WWE sacrificed Hulk Hogan to save themselves

Hulk Hogan is one of the most well known people in the world. He's also, apparently, a racist, and WWE has disassociated itself from him. They have to do it, because they don't want anyone looking their way for more racism. And we all know if people start looking there, THEY WILL FIND IT.

Hulk Hogan worked for WWE for more than 20 years, and has been closely tied to the company at the highest levels for all of that time. He used to hang out at the Vince McMahon's house and help write the shows. He used to tour with Vince for more than 300 days a year. He helped Vince get into movies. And he helped make Vince a billionaire. So they're close.

Hulk Hogan was exposed as a racist last night. I'm sure this news was no shock to Vince McMahon. Because he's probably told the same racist jokes and stories as Hogan himself.

Now, I don't have any proof of that, but I do know that WWE has a history of racist stereotypes. They've only had one black WWF Champion in their history, and they won't even refer to him as black. Vince McMahon got real close to saying some racist stuff about Booker T on live TV years ago, and said the word "niggardly" on Smackdown once, I guess, because he feels like he should be able to say "nigger" as openly as he does in his own house.   Then, called John Cena a "nigga" in front of Booker T because he thought it was funny.  D-Generation X did a skit mocking the Nation of Domination with four white guys wearing blackface.  More than once, the WWF has tried to run a "race war" angle in their programming, which was an excuse for white people to say bad stuff about black people in promos.  They had a Mexican tag team drive riding lawnmowers to the ring.  A couple of years ago, they fired Alberto del Rio for defending himself against racism. And they've employed Michael P.S. Hayes since the dark ages.

Continuing to employ Michael P.S. Hayes when people know him as a racist before they know him as a wrestler speaks volumes about WWE. Because you know he isn't the only one. I kinda wish Mark Henry wasn't under contract, so he could tell us every racist he's confronted backstage.  WWE has gotta be infested with them, because one thing I know about racists is that they like to hang out with other racists.

And if Hogan is a racist, and Vince is most likely a racist (a Republican from North Carolina who employs racists for 20 year stints, and hangs out with racist Republican candidate Donald Trump), then who else in WWE is a racist?  Racists always prefer to create environments where they're free to be racist, so you know there's gotta be a lot of them. 

And that's why they shut the door on Hulk Hogan, because they don't want anyone asking that question.  They had to get Hulk up out the paint before folks start connecting dots on this.  Sure, they don't want their company "associated with such virulent hatred and yadda yadda yadda, we totally nailed that press release."  Yes, they want people of all races at their shows because black and Latino dollars spend, too. They're just covered in chicken grease and dried beans. But the real reason is because they don't want anyone coming for them.

And that's not to make Hogan the victim. Hulk Hogan should be out on his ass. It's kind of hard to say that knowing how much I bought in to Hulkamania as a child, teenager, and young adult, but facts are facts. He doesn't like me or anybody who looks like me. So for that, fuck him. I'd be a fool if I wasted time trying to figure out the context for why this guy hates black people.  The answer, evidently, is that everyone famous in the 1980s was a piece of shit.  Sylvester Stallone is next, and having a small Italian beat up black men in five out of six Rocky movies is gonna be the proof against him.

So no, Hogan isn't a victim and WWE isn't mistreating him. They're just throwing him under the bus to save themselves. But it's too late. The racist train has already left the station.  Just like Donald Sterling, though, they aren't cutting ties with Hogan because he's racist, otherwise, they would have done it 20 years ago.  They're cutting ties with Hogan because you know he's a racist. 

This is a huge story already, and it will only grow from here. When we hear this racist tape, the question will inevitably become, "Did WWE know that Hulk Hogan was so repulsive?" And that's when all your favorite minority wrestlers will come out with stories to tell. Alberto del Rio is READY for your airtime, television media. And this might be the come-up that Virgil has been looking for. Koko's gotta make sure that the curl is juicy. And we might finally get an explanation about what the hell Akeem was supposed to be.

#CancelWWENetwork is a thing, and I don't blame you

Please don't misunderstand, WWE.  People aren't canceling their WWE subscriptions because Roman Reigns won the Royal Rumble.  They're not canceling because Daniel Bryan lost, either.  That would be pretty stupid.  People are canceling their subscriptions because they're tired of your shit.

