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| Guest Columns | Matt Hayden |
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CRZ has ( foolishly ) said that whatever I contribute would be
appreciated, so I hope to contribute regularly to this page. I think
I'll write about mostly random stuff, maybe a parody here, an opinion
column there, and also some little flashback items, because I love
doing those. Please be warned that my "flashbacks" only go back to 1992;
that is when I started watching wrestling, BUT, I own most of the PPV
tapes from 1989 and on, so I have a pretty good idea of what went on
then, if not on a week by week basis. Also, I am 16, so when I started
watching wrestling at the age of 9, I was what we would call a
"mark". It wasn't until 1994 that I realized wrestling was not scripted.
Some examples of my markdom: When watching PPVs from the late 80's and early 90s, I waited with anticipation for the main event, which ALWAYS consisted of Hulk Hogan fighting a heel, and Hogan winning all the time. Yes, I loved these matches, because I thought MAYBE the heel would win. I finally assumed that Hogan could not be beaten because he was steadfast in eating his vitamins ( snicker ) and saying his prayers. I briefly experimented with wrestling on my little brother. I insisted that he was to try his best to escape a suplex, bodyslam, or reverse chinlock, because that was what the guys in the WWF did. Funny, try as I might, I could not execute a vertical suplex on him with him squirming like a worm on a hook. Again, I made a final assumption, that the WWF wrestlers were able to do this due to inconceivable amounts of strength that I was foolish to even try to understand. I believed that changing from a face to a heel or vice versa meant the individual was REALLY undergoing a major life transformation. It took me a couple of years for it to sink in that Shawn Michaels actually threw Marty Janetty threw a PLATE GLASS WINDOW, even after shaking the guy's hand. Such evil I could not comprehend. The low point at that time in my life occurred when Michaels defeated Janetty at the '93 Royal Rumble. I was convinced that Michaels was indeed a very evil person, and I wished that all the wrestlers in the back, face or heel ( or to me, good or bad ), would have killed Michaels, because he was bound to turn on every one of them like that eventually. I truly believed all the gimmicks. I did not know originally that Repo Man was Smash from Demolition; I assumed he had been a repossessor his whole life and hoped he would never move to my town. I thought the Undertaker MIGHT have come back from the dead, because NOBODY living could get up from TWO of Jake Roberts' DDTs. I thought High Energy walked around everyday, everywhere in THOSE pants. And the list goes on. Well........... sorry for rambling like that, I tend to do that from time to time. Anyway, I live in Canada, and we didn't get a whole lot of WCW back then, in fact, we only started getting Nitro a couple of years ago, so I was only (ahem) treated to fleeting glimpses of the work of art known as WCW at the time. All I remember from the early 90's is Vader beating up Sting A LOT, Cactus Jack seeming to get beat up more than anybody else, and a small fellow named Marcus Alexander Bagwell. I got an Internet connection in 1996, and at the time, was still receiving WWF Magazine monthly ( I know, unforgivable ). I was amazed. All this stuff on the 'Net........ most of it was the opposite of what was in WWF Magazine! Who the hell is Mark Calloway? And WHY do they always put his name under the picture of the Undertaker? And stuff like, "Foley turns heel, does a shoot, and takes some insane bumps." And ECW? A typo, perhaps. I was very, very confused. However, after some time, I became familiar with all these terms, and begin to really understand pro wrestling. This is when I became a serious fan. I liked the whole concept of pushes, faces and heels, high spots and bumps, workrates and heat. I realized what wrestlers were REALLY good, and my favorite wrestler changed from Hogan to Mick Foley. Then came WCW. TSN began showing Nitro weekly. I saw Sting, coming down from the rafters. Sting............ but, five years ago, there was a guy named Sting, but he......... no, couldn't be him. I saw Hogan. He was HERE! I had assumed he had retired after his 1993 King Of The Ring match with Yokozuna, since a camera blew up in his face. But, he was a bad guy, which I now referred to as a heel, and people seemed to be calling him "Hollywood" now. Those guys Kevin Nash and Scott Hall looked an awful lot liked Diesel and Razor Ramon, even more so than THE Diesel and Razor Ramon in the WWF! And this..... NWO. They seem to be trying to take over WCW every week, dressed in their black and white shirts. They even SPRAY PAINTED the belt, god dammit! And so it was during the first month WCW was shown on TSN. It was different, I watched every single minute, every single week, and for about six months, I LIKED it. At the time I did not like the WWF a whole lot, probably because of the fact that this was the time of the infamous "Gang Wars", with the Nation Of Domination, Los Boricuas, DOA and the Truth Commission receiving massive amounts of air time on Raw each week. I was saddened that I liked WCW more than WWF, because for these past 6 years or so I was such a WWF fan. Then after the Double Cross at the Survivor Series, things began to change. Vince developed a character, a pretty mean one at that. Other wrestlers were being used and groomed to step up, and over in WCW, they still had the NWO running rampant each week. By the beginning of 1999, I liked WWF more than WCW again, and I thought Nitro just plain sucked. I didn't like Norman Smiley's little push. I was sick of seeing Rick Steiner, period. I hated the screw job endings. I HATED watching Hogan and Savage over and over (and Savage NEVER winning). I had bought an NWO black and white TShirt in early 1997. Now, I had a shirt that represented the faction of Stevie Ray, Vincent, Horace and Bryan Adams. I have not worn it since. And that brings us to now. I am still a huge WWF fan. I hope to try to see a WWF PPV live sometime next year, preferably Wrestlemania. I check CRZ's Nitro reports ( blatant plug ) to see if anything worthwhile happens on Nitro, in case it might be worth checking out. Alas, it rarely does. That's about it for now. I have some ideas for future columns, that is, if this one didn't completely suck, because if everybody thinks it did, I won't write anymore. I love nothing more than feedback, so POUR IT ON! Positive, negative, I don't care, it all helps. If you liked something, tell me, if you hated it, do the same. This way I'll know what I shouldn't be sticking in the columns. You can mail me at wrestling_writer_4x@yahoo.com. You can also check out my ( laughable ) website at www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Lodge/8148 Whatever you think of it, please sign the guestbook and/or mail me to tell me. And that concludes this ranting session. Matt "Blackjack" Hayden freelance Trust me. -Jake Roberts Mail the Author Visit my site |
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