Over the last couple of months I've not been very active within the IWC in any form. In that time I've planned out what I want from King Bingus Wrestling and I really want to bring people in the IWC together and possibly introduce non-fans to the community.
As always I want to be able to talk with fans from around the world to learn more about the industry and its history and also see how other people look at the business.
For this I need your input, your involvement, your questions, suggestions, videos, pics, memes and other positive contributions to get people talking.
In the next few weeks I will start recording a podcast for KBW and will want a different guest on each show to talk wrestling, so if you have Skype and you're a new fan, old fan, an actual wrestler, promoter, blogger, podcaster or even just a tweeter in the IWC and wanna join in just let me know.
I will also start trying to gain more momentum in other social sites such as G+, Facebook and Tumblr.
As I say, I want KBW to be a place for bringing fans together and find more like minded people, so I will do my best to always RT, follow, like and or shoutout as many interactions as possible to maximise the chance of people interacting with you.
I'm going to be posting polls, questions a few articles to keep things rolling but it's always going to be about you guys and your input to make this work.
As a wrestling fan you have, with out a doubt been told wrestling is fake.
I have been told that wrestling is fake fighting with fake blood, fake stories and I've even had someone tell me the ring is fake.
From here on in let's call these people Sheeple. That is what they are, right? Just a bunch of know it alls who want to ruin your fun. Sheeple for some reason will nonsensically spew their closed minded opinions for as long as you want to defend your own opinion.....They seem to have a lot of spare time and energy for this, so be careful if you want to take them on.
Now when I have some one telling me that I'm a childish fool for liking WWE or pro-wrestling I don't feel the need to justify my self, but I do feel the need to give them a few reasons to think about wrestling a little different. Not wanting to be a salesman, spokes person or ambassador but just giving a couple of facts that may make Sheeple look at it in a new way.
It Doesn't Hurt
First and most prominent argument that people tend to go with is that the "fighting" is staged and choreographed. Yeah sure it is predetermined and spots are planned, even some the moves and throws you see may have very little if any impact. But can you imagine a WWE match where every punch, kick and throw is real? It's called MMA and I, for one, am not a huge fan of watching men completely knock the snot out of each other.
So that means WWE doesn't hurt, right? EGH-UGH! Of course it does, the men and women that entertain us fans on a weekly to nightly basis go through ridiculous amounts of physical abuse. The recent case of Edge having to hang up the boots and retire in such Hollywood story fashion was down to injury. The injury was not like a one off career killing moment but more of a breakdown after years of using his body to entertain us.
Edge is one of many wrestlers who have had to retire due to their bodies being one bad landing away from a drastic life altering injury from taking bump after bump, night after night for a good 300+ days a year plus travel.
OK, OK Sheeple I hear you! How could anyone possibly go night in night out getting beaten up for real all year long? Not even Mikey Whipwreck could really do it. Boxers and UFC fighters could really max out 2-3 big fights a year but our guys must be fake because they get up the next day and do it all again.
It's true our guys are entertainers, working for a entertainment company, but they take some serious damage. The history of pro-wrestling is littered with injury, from the "small" finger breaks, to the Sids of the ring going all jelly legged, to the Brets and Edges having to walk away for good.
Pro-wrestling is predetermined, the matches are called but the action takes its toll in a big way and as cliche as it may seem, the risks are very real.
It's all soap opera with added baby oil
Yes. Baby oil. My only answer to that is there is less now than in the 80's and 90's.
But the soap opera part does have some weight behind it in all fairness and truth. Just like I have already pointed out for the Sheeple, wrestling is pre-planned, predetermined, choreographed, scripted so can it not be soap?
I'm sorry to tell you sXe_Punker20-1's, CenationsGurl16's and WWEfanmaniac's but wrestling you watch is not a documentary. The stories, rivalries and feuds you see are written to make you think it could all be real because of the blurry line they create between fact and fiction, sometimes these lines get ripped to pieces with the likes of the Montreal Screw Job, Austin vs McMahon, Edge-Lita-Matt Hardy love affair all of which make art imitate life and life imitate art.
With todays vomit inducing batch of "reality" TV like Jersey Shore, Made in Chelsea and tripe like Wife-Swap it has become increasingly harder to seperate what's real and what's not on TV.
So WWE maybe scripted like a soap opera but can be as real as any reality show on TV today, if not more so due to the fact that the people performing these stories can some times have their very real lives played out on screen.
Is It Real?
Even as a life long fan, I don't think I have the vocabulary or law school teachings to give an accurate conclusion for myself let alone the Sheeple of this world due to the often blurry line of reality that wrestling carries. Sure I can agree that a huge part of it is on paper before it hits our screens but such a huge compelling part is still kinda real.
Well maybe not as much as happy chappy here.
The fact that wrestling does have this blurry line I think leaves it open for us to make up our minds on its authenticity. I will still give Sheeple a gentle reminder of what these performers go through physically and some of what you see on its programming can be as close to life as any reality show out there.
One thing these Sheeple do need to learn is,
Even if wrestling is fake, it doesn't hurt for anyone to suspend their belief of reality to enjoy what they're watching. Just like most humans do when watching Eastenders, Days of Our Lives, House, Breaking Bad, Bridget Jones' Diary or Die Hard. Every now and again we just like to leave our real world and immerse ourselves in something we enjoy. It's just wrestling has more baby oil.
