I was struck by what Ric Flair said the other day, about a lack of super-heroes, which happened to coincide nicely with the return of my Guardian of Useless Knowledge costume from the dry-cleaners. (Sadly, no matter how many times that I ask them not to, they keep removing the blood-stains.) Just like the WWF, there is a sad lack of super-heroes on this web-site, so I think that it is time ONCE AGAIN...

To throw on my costume, and declare...

That I am your host, Llakor, Your Guardian of Useless Knowledge, and if you'll join in me in the GoUK-Cave and help me throw the tarp off the GoUK-Mobile, we'll fire up that puppy, and use the gravitational pull of the CRZ mother-ship to slingshot us back to a time when men were men and a flood was a little more serious than just a damp basement. A time when the SWF stood for the Sumerian Wrestling Federation. A time when a suplex was just called a throw. A time in short: When We Were Marks!

When We Were Marks
Errors, Exaggerations, Lies, Damned Lies and the WWF

I have said it before and it bears repeating: Wrestling is the language of hyperbole. Sometimes, however, that hyperbole drifts dangerously into the realm of outright fantasy. Now I don't necessarily object to being lied to in a good cause, it's not like what we are watching is real, and as the man said, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." But I do object to being lead down the garden path; to being lead into error; to being lied to, when the truth is so much better than the lie. With all of that in mind, I believe that, as the madmen at the Internet Wrestling Syndicate would say, It's time for Season's Beatings! (Not coincidentally, the name of their next extravaganza: Saturday, January 5th, 9PM, Bar Le Skratch, Laval, Quebec, CANADA, Main Event Triple Hell Death Match!!! I have no idea what a Triple Threat Death Match is but it sounds full of violent goodness.) It is a bit of a Christmas tradition in my neighbourhood to wrap up a foreign object, put a nice festive bow on it, go out, find people who have been pissing you off and whump them upside the head with their Christmas present. (You have YOUR Christmas traditions and I have MINE! OK? Vive la difference!) Or to put in the words of that classic Old School Carol, "(I'm Giving) Chair shots For Christmas."

We begin with a Cuban Assassin Official White-Taped Foreign Object for Rick Scaia.

While Rick is lying there stunned and bleeding, allow me just to say that I deeply respect the man. I find his writing strikes the right balance of being critical of wrestling without hating it so much, that you wonder why he watches wrestling at all. His new web-site is well-laid out and easy to browse. I also admired the classy way that he conducted himself when CRZ left Wrestleline. I freely admit to being one of the "losers" who read his Ask The Rick columns, despite the fact that I knew all the answers, not that I am ashamed of that, Ask The Rick had all the entertainment value of Jeopardy with the added thrill of catching Trebek/Rick in a mistake. Given that Rick has, at least for the time being, given up being The Rick, you would think that he could stay away from the massive errors that he was prone to making in Ask The Rick, but here he is putting his foot in it: The (Hardy) story here is actually an inversion of the usual brother vs. brother deal. In the past the jealous younger brother goes heel more often than not... -Rick Scaia, December 7th, 2001

It is, I suppose, a weird compliment to the memory of Owen Hart, that when he did it it was considered revolutionary, and when Christian does it it is considered common place, but the fact is, that the natural order of things is for the fans to cheer the young over the old; the small over the big; the poor over the rich; the employee over the boss; the dumb over the smart; the student over the teacher; the son over the father. This is what makes Spike the only true baby-face in Dudleyville; what made Crash the face over Hardcore; Booker T the face over Stevie Ray; Chavo the face over Eddy; Leaping Lanny the face over Macho Man. It's why, when the WWF brought in a younger brother for Undertaker, they took pains to make Kane bigger, and they put the feud into the larger context of the feud between Paul Bearer and the Undertaker. Even with all of that, when the feud is finally resolved at this year's Wrestlemania, Kane will be the face and Undertaker will be the heel. There is a reason that they call these match-ups David vs. Goliath, and it's not because we're expected to cheer for Goliath. In fact, look at that original David vs. Goliath match: David the technically sound smaller man given no chance against a man-beast known for breaking his opponents in half, and rumoured to keep his defeated foes' ears as a souvenir. Come to think about it, that sounds exactly like the build-up to Flair vs. Vader at Starrcade '93. How old is Ric Flair anyway? Go further back: Moses, younger, adopted son, baby face; Pharaoh, older, natural son, heel. Joseph of the Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat, youngest son, baby face; all seven of his brothers, older, heels. (And what was Joseph doing wearing Ric Flair's ring attire anyway? How old IS Ric Flair anyway?) Even further back: Isaac, obedient son, baby face; Abraham, murderous father, heel. The very first pair of brothers: Abel, younger, carnivore, baby face; Cain, older, vegetarian, heel. In fact, go even further back than Cain and Abel, further back even than The Bible, back to the dawn of recorded history, to what is generally considered the first piece of literature ever written: The Epic of Gilgamesh. Now anyone who has ever taken a History of Western Thought course. or as they are sometimes called a Dead White Male course, this would be the book that they threw at you while you were still grappling with Frosh Week induced hangovers. Your subsequent lack of attention is understandable, but lamentable, because to a wrestling fan The Epic of Gilgamesh is nothing less than the first crude attempts at a wrestling recap. A recap of the Sumerian Wrestling Federation focused on the exploits of its champion King Gilgamesh. In fact, given that at the time of its writing, Sumeria was pretty much it when it came to the world, Gilgamesh can lay claim to be the first ever Undisputed World Champion, a mere 5000 years before Chris Jericho claimed to be the first ever Undisputed World Champion. Let's introduce the King shall we:

