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WWE RAW 1000 Viewing Guide

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It’s been the lead story on all the major news sites. I know that you are hyped beyond belief. It’s time for RAW 1000!

Since January 1993, Monday Night RAW has been a fixture on cable. And this Monday, it turns 1000 episodes old.

You might think wrestling is for children, and that it sucks, and you are correct. But if you’re willing to open your mind a bit, you might find it’s a great three hour diversion on Mondays. I don’t recommend watching all three hours at first – that’s torture until you’ve developed Stockholm Syndrome – but I encourage you give it a shot. To help, it’s time for the WLA RAW 1000 Viewer Guide – designed to help you budding wrestling enthusiasts understand and appreciate the spectacle that will be unleashed at 8 PM on the USA Network.

1. What is RAW?

RAW started in January 1993, and was a revolutionary step in the pro wrestling business. Airing live, RAW began to feature name talent facing name talent with weekly storyline developments – a move away from the taped squash matches and glacial storytelling that had defined the WWF for years.

No matter what they try to say Monday, this was not a new concept to wrestling. Territories like Memphis and World Class Wrestling had been putting this type of show on for years. In fact, RAW owes much of it’s aesthetic to the Memphis style. Memphis traditionally taped in television studios, featured big name matches (for the area), weekly shenanigans, and fast-paced angles in front of a rabid small crowd.

RAW aired live from the historical stronghold of the company, New York, in a unique setting – the Mahattan Center. Immediately, the show was given an “anything-can-happen” vibe, featuring memorable moments like the return of Marty Jannetty for revenge on Shawn Michaels, and the 1-2-3 Kid (better known as X-Pac) debuting as a no-name “jobber” but upsetting the hyped Razor Ramon (Scott Hall of NWO fame).

The legacy started early with one of the best matches in RAW history – Mr. Perfect defeating Ric Flair in a classic loser-leaves-the-WWF match. Flair was being released from his WWF contract at the time (according to various sources of questionable trust, Vince McMahon had promised Flair he could leave if the WWF didn’t plan on using him in the main event, and McMahon was not planning on another main event run for the Nature Boy at this point).

2. That was really boring – what’s going on in WWE now?

You might remember hearing about CM Punk and his promo last summer – a brilliant pseudo-shoot that catapulted Punk to the upper levels of the company. He promised to win the WWE Title from John Cena and then quit the company. He succeeded. The angle fizzled, but Punk remained upper tier and again won the title at Survivor Series in November. He’s held it ever since – losing some of his “edge” but becoming a sort of Cena for adult fans – and the reign is almost the longest in over a decade for the company.

Well, John Cena has a contract to face the champ (won at the most recent PPV) and he’s taking that opportunity on Monday. Both men are ostensibly “good guys”, with appeal to vastly different groups in the audience. The atmosphere should resemble more of a UFC fight with dueling crowds than your stereotypical wrestling environment (a step in the right direction for the show, in my opinion) and should also be one of the Top 5 matches in the company this year. Cena’s turned in top-notch matches against Brock Lesnar and The Rock this year, and Punk has had good to great bouts with Dolph Ziggler, Chris Jericho, Daniel Bryan and Kane. These are two of the best all-around performers in the company, and will no doubt be ready to showcase themselves in front of one of the biggest television audiences the company has had in years.

I’ve been trying to come up with a real sport parallel to this matchup, but I’m coming up blank. You could think of this is Nadal-Federer terms, in the sense these are the two premier performers (in terms of star power, ability, and push – not necessarily just pure performance) in the world and they have a semi-regular series.

For old time fans, these two have shades of Macho Man and Hogan. Cena is an unstoppable, bulked up superhero that appeals to the kids in the crowd. Punk has been a heel and face during his tenure, sometimes has a beard, and has a bit more of an unpredictable edge. He’s also adopted the top rope flying elbow as a sign of respect towards Savage since his death.

3. Why is the crowd continually chanting YES! YES! YES!

Because Daniel Bryan is awesome.