Being a shameless self promoter, when asked by King Bingus if I could write a companion piece to his top 10 moments of Raw, I of course jumped at the chance. So I'm stepping away from the Suicida Appraisal articles to tell you dear reader about some of the moments in wrestling that will love long in my memory. I suppose I'd better prepare you for some "left-field" entries but this is my list, and you'll have plenty of time to tell me I've got my head up my backside after you've read it, okay? Good, so without further ado, in no particular order, my top ten moments of wrestling.
10. Who's next?
For everything WCW did wrong, one thing that no-one can argue that it didn't get wrong was the rise of Bill Goldberg, the former Atlanta Falcon turned one man wrecking crew. Goldberg's legendary winning streak was a thing of beauty, and a genuine highlight of Monday Nitro as Bill marched down to the ring, breathing fire and murdered his opponent with insane power moves. This put him on a collision course with Hollywood Hogan, leader of the nWo and the man who held the World Heavyweight Championship in a chokehold. The setting for this showdown was in Atlanta itself, both Goldberg's home town & WCW's base of operations, and in front of a sold out crowd of very vocal fans, arguably the biggest match in WCW history would take place. The stage was set earlier in the night as Goldberg defended his United States championship against Scott Hall, thus earning a match with Hogan in the main event. Being honest, the mechanics of the match are pretty standard, given Goldberg's limited ability and well, Hogan, what makes this special to me is the atmosphere, this whole deal feels like a very special occasion and everyone involved played their role to perfection, even the much maligned WCW commentary team, the crowd too are salivating at the prospect of their hometown hero defeating the wicked Hogan, even going so far as to cheer the opening bell, which is very rare nowadays. This was the peak of WCW and while it's easy to remember the Russo booked lunacy that would characterise WCW's latter days, it's this point that I choose to remember when thinking of WCW.
We all have our favorite wrestling moments. We all have those memories of watching wrestling and thinking that we have just seen something amazing, surprising, special, historic and even sometimes funny. Or it may be that you have been to a live show and caught up in the atmosphere made in the arena and created a bit of an emotional attachment to the show.
I wouldn't blame you, live shows are 1010 times better than they come across on TV.
Many of these moments for wrestling fans, with good chance, would have been provided by WWE PPV or TV. These moments maybe in form of backstage interviews or brawls, in ring action or promos, or a formation of new a team. WWE's Monday night, flagship, weekly, episodic, longest running, highest tweeted, most viewed show on TV, 3 hour, RAW could also be responsible for your favorite moments in wrestling.
This is a quick look at my personal favorite Raw moments and little bit on why I like them so much.
10. RAW IS JERICHO - August 9 1999
By this point I had become fully immersed with in WWE and was just so into the whole product. Every week just seemed to deliver more gold than the last and I had been getting hyped by a countdown to the millennium clock on Raw.
I was a complete spoiler free kid watching Raw in a TV lounge of a hotel in Spain with a dozen or so kids all as compelled by wrestling as me.
When the countdown clock interrupted none other than The Rock we knew what ever was about to happen was gonna be big. Then this guy who I didn't recognize appeared and a couple of the other kids in the lounge piped up by telling us he was a WCW wrestler. It was at that point I knew we was in for a treat and what followed just pumped me up more.
This made it to the top 10 not only because of the debut it self but also what that moment gave us WWE fans.
I would like to thank Erik over at The Wrestling Chronicle for giving me the chance to write a guest article for the site.
The post is all about Kofi Kingston and the struggle he has getting through his glass ceiling with in the WWE.
I take a look at his first few years on the roster and go on to talk about a few of the problems he has run into icluding speedy pushes and slow dry patches. His career some what seems to picking up and dropping gears every other few months and I think a performer as talented as him should be used to his capabilities.
The full post can be read at http://www.thewrestlingchronicle.com/2013/05/wake-up-and-smell-kofi.html
If you are a young wrestling fan wanting to learn or an older fan who wants to hear some positive and constructive views follow Erik on Twitter @wrestlingchron , download the piledriver podcast and go and like The Wrestling Chronicle on Facebook.
This week on Twitter I got involved in a conversation with @IfinRatedR and @VegasKustom about WWE ignoring its core fan base and investing too much time and effort in the younger fan base.
I'm 26 years old, I have been watching wrestling (mostly exclusively WWE) for the best part of 21-22 of these years and I was questioning do WWE care about people in the same bracket and older? Or are they focused solely on the CeNation Army munchkins?
Honestly, I feel it is both.
Unless you've just crawled out of the boiler room of you will know that WWE is PG. This simply means, of course it is directed at the young audience. Over the past several years WWE has changed from the blood soaking - boobie bouncing - weapon wielding - bird flipping - gritty - bonkers world it once was. It now prefers the family friendly - hand clappy - lady skipping - shiny glossy world.
This to me still doesn't prove that WWE has lost touch with the older bunch. Not even close.
Sure we can bang on all day about Cena running the place in Superman mode for the kids to cheer and adore, but we had Hogan doing the exact same thing! Sure the Hulkster only had two colours at the time but he still came out in the brightest yellow and reds, was all wholesome and all patriotic, put across messages of goodness and was cleaner than a DDP smile.