Gilgamesh sounds the tocsin for his amusement, his arrogance has no bounds by day or night. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all; yet the king should be a shepherd to his people. His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the noble; yet this is the shepherd of the city, wise, comely, and resolute.

Can't you just hear the promo, "Styling and profiling! I'm a chariot-riding, falcon-flying, kiss the girls and leave them crying son of a gun! WHOO!"

(AND HOW OLD IS RIC FLAIR ANYWAY?)

The booking committee of the SWF, seeing a crying need for a baby face, swung into action:

The gods cried to Aruru, the goddess of creation, 'You made him, O Aruru, now create his equal; let it be as like him as his own reflection, his second self, stormy heart for stormy heart. Let them contend together and leave Uruk in quiet.'

We'll skip over Gilgamesh being informed that he now has a (younger!) brother. (You know how you always said that you wanted a bigger family? Surprise!) His reaction to the news is oddly similar to the Undertaker's reaction to hearing about his own long-lost brother. (You'd think that I would remember having a younger brother, especially one who can kick my ass.) We'll also skip over the introduction of the first wrestling valet except to note that the morals of wrestling valets hasn't changed much in 5000 years. Mind you, Sumerians had a slightly different attitude to sex than we have, best indicated by the fact that the original Sumerian word for the wrestling valet in question can be translated either as priestess or as whore, prostitution being more of a religious occupation in those days. (My edition rather primly translates the word as harlot.) Which is to say, that just like today's men, Sumerian men prayed for sex, but unlike us when they prayed for sex in church (and made a contribution to the church building fund), they had a reasonable expectation that their prayers would be answered.

Enkidu goes on an out-of-town winning streak leading to the gates of Uruk:

He caught wolves and lions and the herdsman lay down in peace; for Enkidu was their watchmen, that strong man who had no rival.

Now that the baby face was built up as a proper challenger, it remained only to bring them together:

Gilgamesh has entered the house of assembly which belongs of right to the people; they are gathered together to the roll of the drums in order to choose the bride, but Gilgamesh scorns them. He does strange things in Uruk; he still demands to be first with the bride, the king to be first and the husband to follow, for that was ordained by the gods from his birth, from the time the umbilical cord was cut. But now the drums roll for the choice of the bride and the city groans.

Enkidu cuts a promo:

I will go to the place where Gilgamesh lords it over the people, I will challenge him boldly, and I will cry aloud in Uruk, 'I have come to change the old order, for I am the strongest here.'

Enkidu comes to Uruk for the big match. Notice that things haven't changed much for valets:

Now Enkidu strode in front and the woman followed behind. He entered Uruk, that great market, and all the folk thronged round him where he stood in the street in strong-walled Uruk. The people jostled; speaking of him they said, 'He is the spit of Gilgamesh.' 'He is shorter.' 'He is bigger of bone.' 'This is the one who was reared on the milk of wild beasts. His is the greatest strength.'

I guess Kurt Angle wasn't the first one who used the milk gimmick. The match begins:

Mighty Gilgamesh came on and Enkidu met him at the gate. He put out his foot and prevented Gilgamesh from entering the [ring], so they grappled, holding each other like bulls. The broke the [ring]posts and the [ropes] shook. Gilgamesh bent his knee with his foot planted on the ground and with a turn Enkidu was thrown.

