BLAH

Hey guys. Steel-eyed Slash Wrestling readers might recognize my name from the December 12, 1996 post at rec.arts.comics.marvel-universe Usenet newsgroup entitled "Re: Merry Christmas !!!" in which I quite profoundly wrote, Thanks for putting me first but...I'm Albert B. Ching!!!!!! One day I'll get my own account... See, that post worked on a lot of levels. First off, it continued the theme of me reminding people what my name was, because I used to post under my dad's account. And his name isn't Albert. Ending it with an ellipses symbolized how there was more to come of the story, like, maybe one day I would get my own account. And I did. Obviously, CRZ saw this, and saw a future superstar (me) in the making.

Not to mention this little gem, written in a cold, wintery, January 16, 1999, in a little tome I like to call "Re: [WCW] The Netcop Rant for Thunder, Jan 14/99": Why do you do recaps for a show which you obviously hate? Just wondering. Ever read my Shotgun recaps? See, I generally enjoy wrestling, and I don't complain too much. Maybe I do. But I was just wondering. Did y'all hear that shit? I GENERALLY ENJOY WRESTLING. What more do you need?

"A new world order! We're not about to make that same mistake twice!"

There's a pay-per view tomorrow. Actually, it's today by the time you plebes are reading this, and really, it's past midnight where I am, so, man, I should totally start from the beginning.

There's a pay-per view today (ah, much better). There are some matches and stuff, but the larger focus is on the return of the nWo, Hulk "Hollywood" Hogan, Kevin "Diesel" Nash and Scott "Razor Ramon" Hall. See, if I was funny, what I'd put in those little quotes between their first and last names would be stuff like "Orange Goblin," or maybe "Guy Who Puts Himself Over And Ran WCW Into The Ground," or possibly even "Drunk Dude Who Likes Touchin' All Over Old Lady Boobies" but I just do not do that as well as other people.

I'm a little bit confused over how this entire thing has been booked, y'know. The announcers are acting as if the nWo are the ultimate incarnation of evil on Earth - although there's that whole underlying, it's not because they're going to do anything evil, like, in the ring, they're going to ruin everything backstage like they did in WCW, wink wink, nudge nudge, jitter jitter. That's really a hard thing to express on TV, it's not like they're going to have vignettes of Nash refusing to job to let's say, Rob Van Dam backstage and the crowd's going to be all "THAT BASTARD!" Plus, all (and I do mean all - Christ in cheese dip, did they overplay those or what? Or what? That's right, they did!) the video packages just showed them spray-painting things. Now, listen to me good here, because while I most certainly do no condone spray-painting under any circumstances (except maybe if you're doing a positive mural of people of different cultures praying or holding hands or being watched by the Virgin Mary in an inner-city), but it's not really what I think of the ultimate act of evil.

We haven't even seen a whole lot of rallyin' the troops, aside from that one APA promo. I know they'd want to avoid another WCW InGaysion scenario, but it would make a lot more sense for wrestlers to be afraid after the owner swore to kill his company with three of the biggest names of all time in the wrestling industry, rather than when Hugh Morrus is running and moonsaulting Edge in a tag team match against the Hollys.

At first, it seemed like for the nWo to achieve their build-up of being the embodiment of all that is impure and dark in the human soul, all three men would somehow have to mutate into one, three-headed Leviathan-type beast, rampage through the Bradley Center in a hell and brimstone-fueled rage, somehow reveal all the dark secrets members of the audience were holding, destroy a visage of our risen Lord and savior, strike horror into the unknowing hearts of all the WWF superstars with their fearsome talons and terrifying jaws, and finally, cost beloved, scrappy babyface tag team Spike Dudley and Tazz the tag team titles by distracting the ref, allowing Booker T to hit a low-blow and schoolboy the Thug from Brooklyn; thus causing hated heels Booker T and Test a tainted victory and the prestigious WWF Tag Team Titles.

I don't know, though, it seems like the fed's best bet to save any demon-ascension angles for those hard-to-please coastal crowds. They are hard to please.

Puff Daddy and the Family, "No Way Out"

Since it seems like the thing to do, here are my No Way Out predictions:

Lt. Cmdr. Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner, I'm sure of it) will be a navy officer who gets posted at the Pentagon and is to report to the secretary of defense, let's call him David Brice (I'm seeing Gene Hackman in this role). He'll start an affair with Susan Atwell (can you say Sean Young?) not knowing that she is - get this - Brice's mistress. When Susan is found dead, I'm not quite sure how or why yet, Tom will be assigned to the case of finding the killer who is believed to be a KGB mole! I know, KGB mole, I didn't see that coming, etiher. Tom could soon become a suspect when a polaroid negative of him is found at Susan's place. He now has only a few hours to find the killer before the computer regenerates the photo.

Yeah, I didn't know computer could "regenerate" photos back in 1987, either. Didn't they just have Commodore 64s back then? My dad "regenerated" Space Taxi, if you know what I mean. And by regenerate I mean he bought an illegal copy of it at a garage sale. Burger Time and Summer Games II, also! What a guy he is. What an old Asian guy.

St. Valentine's Day Sepulchre

Stephanie essentially put the final nail in the coffin of the Triple-H/Steph marriage this past SmackDown! by announcing she burned all of Triple-H's stuff and stuff. Let's take a look back at some of the highlights:

December 1999 - Triple-H drugs Stephanie and marries her and rapes her repeatedly.

A little after that - The other members of DX give Triple-H crotchless panties as a wedding present. I'm not sure why. Triple-H super-imposes a gigantic picture of his head (well, gigantic in scale, it was really kind of small) into a McMahon family picture.

