Your Midweek Links: I'm the Only One Who Liked RAW Apparently

Punk still creating conversation
Photo Credit: WWE.com

It's hump day, so here are some links to get you through the rest of the week.

Self-Shilling:

- Episode 9 of The Wrestling Podcast! Razor and I talk about CM Punk, why he hates Randy Orton and what a better wrestling journalism actually means. [Wrestle-phenia]

- My Camel Clutch Blog piece from last week is all about diffusing the trolls who say I'm biased against Impact. Well, I kinda am biased against it, but because I'm biased against shitty, shitty wrestling. [I Want (Good) Wrestling]

- And my BRAND SPANKIN' NEW CCB Column discusses John Cena and why he should stop being such a damn smartass, dammit. [Hustle, Loyalty and Respect, not Cheap Rocky Imitations, Please, John Cena]

- I give the FJM treatment to a dumb letter writer to the Philadelphia Daily News on my Tumblr Page [AMURKA! (FJMing a Letter to a Newspaper)]

Wrestling Links:

- Justin Henry on CM Punk making pro wrestling fun again. [Wrestling News Source]

- Honestly, how many among the wrestling blogosphere need to stand up and say the fat-shaming of Vickie Guerrero is wrong before WWE does something about it? My guess is it'll never be enough... [Camel Clutch Blog]

- Flashing back to Hardcore Heaven '99 and the Dudley Boyz raising hell. [South Atlanta Wrestling]

- Mitch's RAW Review, in handy Woo!/Boo! format [Fair to Flair]

- B-Stroud's Best and Worst of RAW... with those last two takes on RAW, am I the only person in the world who COMPLETELY enjoyed Monday's show? [With Leather]

- Bill Baconhill's new blog! [The Goozle]

- Trey Irby doesn't wanna hear the words "slut, whore" or the like again. He should probably not watch Impact then. [Wrestling Theory]

- KSP encouraging you to follow @BobbyHeenandSaid on Twitter. You should too. I don't feel like I need to explain this. [Footnotes of Wrestling]

- A Dirty Dirty interview with Kikutaro, the consensus best comedic wrestler around in Japan right now [Dirty Dirty Sheets]

- Just because, the Kenny Omega-Is-The-Champion-of-the-Anywhere-Match video again [PizzaBodySlam Tumblr]

- Chyna will do a YouShoot. Thankfully for us, that's not a pornographic thing. [Diva Dirt]

- S. Bruce takes time off from digging up dirt about the major companies to tell us why shoot angles don't always work. [Cageside Seats]

- Listen to this, and if you don't bust your gut laughing then, I don't know what to tell you. [Kick-Out!! Blog]

- Kelly Kelly doesn't deserve to be called a slut, but for crying out loud, fire away at her for not knowing the history of the fucking company she works for. Also, the same applies to Kofi Kingston, although I don't think he was ever called a slut. [Wrestlespective]

Jamie Dobson Interviews:

No new interviews posted this week

Non-Wrestling Links:

- I get name-dropped on the House of PUNTE! But more importantly, Larry Brown and Brandon Stroud are guests and it's the return of SHAKEY! [House of PUNTE, Episode 81]

- Nerdy pick-up lines! [Topless Robot]

- GAY BACON STRIPS [Epic Meal Time]

- 8 lines that would have made Star Wars an infinitely more boring movie [Dorkly]

- First Tupac's murderer comes clean, now someone confesses to being an accessory to Biggie's murder? I'd make a joke about Big Pun and a cheeseburger, but I don't need the hip hop community coming after me. [The Smoking Section]

- Clever girl. [Buzz Feed]

- Alexander Ovechkin Geography FAIL [Up Next in Sports]

- They Might Be Giants covering Chumbawumba? They Might Be Giants covering Chumbawumba. [AV Club]

- Seven bits of good news that defy the old journalistic maxim of "if it bleeds, it leads" (and therefore you probably don't know about them) [Cracked]

- Ewan MacGregor and Chris O'Dowd playing lightsaber baseball. Yep. [Jezebel]

- I want this shirt [The Daily What]

- Becky Conner be trollin' Rex Ryan HARDCORE [Hugging Harold Reynolds]

- Oh man, I wanna go to Meatland. [Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]

- Book covers made from video games... kinda cool, kinda creepy [Unreality Mag]

- The most anticipated films of 2013. Joke's on them, cuz we'll all be dead! HAHAHA [Pajiba]

- Russia, Ukraine and South Korea don't want Captain America to go America all over their box offices, apparently. [Film Drunk]

- Drew Magary's back from vacation, answering questions about cosplay, bequeathments and other stuff as only he can. [Deadspin]