Your show is trash, WWE.  Raw is trash.  Smackdown is trash.  NXT is cool.  Your pay-per-views are trash.  And have been for quite sometime.

I quit watching WWE in 2007 or so, because your shows started crapping out.  They were not worth my time.  They were not entertaining.  And WWE was not missed.  The Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania came to Atlanta during that time, but I didn't care.  I wasn't watching, and I didn't, until 2011, because I heard about CM Punk and the "pipebomb" promo.  And once I saw that things hadn't changed at all, I quit watching again.  But I wanted to watch wrestling, so I watched TNA instead.  At the time, TNA still qualified as "wrestling."

I'd check in from time to time with WWE after that, right up until the present day, and it was never getting any better.  Boring angles, uninteresting wrestlers, the endless three-hour death march known as "Monday Night Raw."  Like, they named a guy "Bad News Barrett," in the tradition of "Bad News Allen/Brown," who was named such because, if you got into it with him, it was bad news for you.  The updated version of this gimmick?  He literally came out and gave people bad news.

We went from a tough guy to a guy whose gimmick was to say, "I've got some bad news. Your city sucks," or whatever he said that week.  This is the level of creativity we're dealing with here.

And all the while, ticket prices are rising and pay-per-views are getting astronomical in price.  Wrestlemania had reached $60.  The average price was $45, and there was at least one every month.  And you're getting Bad News Barrett for your money?

So then, WWE introduces the WWE Network in 2014, and for $10 a month, you can watch all of their pay-per-views, WCW's pay-per-views, ECW's pay-per-views, and all kinds of old shows and content.  Not only that, you can watch the new pay-per-views live each month, for no extra money.  It's a great deal, and eventually, I signed up for that.  Not to watch the new shit, mind you, because it's dogshit.  I signed up to watch the old shit.  But if you're gonna throw in that month's show for free, I'll check it out.  And that's what I started doing back in November.

And the three pay-per-views I've watched haven't been worth the ten bucks.  Just some of the shittiest damn wrestling shows I've ever seen.

Now, I know how disappointed I was, and I had just started watching again.  I can only imagine how folks feel when they've been watching the entire time.  Before the network, when you had to pay full price for these shows.  When you were paying all this money in ticket prices.  When you were watching their shows every week.  And the shows are just awful, but the people running the show don't care.  You're still coming, you're still watching, so why change?

But WWE has invested a lot in this network, and they want it to take off.  It's been struggling to get subscribers, even at that low price.  They can't afford to lose the subscribers they have.  That's their weak spot.  They could ignore you when they were just on TV or on pay-per-view, because there are other entities involved that are providing money to the company.  Ratings had been dropping since 2002.  They didn't care.  They had advertisers and such to keep giving them money.  But this network is all on them.  And these numbers come to them in real time.  So frustrated viewers can make their voices heard.  By canceling.

Enough was enough, and when you can't do any better for one of your big four shows than what we got last night (and Survivor Series before it), well, I don't blame folks for canceling.  I don't know where this idea comes from that people can't dislike the shows that they watch, and they can't complain when something that was good isn't good anymore.  Some people enjoyed the Royal Rumble, but a lot people didn't.  And that's not because Roman Reigns won and Daniel Bryan didn't.  It's because it was a shit show, and along the way, they seemed to take special care to keep people from enjoying the guys they like.  If you gave Daniel Bryan fans (or Dolph Ziggler or Cesaro or Dean Ambrose) a good showing before he lost, people might not have reacted the way they did.

It wasn't worth $45 for PPV, or whatever people paid for tickets, or even the three hours it took to watch it.  Here's hoping that WWE finally starts to understand that.

CM Punk should be your hero

Seems like everyone has had a few choice words for CM Punk this year, whether it was because he left, how he left, or because he explained his reasons for leaving. Everyone seems to think he's a bitch for walking out on Vince McMahon, like doing the right thing matters in that situation.  In 2011, he was cool for saying everything we had been saying about the company, but now, he's whining. And I don't get that, because the people who are talking shit should really understand where he's coming from. I know I do.

Right now, I'm working a job that I hate. It isn't the first time, but hopefully, it'll be the last time. I get burnt out dealing with the same, easily fixable bullshit that happens around here, or being told that management is listening, but they ignore you when you show up with ideas. Or having to be the one who takes the hit when other people can't or won't do their job correctly. That shit gets tiring and stressful, and if it wasn't for the fact that I don't have millions in the bank, I'd tell that place to go fuck themselves expeditiously.