Later in December 1999 - We find out that she wasn't really drugged or raped. But she did marry him.

Sometime after that - Triple-H tries to show Trish Stratus a hammerlock but Stephanie walks in and thinks they are doing it. With all their clothes on, natch. Maybe they were practicing - a "dry" run if you will.

A little after that - Chris Jericho calls Stephanie a "slut" in any manner of creative ways. The crowd takes to it as well.

Even more after that - Triple-H gets injured and Stephanie "buys" ECW.and doesn't even mention Triple-H for four months.

Last month - Triple-H comes back with a lot of FACE HEAT so they have to split up.

Sometime in the future - Stephanie does her same annoying things, except with Kurt Angle or Chris Jericho.

What a storybook marriage! Maybe if the storybook was one of those funny "twisted" story tales, like "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" when the wolf is like having sex with the pig in the straw house so he doesn't blow it over and the whole story gets fucked up.

You remember Jeffrey Hardy, they're about to organize a searching party

A semi-big bit of news was the fact that the Hardy Boyz are returning to be in the big "Tag Team Turmoil" match, alongside Scotty & Albert, the Dudley Boyz, Lance and Christian, the APA, and Billy and Chuck. This is for a tag title shot sometime in the future, I'm not sure if it's at Wrestlemania, but that's what people have said. That being the case, that sort of gives away the Hardy Boyz winning here. The Dudley Boyz are old news, and I think they're due for a face turn soon (although, it should be noted, I really, really can't stand them as faces. I mean, not at all. Although I think a big chunk of it has to do with them being in six-man tags with Rock and/or Jericho every single week for a while). The Hardyz are coming back from being punished/freshening their characters/recovering from injuries, and they'll have some of that "we're back" face heat that was teased at the Rumble. I have to say, as a lapsed Hardyz fan (I was diggin' them the most when they wore the plaid pants and wrestled against like the Tennessee Volunteers on Shotgun), it did me well to see them beat up the Undertaker and then get tossed out of "his yard" as if they were kids who had hit their ball onto his yard and then trespassed to get it back. Because, really, isn't that what they were?

Hardy Boyz vs. Test and Booker T at Wrestlemania doesn't seem right, but another Dudley Boyz vs. Hardy Boyz match at the biggest show of the year could not seem anymore wrong to me. I would like to see Billy and Chuck get in the mix - like most people, I love those wild and crazy gays - but I just don't see it.

Where does he get those wonderful gays

Speaking of Billy and Chuck, the more they develop this "They're gay thing," the more they should make it like they're not actually gay. Because it's that kind of dramatic irony that's funny, right? That's why all the "chicks dig us" lines are really funny. And I mean, I can buy them not wanting to touch Trish Stratus are whatever. She is pretty gross.

All that glitters is Goldust, only shooting stars shatter their dreams

Of the four people that returned from the Royal Rumble, I think it's pretty lemon yellow lame that Goldust is the only one that gets any "play." Apparently they brought Val Venis and Godfather back to be, as we say in the business, "Jobbers to the stars" and I guess I don't really have a problem with that, but it's not like Goldust is way cooler than Val. I think they're giving Hennig a "slow build" because he is "old" and they have to give people some reason to "like" him.

Speaking of old people, DDP is just the latest in the line of lame duck European champions. I still don't see the point in Christian losing to him (like three times), but maybe he'll get in a feud with someone one day. Let's say, uh, Crash. <Tony Schiavone>Yeah. That'll put asses in the seats. </Tony Schiavone>

Goldust gives good promos, sure, but his double-chin-while-being-skinny is a little bit freaky. And this match doesn't have match point in it unless Rob Van Dam loses, and I don't see much point in THAT. I do see some sort of weird six-way match happening at Wrestlemania - RVD and Edge have teamed up in the past, Rikishi has had problems with Goldust and Regal, and heck, let's throw Mr. Perfect in that match. Or Val Venis. He did get knocked out with those brass knuckles. It gives all those people what has been the main WM-undercard goal these past few years, "something to do."

Olympics are stupid

So I watched a little of the "short track" speed skating competition - and this breathtakingly dreamy Ohno dude lost his chance at a gold medal because he bumped into a guy, and then it was like a big stooges thing and four people fell over, and the guy in last place skated into the lead.

That's pretty retarded.

That would be like if in the World Series last year, Luis Gonzales collided to Tino Martinez at first base, and then all of a sudden, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays won the pennant. I don't think people would be very happy with that.

Jericho is Excellent

I think Austin will not beat Jericho. And I think Rock will beat Undertaker (because he has to beat someone), and Triple-H will beat Kurt Angle. With all this Stephanie business, Triple-H vs. Jericho seems like a natural way to go, and with the nWo around, they have enough star power in other matches to put that as the title match (but not necessarily the main event).

ALBERT'S UNDERRATED WRESTLER PICK OF THE WEEK

The Dynamite Kid - When people think "The British Bulldogs," they usually think first about "The British Bulldog." Because that was his name. But often they forget about his partner, TDK here, who was a heck of a wrestler! We have old guys like Hogan and Nash coming back, but no one ever suggests a Dynamite Kid comeback. I think a Dynamite Kid/Perry Saturn match on Jakked/Metal could draw in at least a 0.7 on the syndicated ratings, baby. I don't know what's holding the WWF back.

Well, that's about it. Enjoy No Way Out, and I'll see you next week! And before we go...

Spellcheck Suggestions:

Rallyin' = realign

Promo = priam

it = Cleveland Steamer

God bless that crazy, wacky spell checker.

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BLAH