- Phillies Tazer kid gets Web Redemption on Tosh.0 [The 700 Level]

- Explosions in the Sky make their first music video ever. [Blast-o-Rama]

- The Birmingham dog and the guy who made 'em best. [Grantland]

- NAWWWW, it's a cute puppy! And it has an opinion on the designated hitter! [With Leather]

- Just in case you weren't sick enough of the Casey Anthony trial on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, here are celebrities reacting to it. [Hollywood Reporter]

- Moral of the story? Don't offer $125M as a gag bet. [Crashburn Alley]

- Jon Hamm is a very emotive human being. Just another reason why he's like way better than you or I could possibly ever hope to be. [Uproxx]

- Don't worry about the NBA Lockout [Quickish]

- Turns out I'm not the only one sad to see Mike Richards head to LA [Flyers Goal Scored By]

- Zesty interceptions are the best ones, plus other awesome lists [Every Day Should Be Saturday]

- New He-Man movie coming out? Surely, it can't be any worse than the late '80s movie.... wait, don't call you Shirley? Wrong movie. [Gamma Squad]

- Classic Marilyn Monroe picture. In an unrelated note, if I had a time machine, I'd try to go back and woo MM. Of course, I could do a bunch of other good shit, but I'm selfish. Plus, Marilyn was fucking hot, amirite guise? [Skull Swap]

- RIAA going after radio stations now. [The Onion]

- A ginger with a mullet. Your argument... well, you know. [Next Round]

- The Big 10: Three yards, a cloud of dust and now cookies. [Dr. Saturday]

- NHL Free Agency Report Cards [Puck Daddy]

- Peter King's on vacation, so Bill Simmons gets the FJM treatment this week. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

- 10 Disgusting Eating Competitions. Not listed: The Sardinian Maggot Cheese Eat-Off. [Sports Pickle]

- Shane Victorino gets murdered by the Rogers Centre field. This should amuse Mets fans, but then they have to go back facing the reality that they're fans of the Mets after their moment of schadenfreude fleets. [The Fightins]

- The 10 best corgi blogs on the 'Net. TRY TO DENY THEIR CUTENESS. [Warming Glow]

Please Call a Cease Fire: My Plea to Impact Wrestling to Stop with the Shootiness

Pictured, Hogan, Sting and Bischoff doing something I hate
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

Dear Impact Wrestling,

As you prepare to air another episode on Spike TV tonight, I am coming to you with this plea. Granted, it'll do no good for this week or the week after, given that you've already taped the episodes, but hear me out anyway. There's a reason why I pan the shit out of your program each week. It's not because I'm a hater. Lord knows I want to like your product, and I want to praise it and I want to give your company all the credit in the world. I don't dislike Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo because of some arbitrary reason.

No, over the last 15 years (15 years), I've seen them systematically destroy the art of professional wrestling in ways that outside forces can only dream of doing. Under their watch, one company became so undesirable for the people running it that they sold it to their biggest competitor even though it was still pulling strong ratings₁ on its weekly television program. A big reason for that was because under the tenure of Russo and sometimes Bischoff, the magic of professional wrestling, a magic known to carny folk and to smarky wrestling fans alike as kayfabe, was dealt a critical blow. It was cute when Russo had to answer to Vince McMahon, and it helped draw huge numbers (even though I still maintain that it was more the on-screen charisma of Bret Hart, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, The Rock, Mick Foley, Triple H and even McMahon himself that had more to do with that than anything Russo ever did or said outside of maybe "Hey, why don't we let these mooks be themselves!"). However, when left to his own devices in WCW, his continual drawing back of the curtain, making everything a "shoot" and continual scatterbrained direction caused WCW to die a grisly death. Add in Bischoff from time to time, a man who never met a legal storyline between two NPCs that he didn't like, and you had someone who helped piss away WCW's lead on the then-WWF when he was on top and then helped accelerate Russo's best unintentional Dr. Kevorkian impersonation when he came back in.

So, it should come as no surprise that your numbers aren't as good as you think they should be. Of course, I'm not interested in your analysis of the numbers or even what numbers you hold important. Ratings can eat my left buttock for all I care. However, if you look at the meaning behind why your ratings suck, that's where you'll find my wheelhouse. Your ratings are terrible because people who think like me, but who don't really feel obligated to watch for purposes of writing a blog, aren't enticed to watch. These people you're not getting to watch your show really want to believe your slogan, but are turned off by every promo Jeff Jarrett cuts on Kurt Angle mentioning that Jarrett, the administrator, signed Angle for ratings, by every time Bully Ray references "the boys in the back" or out-of-character respect when talking on the mic and every time Sting says he needs to keep his title because it gives him "stroke".