So I understand where Punk is coming from, and that's before you factor in that he had to risk his already injured body to make dangerous people like Ryback look good for six nights a week. No matter how much money you make, some days, you just lie in bed and dread the amount of shit that's coming your way.  And goddammit, you just don't want to deal with it anymore.

Maybe we don't want to understand his side because he's living our dream, and we think that's what we want. And because it looks awesome, that's what he should want, too. He ain't digging a ditch.  He travels and he's famous.  He gets to be at Comic-Con and on Talking Dead.  Plus, he's a millionaire, and stupid people think that means you lose your right to complain.  But that's part of the problem, and like Punk says, Vince is taking advantage of that.

Just because everyone wants it and thinks they're willing to put up with it or its been done this way for so long doesn't mean it's correct. Slavery was practiced in America for 400 years. Rape and dowries used to be a part of the courtship process. Drilling holes in the skull used to be a legitimate medical practice. And just because John Cena is willing to go 400 days straight with no break doesn't mean that CM Punk should have to suffer in silence. If he isn't physically or mentally capable of holding up anymore, for whatever reason, then he should go home.

And that's before we get into the petty shit that WWE does.

Yeah, WWE is petty, and we've known this since the Huckster and Scheme Gene. We've lambasted WWE for decades because Vince McMahon is a very small man when he wants to be. He was the bad guy when he did those skits and he continued to be the bad guy up until he fired Alberto del Rio for slapping a racist backstage. He lets all sorts of bigots, sexists, and bullies run rampant in his locker room. He encouraged his wrestlers to use steroids, while at the same time telling those wrestlers that they didn't really work for him.  And even though they didn't really work for him, when they left his employ, he limited their employment opportunities elsewhere (no-compete clauses). He's your best friend when he can make money off of you, and when you're all used up, ready to die, or completely hate the business, you never hear from him again. And people don't put up with it because they love fake fighting or because they're heroes. They put up with it because they've been raised to believe that this is how it's supposed to be, as long as Vince is paying you.  For one guy, the money wasn't incentive enough to keep coming back. And that's the guy you call a bitch?

Man, fuck that. You've walked away from jobs and people for way less, so miss me with this shit about how Punk should have stuck it out or that WWE was somehow in the right. If Punk's story is correct, he went home because he was hurt and burnt out, WWE didn't want to fix anything that was wrong with him (because he's an "independent contractor"), then they fired him on his wedding day (and of course they knew all about it, because fucking AJ Lee had to have that time off).  If Punk's story wasn't true, don't you think WWE would have immediately sued him for telling it?  Don't you think they would have responded online? Vince had the floor just last week on Stone Cold's podcast, and didn't refute a damn thing. 

No, I don't fault CM Punk at all. In fact, I'm jealous, because I wish I could do that shit.

Because as badly as I'd like to see him cutting promos and giving me one solid reason to watch WWE, now he's living my dream. He has the freedom, like Chris Jericho or Rob Van Dam, or John Morrison before him to go explore the other shit that they like to do. And if he ever decides he wants to wrestle again, he can. And if not, he doesn't have to.  CM Punk should be your hero, because he told the establishment to kiss his ass, and legally speaking, they did it. 

Only this time, it wasn't kayfabe.  And that's unfortunate, because I was hoping he'd demand the ice cream bars again. 

Everybody can't be Eddie Guerrero. So stop holding that against Chavo.

There's no shame in not being as talented as Eddie Guerrero. 

There have been thousands of wrestlers to walk the earth in the last hundred years.  It's safe to say that many of them were not on Eddie Guerrero's level.  You're talking about a guy who was strong, athletic, super-charismatic, and able to match up with any wrestler in the world.  When he was alive, he was easily one of the five best wrestlers in the world.  Since guys like that don't grow on trees, people get that, since he was so great, there was no shame in not being able to live up to his standard.

Unless you're Chavo Guerrero, Jr.  Then, you just plain suck.