The world's first recorded suplex!

After the match, Gilgamesh turns face, and he and Enkidu exchange the handshake of respect:

So Enkidu and Gilgamesh embraced and their friendship was sealed.

Obviously, the science of recapping matches has advanced a good deal in the last 5000 years. The rest of the Epic is also worth a read for wrestling fans, but for our purposes today, let us merely note that this, literature's first recorded wrestling match, was a match between brothers, the younger baby face Enkidu losing to the older heel Gilgamesh. So, Rick, if you can feel that weight pressing down on your shoulders, that's not just me telling you that you're wrong, that is all of recorded history telling you that you're wrong! When a smaller younger brother makes himself the heel in a fight with his brother as Owen did with Bret; as Christian did with Edge; as Scott Steiner did with Rick; as Prince John did with King Richard, it is the sign of genius at work. Heel genius admittedly, genius turned towards evil, but genius nonetheless.

1999 and 2000 probably marked the golden age of tag team wrestling in the WWF as the Duds,E&C and the Hardy Boyz tore down the house night after night with their incredible matches. -Alfonso Castillo, December 6th, 2001

Has someone been sneaking the wacky tabaccy into Fonzie's cigarettes again? Because that's crazy talk! 1999 and 2000 might qualify as the golden age of tag team gimmick matches but that's about it. During those years the division was always about as deep as Vince's conscience, a defect that the loss of the Hardyz and Edge and Christian has made painfully apparent. One of the ways that you can spot a real Golden Age is that even the teams that do not wear gold are great teams, but what is the best team from that time period not to win a belt: Kaientai? I love Funaki and Taka, but the Steiners would have had them for lunch. Compare as well the great champions from that time period with the great teams of the past. Edge and Christian were a great team as well, but the Valiant brothers would have reduced them to jobbers in a heartbeat, and I shudder to think what Gorilla Monsoon & Cowboy Bill Watts would have done to the Hardyz. The only team from that time period that would stand a chance against the great WWF tag-teams of the past is the Dudleyz. I'm not buying their greatest WWF tag-team of all time schtick yet, they need better competition, but the longer they hold those titles, the more convincing their claim will be.

Consider the following tag-team card from the real Golden Age of WWF tag-team wrestling:

Wrestlemania V, April 2, 1989
The Twin Towers vs. The Rockers
The Bushwhackers vs. The Fabulous Rougeaus
Demolition vs. The Powers of Pain (w/Mr. Fuji)
The Brainbusters vs. Strike Force
The Hart Foundation vs. Greg Valentine & The Honky-Tonk Man

Now, wouldn't Vince sub-lease part of his soul to have ANY of these teams right now? The Greg Valentine/Honky Tonk Man combination never lasted that long, but looking at the rest of the field what's the worst team there: The Bushwhackers? Well, yeah, they were pretty bad, but at least they knew how to get the crowd into a match. The also a perfect example of the WWF taking a perfectly good psychopathic heel and turning them/him into irrelevant comic relief (c.f. Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Doink.) The scary thing is that isn't even the best assembly of tag-team talent that the WWF was able to assemble during that period. That MIGHT have been from the following card:

Survivor Series, November 24, 1988
The Powers of Pain, The Rockers, The Young Stallions, The Hart Foundation, & The British Bulldogs

How's THAT for a tag-team division. Even the jobbers of the group, the Young Stallions, Paul Roma & Jim Powers were a SWEET~ tag-team compared to the wreckage clogging the ring now. Now you want to know the really scary thing? The really scary thing, the terrifying thing is... wait for it... wait for it... that was only ONE SIDE! The other side was:

Demolition, The Fabulous Rougeaus, Los Conquistadores, The Bolsheviks & The Brainbusters

I'll give you that the Bolsheviks were pretty long in the tooth at this point. So swap them out and put in the Dudleyz in their place. Swap out Los Conquistadores for Edge and Christian. Is there a team left that you would leave out for the Hardyz? Remember how I said that this MIGHT be the assembly of WWF tag-team talent ever? Well consider this card instead:

Survivor Series, November 26th, 1987
The Killer Bees, The Young Stallions, Strike Force, The British Bulldogs & The Fabulous Rougeaus
VS.
Demolition, The Hart Foundation, The Islanders, The Bolsheviks & Greg Valentine/Dino Bravo

So you lose Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard, Warlord & Barbarian, Marty Jannety & Shawn Michaels, but you add Strike Force, the Islanders and, gold help me, the Killer Bees. Even the makeshift team of Bravo/Valentine was pretty damn good. Not to mention the Bolsheviks are a year younger which has to be a good thing. Now this Fonzie, THIS was a GOLDEN AGE of tag-team wrestling, an age where the teams were so good that the Killer Bees, one of the finest tag-teams ever, couldn't get a belt, and the Rockers, whose every move the Hardyz stole, only held the belt for a day, before they saw their title run Dusty finished away.