While reality TV is still all the rage, the wrestling fan - and believe me, there are still a ton of them left, whether active or in remission - doesn't really subscribe to the theory that wrestling is the original reality programming. Either they're super young and still subscribe to the theory of kayfabe, sweet, lovable kayfabe, or they're our age and watch for the theater, to forget about real life problems and just watch two (or more) guys pretend to wail on each other and then talk about wailing on each other in between wailing on each other. Dragging in legit, real life problems into the fray counteracts that. I mean, you don't go to a Broadway play to see the star talk shit about her costar for stuff that happens off-script. I'm sure if that happened, you'd have a big stink. But hey, it worked in wrestling in the '90s. Okay. Traditional kayfabe? It's worked in wrestling for almost, if not over, a century. I'll take that track record over the track record of something that fizzled out within 5 years of beginning.

Again, you guys have talent on the roster. They're either bogged down by having to put Bischoff over or they're shunted to once-a-month status because God forbid we don't give Hulk Hogan 4 segments to lumber around and say "brother" like it hasn't already gone out of style. The emphasis is all wrong. If your wrestlers weren't forced to act like ZOMG SHOOTZ all the time, maybe some stories would organically get over. Maybe if the emphasis was taken off authority figures and onto real wrestlers, then wrestling might matter. The formula doesn't work.

I don't have high hopes for Impact the next two weeks. Excepting Austin Aries wrestling tonight, I'm not sure there's going to be a whole lot of must see TV for me. Quite frankly, I'm not really excited for the future after next week either, because the same people are still going to be in charge. But if you wake up, smell the coffee and realize that a change will do you good, maybe the future won't be so bleak. Maybe there'll come a time when I look forward to watching Impact, either first-run or on my DVR.

But that'll only happen if you at least pretend you give a shit about restoring the magic. Please, for my sake, for the sake of fans who want you to succeed... give a shit about restoring the magic.

1 - Strong relative to everything else on TNT at that point, not strong compared to WCW's peak or the numbers the WWF was pulling.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Weekend Wrap-Up: Enter the Dragon

Still the Champ

- Dragon Gate USA had a triple-shot of shows this weekend, culminating in an iPPV last night that had feed problems. Feed problems suck, but Gabe Sapolsky is making good on the customer dissatisfaction by throwing in a free viewing of their Open the Southern Gate show along with any purchase of last night's show on demand. This is how companies should operate. Anyway, the first night of action in Revere, MA, on Frriday was headlined by an Open the United Gate Championship defense by PAC and Masato Yoshino over YAMATO and Akira Tozawa. Saturday night's show on Long Island didn't have any title matches, but saw Ricochet defeating PAC and Rich Swann in what probably was a breathtaking spotfest of the main event. Last night's show looked pretty loaded. The Dirty Ugly Fucks of Sami Callihan and Arik Cannon took out Masaaki Mochizuki and Susumu Yokosuka, and the Ronin stable defeated the Blood Warriors group in an elimination match, with Johnny Gargano getting the final elimination on Austin Aries (giving him a receipt from Friday night's singles match where Aries was victorious). In the main event, PAC was unsuccessful in his attempt to corner the market in American DG gold, as YAMATO retained his Open the Freedom Gate Championship.

- Apparently, Mick Foley's exit from TNA on Thursday's show was more shoot than they let on at the time. According to several news outlets, and according to Foley's Twitter itself, he's out of TNA after "trying to change the creative process" and all that other jazz. While the fact that all the usual suspects are reporting this as news lends credence to it being real news, I am still suspect at the timing of it, ESPECIALLY given that Vince Russo has never met a worked shoot he didn't like. That being said, if Foley shows up on RAW in three months, then I'll readily admit that I was wrong, but I can't shake the nagging feeling that this is some elaborate work. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to your discretion, I suppose.

- Betty George, the first wife of wrestling icon and WWE Hall of Famer Gorgeous George, passed away Friday at the age of 98. Wow, 98, that's a hell of a run. Regardless though, I wish my sincerest condolences to her family and friends.

- Finally, this isn't so much wrestling news as it's site news, but I'm rebooting all the features on the blog. The Six Packs, the Best Move Ever, Know Your Indie Wrestlers... they're all going to start over again. What does that mean? Eh, just that I'll be repeating topics and such. But yeah, so if you see a repeat for any feature, you know now why, so at least I can point you to a warning rather than you going "BLOGGER Y U NO HAVE ORIGINAL TOPICS FOR FEATURES?"

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!