By "Net.cop" Scott Keith

"The Wrestling World According to Scott"

Howdy, long time no rant.

One of the people I submitted the pre-release version of the RSPW FAQ to was Jeff Amdur, and he was nice enough to point out a lot of times the FAQ was less an objective document than it was "The Wrestling World According to Scott."

I took that advice to heart and made many changes to correct that, but the fact remains that the wrestling world pisses me off in many ways and if I can't write about that in the FAQ, I'll do so here.

First of all, RSPW. I don't particularly care for WCW. I think I've made that known. I don't have to be objective, if you want objective read a newspaper...they get paid not to have an opinion. I, on the other hand, think that Eric "I don't know what I'm doing but it seems to be working" Bischoff is a slave to the accountants who run WCW and am not afraid to say when I'm watching shit.

But that's not what I'm so upset about.

What I'm upset about is when I make a post pointing out the bad things about the debut of Thunder or the mega-disappointment that was Starrcade and then get hate mail from a person like Michael Tyler. And it's not even the mail that gets my goat, it's the fact that he criticizes my criticisms and then posts his own critique, saying exactly the same things as I did under the banner of "objectivity."

Well, whoopee fuck that you and Undercover Elephant and all the others can delude yourselves into thinking that you have any credibility on the newsgroup just because you give the report a fancy title and write it in an unemotional manner.

I, for one, was very pumped to watch Starrcade. I was excited to see Sting get a clean win over Hogan. I was excited to watch Giant v. Nash. I was excited to finally see Benoit v. Raven. I got none of those. What I got was two no-shows and a Dusty Finish.

You do know what a Dusty Finish is, right? That's what helped kill the NWA between 1983 and 1987. People got so sick of seeing the same shitty ending to important matches that they just decided to watch Hulk Hogan put away his opponents cleanly instead.

And that's what Sting-Hogan was: A shitty ending.

And you know what's worse? The rationalizations and excuses started spewing from the "smart" fans (who probably still think Konan is really a Mexican named Carlos Espada) right after the show.

"Oh, well, the nWo has been screwing WCW out of big matches for a year now, so it's good to see them get a taste of their own medicine."

I forget who was shooting that one off, but that's not how wrestling works. The whole face-heel structure is based around the idea that the bad guys cheat and the good guys don't. Ever. If Sting cheats to win the World title (which he did) then he's violating one of the main rules of a blowoff match: The face has to win cleanly. That's how the heel "gets his". He's supposed to learn that cheaters never win and in the end good will triumph.

Hey, maybe it's hokey but Vince McMahon built an empire around that ideal in the 80s, when greed and cynicism were king. Hulk would get beat up and cheated by the heels, and then he'd beat the crap out of them in the Big Match and win cleanly with the legdrop. It sent the fans home happy and they came back for more. Why? Because that sort of thing just doesn't happen in real life.

We don't want real life. In real life, things like the Bret Hart doublecross happen all the time and it's too much of a shitpile to have to deal with that sort of thing all the time.

Vince McMahon gave his speech about insulting the intelligence of the fans and presenting a more real life product, but you know that Steve Austin is going to win the World title from Shawn Michaels at WM14, and he'll do it cleanly. Why? Because that's what we've been crying for for months now. Steve is Everyman, one SOB against the world and Shawn represents the celebrities and politicians who sit on top of the throne and look down upon us normal folk. That's why Steve is so popular and that's why it'll be so satisfying to the fans for him to knock him out of his boots and take the title.

People, especially those who think themselves to be "in the know," just don't realize how well the promoters know them and how deeply they themselves are being worked.

Rule #1: We only know what they want us to know.

People talked about the Bret Hart-Steve Austin double turn at Wrestlemania 13 as a kind of cosmic fluke, a one-in-a-million thing that could never happen again.

Bullshit.

Vince McMahon, Bret Hart and Steve Austin are all professionals. All three knew all along what they were doing and there was no luck involved in it at all. After 20 years, if Bret doesn't know how to make a crowd spontaneously hate him then he's got no business lacing up the boots anymore. Vince knows what the crowd wants: A working class hero they can relate to. The 80s were larger-than-life, thus Hulk Hogan. The 90s are the decade of rebellion against, well, everything, thus Steve Austin.

You are being worked by the WWF and WCW every day and you don't even know it anymore. The online fans have degenerated into a bunch of know-it-all near-marks who read something on "Scoops" and consider themselves instant experts on Hulk Hogan's contract status.

I bet you don't even know why you hate Hulk Hogan so much, do you? Hogan is currently playing a very well-defined role, that of the Cowardly Heel. He's not being booked very well, but that's a different issue. Hogan's job is to be full of bluster and not have the balls to back any of it up. As long as he doesn't wrestle, it works great. Of course, once he gets into the ring he dominates his opponent and screws the whole act up, but that's yet another different issue.

And while I'm at it, I noticed yet ANOTHER post this week saying that the WWF had once again hit rock bottom with Goldust's antics on RAW. Folks, this makes something like 14 times that they've hit rock bottom. Make up your minds. And get a grip. Stop focusing your anger at Vince McMahon. You'll find that you enjoy the experience much more if you boo Goldust like you're supposed to do, and you'll also find that it's much more satisfying when Vader beats some sense into him at the Royal Rumble.

Which leads me back to my original gripe: I tried to mark out for Sting v. Hogan. Honest. But Hogan controlled the entire match, and the ending was just so damned goofy that I couldn't help but sit there picking out all the inconsistencies in the "fast" count and missed cues and everything else. I mean, this isn't rocket science. There was no need to overbook this match when all it took was a royal ass-kicking by Sting to finish the angle perfectly. Even if Hogan had won cleanly, which would have rendered the angle and feud totally meaningless but would have at least made SOME sense (ie. Sting was ring-rusted), I could have lived with that. Heels never win cleanly anymore and it's a refreshing change when one does and it pisses off the fans much more effectively than a 1000 Dusty Finishes ever could, plus builds to a rematch for more money. See Michaels v. Bulldog.

So what am I saying? Fuck if I know. I think I'm saying if you want to be a cynical fart like me and overanalyze everything in wrestling to death, at least take the time to study the history of wrestling and learn why promoters do what they do. Don't have a mark reaction to Hogan's cheating and then blame Eric Bischoff for booking it that way. Just boo the guy and get on with your life.

But what do I know, I'm just being worked here.