Wow. Two full years of Slash Wrestling already; it doesn't really seem that long. Slash was one of the first few "indie" sites I found online, once I managed to escape the dread orbit of Wrestleline and their 1/2 crap collection of on-staff drones (I'm looking at you, Steve Anderson), and I took a liking to it immediately; there were no ads to clutter the page, a revolving stable of writers created a different format than any other site I'd seen, and the quality of writing was usually quite high. Digable James Cobo, Sharon Austin, Ian Challis, a million others, they all had interesting takes on what was at the time a much larger wrestling world. I was an inveterate lurker and reader when I first got online, a guy who read all sorts of things on the net at every site you could think of, from big sites like the Observer to smaller places like the Oracles and Rant Central (R.I.P.), not to mention message boards; but Slash was always one of the first places I checked for opinion after I waded through the dry news at the big sites. The big draw was always the variety of opinion for me; other sites had staff, who despite their great talents in some cases, were always the same people day by day, week by week. Slash was the place for new people who weren't "internet names", who weren't carrying on some internet feud, who just wanted to talk about what was going on in our goofy little pastime and share their viewpoints with a circle of their fellow fans.

The first time I decided to actually join a message board and talk with people, it was at the CRZ board; I'd had my fill of Delphi foolishness after seeing the flame wars and hearing of things like the Matt Crawford infestation, and the CRZ board at the time was the opposite of all that; it was small enough to have everyone known to each other, and had a great easygoing vibe to it. The conversation was usually interesting on most topics, ranging from politics to goofy things like the dread 500+ replies "JSDPWIWOites" thread. I remember the thread about Phil Mushnick, the first time I posted there; I remember the thread relating to the slow, painful death of Emzee (anyone remember THAT place?) which drew people from all over to debate that situation; I remember talking puro with Hutch and cracking jokes on John, agreeing with Mess and Kate on politics and getting the British input from Quicklime and Aureole. People got along; those were fun times, and no one took things too seriously. It was from there that I got the confidence and experience to start posting at other places, from the other mainstream boards like the Smarks/RS forum to more esoteric places like DVDVR and Squared Circle. It's been a hell of a lot of fun, and while I've ended up in a few annoying situations with a few people I'm not big fans of, overall I'm glad I jumped in and took part. To all the posters of that board, and I mean ALL: it's been fun guys. Thanks.

It was also from that board that I got my first experience writing columns and such; I wrote something on the long side as a topic in the forum, a few people liked it, and at any rate it generated some conversation; so I decided to do something I never thought I would: start writing columns on the net, on wrestling of all things. It was thanks to CRZ's open door policy on submissions that I even had the opportunity; and now, a few months later, I'm writing for two different websites regularly. Without this place as a forum to put forth my ramblings, as an open door to let me hone my technique, I'd have never been able to do any of this. So CRZ: thank you, on a personal level.

And to all the other writers, tape reviewers, readers, and fans of this site, thank you for helping to support one of the most interesting sites on the net with content; there've been so many interesting things written here that to even try to name them would be an impossibility, but I've read enough of them to appreciate how different and cool a wide perspective site like this is.

And to DA MAN, the big cheese, the head honcho, the guy in charge, a fellow long-hair: thank you, CRZ. It's a great place you've put together here, and it's been a great two years. Keep it up.

Shaddax
The Shooters

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