings agree with Meltzer’s about 70% of the time and with Kunze’s about 50%, if only because Herb rates according to very strict guidelines whereas I’m more tolerant of certain ideosyncracies in the sport. Some would say I have a tendancy to overrate WWF matches and underrate WCW matches on first viewing, but that trend tends to even out when I do later re-reviewing of a show.

Sam Rodgers writes a bunch of stuff, including…

If you think THAT’S creepy, I also predicted Moolah’s return to the ring 6 months before it happened, in my Wrestlemania X Retro Rant.

He also adds…

2) I have attended an ECW PPV so I cannot argue about the racism Americans have. "You dirty Jap" was the tamest I heard, "HI-RO-SHI-MA" the worst. What then, do you think is the reason the Rock has been able to reach the top of the card?

1. If I can ever beat that fucking Road 2 Wrestlemania, sure.
2. That Hiroshima chant would be pretty witty if it wasn’t so sick. Anyway, the Rock made it to the main event by doing what all great leaders do: Transcending skin color and racial barriers and just being a cool guy that the fans can relate to and/or like watching. It never became an issue with Rocky, so it never hampered him. I’m sure there’s some deep racial message there somewhere, but it’s late and I’m tired so I’ll let the readership ponder it themselves.

Until next time, MAKE MINE NETCOP!

- "Netcop" Scott Keith