Oct 4

Oct 4 009 - Slobberknocker

THE WRESTLING ARTICLE

Professional Wrestling – the greatest nerdiest thing on the internet, that’s also the corniest, dumbest thing out there.

The TL;DR – it’s stunt fighting, it takes skill coordination, and great theatrics to pull it off well, just like magic takes practice, just like understanding how to play an instrument, and other weird parlor tricks like juggling flaming pins on a unicycle.

Obviously, this year has been one of the strangest years in the history of the medium. That some call “Sports Entertainment”, which maybe if you include Roller Derby and Matadors in the same category, then I guess, go for it, champ.

WWE went from Vince McMahon to Paul Levesque, Triple H himself, and when the main draw of AEW was “it’s not vince”, it’s making this “battle of the promotions” very wild. I mean, they got Jake Paul to go to Saudi Arabia to do a little wrestle, social media is weird.

Then on AEW, you have amazing tag teams like FTR and The Acclaimed, that are just taking a stagnant style, and making it fun – as a good distraction from WHATEVER THE FUCK happened with The Trios Titles and everybody from CM Punk to Kenny Omega to The Young Bucks that you just sorta go – at least Jericho and Moxley and Danielson are there to put on wonderful shows and help build new talent.

Obviously, wrestling fandom has grown and grown, partially because of the success of Botchamania (shout-outs to Maffew, I WAS WRONG ABOUT TELLING YOU TO END IT AFTER 100 EPISODES, also thanks for the Crystal Maze episodes, luv u)

And the fandom that brings luke warm gaming takes to wrestling shows – FF8 is not good? That’s shocking, but at least it’s not gay slurs like the attitude era, I guess.

Indie wrestling has been in an uptick on youtube and many indie darlings like your Danhausens and your Effy and Kidd Bandits show that this medium can be everything and nothing at the same time. It can be comedy, it can be serious, it can be, just fun. And yes, I’m looking at Dark Shiek and everything at Hoodslam.

I mean, even James Stephanie Sterling Son is doing the wrestles and they have a whole galactus gimmick going where I guess we should thank god for them? As they champion consumer rights, unionizing, and yes, trans rights in a somewhat divisive gaming atmosphere.

And that’s not including all the great wrestlers who have a YouTube following, from Adam Cole Bay Bay aka Chugs, Nyla Rose doing some spooky scary streams, to my G4 King, WWE Superstar Xavier Woods aka Austin Creed with Up Up Down Down and G4’s Attack of the Show.

This version of wrestling, is at least to me, the best version. Because at this point, all it does is make the annoying grown-up go “YOU KNOW ITS FAKE RIGHT?” seem like a dorky idiot going “Santa isn’t Real” like no fucking shit, but there is athleticism involved, and if done correctly, is written better than most comic book movies. But if done incorrectly – makes every Max Landis video look worse.

There is that “believability” that resonates with people, and sometimes they want that “Shoot” realism in their “I’m gonna beat you up” promos, but when it gets too realistic, or too “internet wrestling community” with all the lingo, its very cringey.

For proof, let me just say random words like “heelturn” “babyface” “worked shoot” “potato receipt” and “smark” and wince very much. That’s what happens, that’s the “I want to reference Dark Side of the Ring, and make it edgy, but it sounds terrible”

I know, I'm scattered all over the place on this article, but it's just so much on my mind about it, what about Royal Rumble, when will AEW get it’s WrestleMania SuperCard? How could this nerdy hobby also bring the worst in others?

And obviously, what is the best video games of all time, and what’s my favorite wrestlers. Well I really shouldn't go through all these in one podcast episode, especially if we need to come back later. But I'll try and answer some of them right now.

The match that got me into wrestling was WrestleMania 12, the one with Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels in the 60 minute iron man match, the one that in hindsight wasted an hour of an audience time to end up with a one fall sudden death, but had the infamous conclusion of “THE BOYHOOD DREAM HAS COME TRUE FOR SHAWN MICHAELS” and so you follow those two wrestlers, this was obviously going to get weird just a little later when it’s Montreal Screwjob, and when you're a kid trying to make sense of it, because your dumb child self was at the “this is real”, was one of the earliest “yeah this is rehearsed“ moments. So you watch where they go, Shawn doing the DX things with Triple H and Bret going to WCW when they had all these amazing cruiserweight flippy-doos and pyros and here’s Bret, just sitting around, even though you loved his technical achievements but only thing you remember was “oh he wrestled Will Sasso from Mad TV”… yep. But it's all good, Because hey here's Chris Jericho giving the Dean Malenko 1004 holds list and then the NWO TOO SWEET and eventually, you realize how stupid Jay Leno fighting is, and think “well that's it I'm watching Dave Letterman”

Ah damn it, that's what I should've talked about, Dave Letterman, maybe next time or in a later episode.

But for now, lets fast forward to modern day, WWE 2K games have somehow gotten better, there is an aew game coming soon, and wrestling has a second surge. It's power rangers but with more pyrotechnics and more cool theme songs, and sometimes, the best matches to watch are ones you forget about.

Which reminds me, WRESTLE KINGDOM IS COMING UP IN JANUARY AH DAMN IT I GOTTA STAY UP LATE DAMN IT.

I’m sure there is a story or a message or something to talk about, but I think the cross between a white claw and a 300 mg energy drink in the writing room isn't a good mix. So I'm going to stop writing now, and hope Jordan banters a bit more while I go sleepy