Hello out there! For those of you who do not know me, I'm Flea from 411Wrestling.com. You may also know me as RYDER FAKIN, famous for the ever popular Six Degrees of Ryder Fakin, where I continue to prove that not only wrestling, but the entire world revolves around Bob Ryder. I know what you are thinking (cheesy gimmick) but hey, it got me a high profile gig at one of the top sites in the IWC and isn't that what everyone wants to do? What's the point of doing a column if no one reads the damn thing? And evidently everyone wants their opinion to be heard, hence the popularity of Message Boards like Wienerville or the forum at 411, just to name a few.

So basically, the small amount of fame that I have garnered can sometimes go to my head. Well, not really, but I do take a certain amount of enjoyment knowing that RIGHT NOW I can converse with anyone who is anyone in the IWC and not be treated like a troll or a fuck. Can you say the same? Do sometimes you wish that YOU could be the one in this position? Of course you do. But with this small modicum of fame comes a price that I overlooked until a few weeks ago.

I have a (now) sixteen year cousin who is a HUGE wrestling fan and has been since he was a child. I'm partly to blame for this because in his formative years, I was the one carting him to the matches and had available for him almost any wrestling tape or program he would ever want to watch. As he got older and "smartened up" so to speak, I continued to attempt to educate him in "smart" viewing, i.e. how a wrestling show should be watched without the hindrance of "mark goggles" but not totally overwhelm him with the "smark" bullshit that goes along with it. In other words, to mold him in my own image. I, myself, am still a huge mark and refuse to get bogged down in the negativity that everyone seems to revel in to the point of sheer stupidity. However, I am also old enough to know the difference between the two a can block out 98.4% of it. I always thought that he could not and would become jaded. But finally, after many, many hours of contemplation I decided to introduce him to the Internet Wrestling Community.

I should point out that up until that time, my cousin did read the Internet, but only the "big" sites like WWF.com and WCW.com. Basically a homogenized version of "insider news" (that's because we, as proud members of the IWC know the REAL story, they ain't foolin us, by gawd) but enough to wet the appetite of a young fan who thinks Austin, Rock-E and HHH all tell the truth in those ever popular "shoot" interviews that the Fed feeds to us. Baloney! But it's definitely a step up from when I was growing up, having to depend on PWI, The Wrestler and Inside Wrestling. Oh, how I loved the Apter mags but times have changed and so has the common fans perception of wrestling.

Anyway, I finally sat him down and showed him the proper way to surf for the "inside" scoop in regards to wrestling. I kept him away from the Observer and Torch and instead pointed him in the direction of TOA, 411 and of course Slashwrestling.com. (as a side note, I also sent him to 1wrestling.com where the prevalence of pop-ups crashed his computer several times! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha HA! "Flea, you are an asshole! he says, but I have a hard time taking seriously anyone whose voice is in the "changing stage". Croak croak.). Once exposed to this new world of "smart thinking" it was like opening Pandora's box...ain't no turning back...

So our conversations quickly turned from "Hey, it's cool to have Rock -E back" to "why won't the Undertaker sell and why is HHH holding down Jericho?" Although I'm German - Italian and not Jewish, I still slap my head and yell "OY VEY" every time he starts with that stuff. "Where are you learning this? I ask politely, (not wanting to smack the kid or even worse call him a "stupid motherfucker") and his answer is normally "I read it on the net". I suppose I have no one to blame but myself for this, but I can live with that. Recently, I have managed to straighten him out a little, at least to the point of still being able to enjoy the shows instead of being so goddamned critical of every little thing that happens. Hell, it worked for many of the readers of my news columns and EXCESS reports over on 411, so there is a place for positive thinking as opposed to thinking that you can book, write and manage better than the professionals.

Which brings me back to my original theme of Internet Wrestling Community, the fame and the perils. For most of his life he has known me as Flea, but until just last week, he never put two and two together and realized I am THE Flea from 411 wrestling. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I had not written a news column since April, when I decided to take the summer off. My cousin kept seeing references to "Flea" through out various columns at 411 and decided to probe the archives and found my entire winters worth of news columns and EXCESS reports. When he realized that I was THE Flea, he immediately brought it to my attention that he had read my writings. Needless to say, I was quite honored and, for lack of a better term, feeling like a BAD MOTHERFUCKER as I just knew he would have a million questions about what it's like to be a prestigious member of the Internet Wrestling Community, not to mention worshipped and adored by many fans. So we sat down and I prepared to answer whatever he wanted to know, maybe even possibly letting him include some of his thoughts in a future news column.

Giggling like a little school kid, he asked me the one question that had been on the tip of his tongue since he discovered my "fame".

"Do you REALLY know Hyatte?"

And people wonder why I drink.

Happy 3rd Anniversary CRZ and thanks for all the reading pleasure you have provided me over the years. And contrary to my RYDER FAKIN gimmick, the world actually revolves around YOU and not BOB. But CRZ FAKIN just doesn't have that special ring to it. And it's really tough to goof on someone that does not go out of their way to step in shit.

FLEA
411 WRESTLING.COM