Chavo had the misfortune of being raised with Eddie Guerrero.  Had he grown up anywhere else in the world and become a wrestler, he'd be looked at respectably, and judged on what he can and can't do.  But because his last name is Guerrero, this guy has to live the rest of his life being told that he isn't Eddie.  If only his last name was Cruz.  Chavo Cruz might have been a world champion by now, or at the very least, a TNA World Champion. 

All that's ever said about Chavo on the internet is that he isn't as good as Eddie and that he's getting by based on his name.  To be fair, everything said about everyone on the internet just as negative, but when it comes to Chavo, I'm like, "You're taking it too far, internet.  You're talking about him like you're talking about President Obama."  The guy just can't do anything right. 

So he isn't charismatic as Eddie.  So he doesn't move like Eddie.  So he isn't the wrestler that Eddie was.  Who the fuck is?  You know who else wasn't Eddie Guerrero?  AJ Styles.  Or Rey Misterio, Jr.  Or Big Show.  Or Christian.  But no one's rubbing their noses in the fact that they aren't some other guy.  Except maybe Christian.  I mean, Edge was so much bigger than him. 

But folks do it to Chavo because they share the same name.  All the while overlooking the fact that he's pretty damn good himself.  No, he's not Eddie, but he's a guy that also has good, fast-paced, exciting matches.  And he's stuck next to fucking Hernandez.  The internet is so fixated on hating Chavo for not being Eddie that they're overlooking the fact that he's teaming with Hernandez and still manages to pull good matches out of his ass.  Now that is talent.  When was the last time Eddie had to carry a shit partner like that?

The internet:  "When he teamed with Chavo." 

Me:  "Well, I guess I kind of walked right into that one, didn't I?"

Except that Eddie didn't have to carry Chavo through those matches.  No one did.  It ain't like he was Erik Watts, a clear case of nepotism.  Chavo carried his weight, held his own, whatever cliche you want to use to describe someone who does their part.  Chavo was one of the "Smackdown Six," and for once, he wasn't just "Eddie's nephew" something like that, where he could be dismissed.  He was on equal ground with everyone else.  And was just as big a part of those matches as Edge or Rey Misterio, Jr. or [REDACTED] or Kurt Angle.  Or, yes, even Eddie Guerrero.  Go back and watch those matches.  World titles be damned; Chavo Guerrero, Jr. can wrestle.

It's safe to admit it to yourself, Internet.

The Art and Zen of Naming Wrestlers

Paul Heyman made Albert relevant simply by changing his name to “A-Train.” Before that, he was just Albert: A wrestler so boring, he couldn’t draw heat if you threw gasoline and matches at him while he was sleeping inside of a jet engine. But all Heyman did was change his name, give him a better entrance, and the possibilities became endless. Everything else about him was exactly the same, but he SOUNDED more interesting. Who wouldn’t want to watch a wrestler named “A-Train?” It’s like the difference between a wrestler named Wayne “The Train” Bloom and a wrestler named Blake Beverly. In your mind, Wayne “The Train” Bloom would stomp Blake Beverly’s fruity, purple-star-wearing ass. Names go a long way towards whether or not a wrestler’s gonna get the channel changed on him.

It’s the reason why they stopped calling Triple H, “Hunter Hearst Helmsley.” And it’s the reason why some wrestlers simply won’t stand a chance with the names they’re saddled with. I know; it’s not Vince’s fault that the angels delivered Gene Snitsky’s unborn soul to parents who would actually name him “Gene Snitsky.” But it is Vince’s fault that he looked at this guy and said, “Look, the fact that your ancestors were cursed by phonetics back in the old country shouldn’t stand in the way of my ability to exploit you. Let’s call you something else.” Snitsky’s not a bad wrestler, just a poorly named one. And some things just can’t be overcome.

So knowing this, it baffles the mind why The E insists on calling former NWA World Champion Ron “The Truth” Killings by the ridiculous “R-Truth.” I guess Vince took it personal that Killings found some success outside of his watch and not when he was called the equally ridiculous “K-Kwik” or “K-Krush.” This also baffles me because John Cena and Batista use their extremely bland real names when they could have kept on being “Prototype” and “Leviathan.”

What causes the need for these name changes? Why was “Wildcat” Chris Harris changed to “Braden Walker?” Why was Monty Brown changed to “Marcus Cor Von?” Are their names changed just because they came from TNA? Because in my mind, letting viewers know that Harris was a champion somewhere else or that Monty Brown has won the Super Bowl before might add some credibility to their debuting wrestlers. Otherwise, fans will notice how out of shape they look.