Test was going to rape Trish? As we say here in Quebec, LE WOAH! Why would Test need to rape anyone? He's Test, the Whitby Wonder, God's gift to women! Test's behaviour barely rose to the level of sexual harassment. God, what am I saying? The truth is that it is Test who should be complaining of sexual harassment: Stacy, Trish, Lita, Terri. The man is being forced to beat off women with a stick! The real culprit in all of this of course is Trish, who managed to fool even an eagle-eye recapper like Brewguy. She wasn't biting her lip to keep herself from laughing, she was biting her lip to keep her Canadian Hormones from RUNNING WILD~ Trish is no dummy, she sees the Rock, the people's champion, the five million dollar man, ready for the plucking. Time enough for Test later, but that night at Vengeance she was sorely tempted. How can I tell? Well, am I the only one who found it the least bit suspicious, that at the EXACT moment that Trish was saying that she never wanted to touch Test, her hands were on his ASS?!?

Hey, look, Brewguy has decided to join us to receive his Christmas chair shot in person.

Brewguy: Confucious say 'One must be able to not only distribute chair shots, but receive them as well'

What kind of New Age, clap-trap, mumbo-jumbo bullshit is that? I happen to know for a fact that Confucius never said anything remotely like that, because I've been combing him for Wrestling references. (I've had a lot more luck with Lao-Tze to be honest.) It's exactly that kind of disregard for the truth that is bringing this chair shot on, you realize.

Brewguy: Michael, my friend, chair-shot away

Christ, if you are going to be all Tommy Dreamer, "Do Me! Do Me!" about it, you're going to take all the fun out of it. Aw Crap! I can't do this, Brewguy, I feel for you like a brother. (Notice AGAIN Rick: Llakor, older, heel; Brewguy, younger, baby face.) I'm sorry to drag you all the way from Pickering, Brewguy, there will be no chair shots for you today.

Brewguy: :)

BAAAAMMM!! You see that, Brewguy! I waited until you weren't expecting it, than I hit you with the chair. You see how much more effective that is? Brewguy?

Brewguy: .....

Catch me trying to teach you anything, ever again. Here I am, trying to be helpful, and you just lie there. That's the problem with the younger generation, you never pay attention to your elders. It's Okay Folks, he's supposed to twitch that way!

For two of my favourite wrestlers, two shots from Chris Jericho's two belts, to Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho for the following:

You know what else you've never won, Mr. Flair? You've never been Undisputed World Champion, and I'm gonna tonight! Sure, you were WWF Champion, NWA Champion, WCW Champion! But you were NEVER...the Undisputed Champion of The World, and I'm gonna do it tonight! -Kurt Angle, Vengeance, December 9th, 2001

Tomorrow night on Raw, you can personally come into that ring and present me with the one thing that you never had in your entire career: The Undisputed Championship. -Chris Jericho, December 9th, 2001

As much as I hate to disagree with two such fine, upstanding men (well technically now they're prone,) BUT... not only was Ric Flair once the Undisputed Champion of the World, it was even his gimmick. The year was 1991, Ric Flair was NWA/WCW Heavyweight champion of the world, and the WCW brain trust in one of their many brilliant decisions decide that they no longer needed Flair's services. In the process, they neglect two very important things. First, they fire Flair before jobbing the title off him. Second, they forget that having run short of money previously, they presented Flair with the physical title to his championship belt. The end result being that Ric Flair ends up on WWF TV, the undefeated NWA/WCW champion with the NWA/WCW belt in his possession. WCW eventually buys the belt back off of Flair, forcing the WWF to blur shots of the belt afterwards, but the damage had already been done. Once in the WWF, Flair, with the help of Bobby Heenan, immediately started campaigning for a title vs. title match against Hulk Hogan, but Hogan preferred to face the Undertaker. When Flair came to the ring at Survivor Series to complain about Hogan's cowardice, his presence so intimidated Hogan, that the Undertaker was able to score the pin fall victory. A week later at Tuesday in Texas, Flair came out to ask the reasonable question, why Hogan was being given a rematch, when Hogan went nuts, grabbed the Undertaker's urn, threw ashes from the urn in the Undertaker's face, and pinned him to win back his title. For once, justice was served when Hogan's title was stripped from him for his cheating ways, and the title was put on the line at the next Royal Rumble. When Flair won, he became WWF champion while never having been beaten as NWA/WCW Champion, leading him to claim that he was Undisputed Champion of the World. I ask you: was he wrong?

The other man who can lay claim to having been Undisputed Champion of the World is Triple H. Triple H pinned Chris Benoit, the undefeated WCW Heavyweight Champion, February 1st, 2000, when he came over to the WWF as a member of the Radicals. Triple H solidified his claim to being considered the Undisputed World Champion by pinning Tazz, April 20th, 2000, while Tazz was ECW champion.

Actually, my beef here is more with Jim Ross for letting Lawler sell that hooey. Granted that Lawler was AWA world champion in 1988, but by 1988, the AWA was a shell of its former glory and it's title was a tattered and disgraced belt. Bad enough that Verne Gagne retired as champion, worse still was the way that AWA fans were teased with a Hulk Hogan title run only to be denied again and again, but the title really fell into disrepute when Stan Hansen won it and returned with it to Japan. When people would rather wrestle in Japan than defend your title in the States, your title is a worthless piece of scrap metal, which was pretty much when/why it landed around the waist of Jerry Lawler.

The other issue is that the AWA's claim to the world title lay on pretty shaky grounds in the first place. In 1957, Lou Thesz was Undisputed Champion of the World, until he faced Edouard Carpentier on June 14th, 1957, in Chicago. Thesz won the first fall, Carpentier won the second. When Thesz was unable to continue the third fall due to a back injury, the match was awarded to Carpentier by disqualification. Now, everybody knows that titles don't change hands in the event of a disqualification, except for the fine people of Boston and Omaha who recognized Carpentier as the champion. In fact, the line, "If you don't do what I want, I'll recognize Edouard Carpentier as the Heavyweight Champion of the World," would have been a running joke at NWA headquarters... if the Los Angeles territory hadn't done exactly that later. In any event, Thesz beat Carpentier, in Montreal, July 24th, by disqualification, which should have settled matters. After all, if the title doesn't switch hands after a disqualification, Thesz never lost it, and if the title does switch hands after a disqualification, Thesz lost it but regained it later. In either case, Lou Thesz should still have been Undisputed Champion of the World, but sadly the Boston, Los Angeles and Omaha split persisted. In Boston, Carpentier dropped the belt to Killer Kowalski and the belt changed hands a variety of times before finally linking back up with the NWA champion. In Los Angeles, Carpentier dropped the belt to Classy Freddie Blassie, and here again, the belt eventually returned to the NWA (after a brief detour in the WWWF as Pedro Morales beat Blassie for the strap on a couple of occasions.) In Omaha, however, the ever-obliging Carpentier dropped the belt to Verne Gagne. This later became the basis for the AWA's claim to a share of the world title. A shaky claim at best. (Personally, I'm still trying to work out how Carpentier managed to drop the title to Kowalski in Boston, to Thesz in Montreal, to Blassie in Los Angeles AND to Gagne in Omaha. The man was a magician. Either that or a time traveler.) So when Jerry Lawler says that he was World Champion, he is telling the truth. He was the World Champion. The World Champion of Texas, the World Champion of Minnesota, the World Champion of Memphis, but most of all, the World Champion of Omaha. Now, I'm not expecting Jim Ross to explain all of that, but Lord it would have been worth it to see Lawler's face when JR called him the World Champion of Omaha!

Chris Jericho is the one man out of the four never to win the WWF championship.

Yep, and JR is big fat OKIE liar. Perhaps Y2J didn't hang on to the title for very long, before Triple H got to the part about Dusty finishes in his Wrestling Heels for Dummies handbook, but Jericho still WON the title.

For the first time ever, an Undisputed World Champion.
And Frank Gotch, Joe Stechter, Evan Lewis, and Whipper Billy Watson were what exactly? Not to mention that there are two men in Japan who might be willing to start a dispute as to who exactly the World Champion really is.

Frank Gotch in '08
So were you lying then or are you lying now? Not to mention that George Hackenschmidt, the Russian Lion, was the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion first, beating Tom Cannon in 1902 to win the European title and beating the American champion Tom Jenkins in 1905, before losing to Gotch in '08.