Not only that, what causes them to give wrestlers really bad names? Why make it harder for Kenny “Dykstra” or “Dolph Ziegler” than it has to be? The second I hear a guy come out named “Dolph Ziegler,” I’m instantly reminded why I stopped watching this crap: It’s really stupid. The guy could be Shawn Michaels mixed with Eddie Guerrero and Jesus, but when I hear “Dolph Ziegler,” I automatically think, “This guy never had a chance.

It would be one thing if they were changing these guys’ names to something that sounds good, but they’re giving them names that sound like they should be looking up at the lights at the end of the match. If you’re in charge of coming up with names for people and the best you can do is say, “I’m gonna name this guy after my favorite baseball player and send him out there,” we need to hook up after I get done writing this, because I know you give the bomb head.

Could you imagine if Ric Flair was sent out as “Ricky Fleihr,” because no one had the imagination to actually call him “Ric Flair,” or if it was “Mikey Higginbottom” who debuted alongside Marty Jannetty instead of “Shawn Michaels?” What about “Terry Gene Bollea?” “Sid Eudy?” Or even “Mick Foley?” Of course you can’t imagine it, because even if this fantasy, you know the guy wouldn’t have stuck around long enough for you to remember who he was. If “Larry Pfohl” had shown up in the NWA, I would have been too busy tripping over the strange combination of consonants to notice his lack of wrestling ability.

Point being, it’s all about sounding like a star when you name a wrestler. “Shawn Michaels” sounds like he should be famous for something, be it pro wrestling or drilling your favorite female porn stars. “Mike Higginbottom” sounds lke he works at a used car lot. No offense, Shawn.

Of course, just because a guy has a snappy sounding name doesn’t mean he’s automatically going to be successful, because David Flair went down in flames. But it helps for his name to make him sound like he’s not a loser to someone who hasn’t seen you yet. And just because WCW got lucky with “GOLDBERG” doesn’t mean that sticking with “LASHLEY” was the right move.

Everyone’s can’t be blessed with an ass-kicker’s name, like “Brock Lesnar,” so for every wrestler whose name really is “Garrison” or “Gregory,” The E should help them out by not making them face the world with those names, when they could be calling them “Lance” or “Hurricane.” But even in trying to help these guys’ careers by giving an eye-catching name, The E should still try to steer clear of making the wrestler in question wish he had used his real name instead.

Why TNA Continues to Fail

The Jarretts' TNA Wrestling promotion has been on Spike TV since 2005. It is arguably the centerpiece of the SpikeTV lineup, as wrestling shows tend to be when there's nothing else worth mentioning on the network. Despite the promotion's growing popularity, it can't seem to really get over the hump as far as ratings are concerned. Now, I can't say much about the actual product, but I can say a quite a bit about the retarded network they're on. From what I do know about TNA's actual show, there's no reason why they shouldn't consistently pull down higher ratings than they do. So why is TNA still pulling 1.0's, despite having a roster of extremely popular wrestlers?

Impact airs on Thursday Nights.
Sure, let's put our minor-league wrestling show on the most stacked night of the week. Listen, if I was a TV executive, I wouldn't put a show on Thursday nights even if it had the backing of a real network. That's the night that's only for the best of the best, so please don't think that people are gonna stop watching "ER" to watch a show that's three steps away from the indys. It's not 1999 anymore and people aren't dying for more wrestling. The reason why it worked for Smackdown is because A:) Everyone knew the WWF. B:) Wrestling was peaking at the time. C:) They had the backing of a major network (in comparison to SpikeTV, UPN was major). D:) Stone Cold and The Rock. Point being, Thursday is a brutal night. Hell, WCW Thunder was wholly owned by the company that ran the network it was on, and it only lasted a year and some change on Thursdays.

SpikeTV won't promote the show outside of Impact.
This one is the killer, and this one is the reason why Spike had an open slot for wrestling to begin with. When Raw came to TNN back in 2000, it was by far the highest rated show on cable. It was pulling 6's and 7's in a format that's doing well to get 4's. And from the minute it went to TNN, the ratings dropped by two points and stayed there. Now, sure, by the time they left TNN, the show was complete crap, but at the time, it was still hot. WWF Superstars were still seen everywhere and the Monday Night Wars were still going on. Wrestling was still must-see-TV. So what happened to those two ratings points? Less people had TNN than USA, sure, but those who did barely knew that Raw was even on TNN.