By 1932, four men laid claim to the World title.
Now this is a very clever lie, because JR is telling the truth. Now, I'm guessing that the four men that JR was referring to were: Jim Londos, Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Henri DeGlane, and Jack Sherry. What JR didn't tell you was that by 1935 all of those men had been defeated by either Danno O'Mahoney or Ed Lewis. So when Mahoney beat Lewis in 1935, there was once again an Undisputed World Champion.

The worst part of the Big Lie that Chris Jericho is the "first ever Undisputed World Champion" is the way that it disrespects Lou Thesz, the last Undisputed World Champion. Not that the WWF has ever had a great deal of respect for Thesz. In fact, you could say that the formation of the WWWF is directly related to disrespect for Lou Thesz. In 1963, Nature Boy Buddy Rogers was the NWA champion. Lou Thesz beat him in one fall match in Toronto. The New York territory refused to recognize Thesz as champion because it was a one fall match, rather than the traditional two out of three falls. Thesz promptly beat Rogers in Montreal two falls out of three, at which point, the New York territory refused to recognize Thesz as champion because Bruno Sammartino should have been given a title shot before Thesz. The New York territory then pulled out of the NWA, renamed the territory the WWWF and claimed that Rogers had won a tournament in Rio de Janeiro, beating Antonia Rocca to become the first ever WWWF champion. (You would think that they would at least try to come up with a plausible lie. Rocca, the inventor of the Argentinian Back-Breaker, lose a tournament in Rio de Janeiro? Granted that Brazil is not Argentina, but Rocca would still have had the crowd on his side.) Sammartino, of course, beat Rogers in 44 seconds, in a ONE-FALL contest to become the WWWF champion later that year.

Ultimately, I don't understand the reason for the lies except that the WWF has been lying for so many years that they can no longer tell the truth, if they even remember what it is. But the truth is this: there was wonderful symmetry to Chris Jericho, a Canadian, reunifying a title that was first put into dispute by another Canadian: Edouard Carpentier, and was later put into even more dispute by a pair of matches held in Canada. It's a shame that the WWF couldn't help us to appreciate that symmetry, because they were too busy holding grudges that have existed for nearly forty years.

(Whoa! I said whoa!)

Oh! Hey, everybody it's my sidekick - Parentheses Lad.

(Here I was saving this present for later, but you could obviously use it now.)

A present for me! Oooooh! A King James Bible with leather covers! God I love the Old Testament! All that fire and brimstone.

(Yeah, yeah, I know, you're the only guy on the block who yells out, "Angry, Vengeful God!" during that episode of the Simpsons. But turn to the New Testament for a minute will you. I've marked a passage.)

Hmmm... Angels, shepherds, Bethlehem... Hey! This is Linus' favourite part of the Bible!

(How could you know that and still think we are celebrating Adam Smith's birthday?)

What do you mean? Wait, wait! This bible is supposed to be telling me what exactly?

(Sigh. That December 25th is Jesus Christ's birthday.)

I didn't read that anywhere. In fact given that he was born during tax season, I would have thought that Jesus was born in April. Still amazing coincidence him being born on the same day as Adam Smith.

(No! Look it's called Christmas because we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with a mass. Christ's mass. Get it?)

So, it's not a celebration of capitalism run amuck?

(NO!)

Odd. You'd think instead of buying a whole bunch of stuff we can't afford and being rude to store clerks and pushing and shoving people to get that last X-Box, we'd celebrate the birth of the son of God by doing something meaningful like hugging our family, or not killing one another, or being kind to our neighbours, or respecting different cultures, or working to make the world a little less hungry, a little less scared, a little bit safer for all of us... or something.

(Amen, brother, Amen.)

Merry Christmas Everybody!

AND Tune in won't you, Same GoUK-Time, Same GoUK-Station for another exciting episode of When We Were Marks entitled, "In Angle I Trust"

Until then,
I remain,
Your Guardian of Useless Knowledge,

Llakor

PS. Nearly forgot to give credit where credit is due! All Brewguy quotes supllied by Brewguy! Quotes from the Epic of Gilgamesh were taken from the Penguin Classic edition by N. K. Sandars. Differences between my translation from the Sumerian and his are indicated by [square brackets]. Dates and wrestling history are taken from a variety of sources but especially from Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Wrestling Almanac, with additional information cribbed from Great Hisa's Puroreso Dojo at http://www.puroresu.com

Llakor
[slash] wrestling