I don't know where TNN learned how to promote, but clearly it wasn't from people who ran good networks, because the only time a commercial for Raw was ever seen by these eyes was DURING Raw, which is really, really retarded. Why are you going to promote the show that they're already watching? If this had been NBC, you would have seen commercials during every show they had, which is what they do for shows they expect to be big. They call that "promotion," back in the old country. For instance, how many times a day do you see a commercial for "My Own Worst Enemy?" I'll bet that everyone knows that Christian Slater has a show coming out.

But TNN didn't do that for Raw, TNN didn't do that for ECW before it, and SpikeTV isn't doing that for Impact. When Raw was peaking on USA, you saw commercials for it everywhere and you saw their wrestlers everywhere. TNA Wrestlers aren't even featured outside their own show. Hell, even Sci-Fi saw the wisdom in having CM Punk on that ghost show. Is it helping? I don't know, because, fuck fake ECW. But at least they're trying.

Thing is, if the biggest promotion on the planet was losing viewers, with their biggest stars, DURING THEIR PEAK, on this network, what chance does an fledgling promotion like TNA have?

Spike TV is listed at the end of everyone's channel run.
This might not be true, but i know everywhere I've seen SpikeTV, it's always channel 78 or something like that, which basically assures that no one will EVER see it while channel surfing. I don't know about anyone else, but my finger gets tired somewhere around ESPN (46, 47). I know that everything after that is Lifetime, Oxygen, and crap like that, so I skip straight to Comedy Central (68) and then back to the beginning. I honestly keep forgetting that I even have SpikeTV.

Bottom line, I don't think TNA will ever succeed on SpikeTV, because they just don't care. Clearly, through its evolution from The Nashville Network to The National Network (the fuck does that even mean?) to SpikeTV, they've still got the same good ol' boy, small time mentality that has kept them a second rate network all along. TNA isn't the only thing suffering over there. "Blade" was getting some positive reviews, and it still got cancelled. I only knew about "Afro Samurai," because I saw it in "Wizard," and that show stars Samuel L. Jackson. Most people will watch anything that man is in ("Shaft," by God. "Shaft."), yet no one watches that show.

So moving TNA to Monday nights won't help, because no one's going to know that they're on Monday nights. They've already got some of the biggest names in the business and that's not helping. They're branching out, touring, got video games on the way...what more can TNA do? The only thing that hasn't changed is the way SpikeTV does things. So if TNA wants to finally become one of the big boys, they're going to have to get off of Thursday nights on a network not named SpikeTV. You'll see how right I am when Smackdown starts outperforming Impact on MyNetwork TV.

Buff Bagwell's Failing Money Making Scheme

ormer WCW Star Buff Bagwell has a Myspace page!

Yeah, I know. Normally, I wouldn't care, either. But I happened upon this page today, where he states that for $9.95, he'll add you to his Myspace friends list. Unfortunately, he deleted the part where he says that he forgot he wasn't famous.

Myspace is a free service. No one pays for anything on here, and if Myspace started charging for ANYTHING, I'm sure the numbers would start dropping dramatically. John Cena is the WWE Champion and one of the biggest names in wrestling. Last year, he had a Myspace page, with thousands of friends. If there was anyone in wrestling who would be able to get away with charging to be added to a Myspace friends list, it would have been John Cena.

How many friends does Buff Bagwell have? Currently, he's sitting firm at 94. Most of them seem to be the pages of other wrestlers and I'm guessing that they didn't pay $9.95 to be added. Demands like that are a good way to get stiffed in the ring.

I'm just curious why he thought that this would work. Clearly, the he's not seeing the windfall. Maybe that's because he hasn't been a regular fixture of a national promotion since 2001 when the WWF fired him after, what? Two matches? He made an appearance with TNA earlier this year, but no one watches TNA. The last time anyone who cared about anything Buff Bagwell was doing saw him in 2001. Everyone else probably thought that he was already dead from steroid abuse.

You oughta be ashamed, Buff. Your remaining 27 fans look down their nose at you.