As an independent wrestler, Bryan Danielson garnered a reputation as perhaps the best in the world. He came to WWE and was transformed for copyright reasons into Daniel Bryan. It took a while to find his stride – but Bryan caught on as a cowardly heel champion who celebrated each fluke victory he had like he had won an Olympic Medal – this celebration includes screaming YES YES YES repeatedly. It’s devastatingly simple, and it’s given the crowd a reason to be involved in him.

Technically Bryan is still a heel, but he’s getting married to crowd favorite AJ tonight in the culmination of their nearly year long, on again, off again “relationship”. Expect much YES YES YES.

Bryan and Punk’s rise to prominence has shades of the Bret Hart-Shawn Michaels rise during the 90s. What we have is an aging roster, and two smaller, unlikely main eventers emerging to fill the void. Both men were darlings of the independent scene for nearly a decade, so they have a rabid following in the more hardcore fan areas of the crowd.

4. Who is this hick in the orange hair?

If you’re referring to the man that calls himself the One Man Band, it’s Heath Slater.

Slater started his career two years ago in a summer angle that involved a half dozen WWE “rookies” invading and beating John Cena senseless, in an attempt to forcefully infuse some fresh faces in the main event scene. Since the end of that angle, most of the group has faded to obscurity.

Well, a few weeks ago, the on-air hype for RAW 1000 started. As a part of that hype, WWE started bringing back veterans from previous eras for attraction matches. Slater got the call from the web-only C show level to be the dude that the returning legends squash. And he’s actually performed marvelously. Don’t be shocked if Slater sticks around on the show after this, and don’t be surprised if he gets destroyed by a 50 year old man at some point tonight.

Wrestling is an odd genre, and there’s a few different ways to secure long term success. Slater has ran with a common role – the cocky, kinda funny heel that gets beat up badly by pretty much anyone on the roster with a future. This is a common trope in wrestling, and it can be successful. The Honky Tonk man parlayed that into a Intercontinental Title reign that lasted what seemed like years. Santino Marella turned it into an underdog babyface role and his own t-shirt. We’ll see what the future holds for the One Man Band, but I think he’s got some talent and potential.

5. What happened to….

- HHH : He’s in charge of WWE now, in a sense, and he’ll be wrestling Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. This program started out hot, but Lesnar hasn’t been on TV lately. Despite some good microphone work from his legal representative Paul Heyman (Paul E. Dangerously if you were a fan of WCW in the early 90s), it’s been tough sledding to get this feud as hot as the Cena-Lesnar three week mini-feud after WrestleMania.

- Shawn Michaels : Retired, but reuniting with HHH tonight. Probably to get destroyed by Brock Lesnar.

- The Rock : Semi-retired, but involved in some way tonight. After beating John Cena at WrestleMania, he vowed to regain the WWE Title in the future. He is a possibility for wrestling at SummerSlam, and a near-lock to be at WrestleMania in a match.

- Hulk Hogan : Performing as the on-air general manager of “rival” group TNA IMPACT wrestling – Thursdays on Spike. Actually not the worst wrestling show ever anymore, if you stick to watching Roode, Storm, and Aries.

- Kevin Nash : Occasionally pops up on WWE programming – had a terrible match with HHH over the winter.

- The Undertaker : Trotted out once a year for a match at WrestleMania. Might be here tonight, but it’s unlikely he’ll do anything of substance. Rumored to be facing Brock Lesnar, The Rock, or John Cena next WrestleMania in the annual streak challenge.

- Vince McMahon : Shows up once every 8 months to get beat up.

I can’t list everyone you might remember. But here’s a tip – if they aren’t on the show tonight, and aren’t mentioned, they either pissed off Vince McMahon at some point or died (sometimes both).

6. Why do you watch this dreck?

I’ve been watching for 25 years – what’s the point in stopping now?

Smokin’

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If you open the list of current World Champions on Wikipedia, you’ll find about 50 names, spread across 17 divisions, recognized by 4 major organizations and one magazine that’s the most honest in a liar’s game. There’s another half dozen minor organizations recognizing a variety of wanderers and unknowns. A person who truly follows boxing might recognize half – the rest of us are lucky to get 3.

The “alphabet soup” championship scene is one of the biggest cliches in sportswriting. It isn’t going away – legally, these organizations have the right to strip a champion for not facing their chosen challenger. And they will never agree on a duplicate Top Ten, creating an unmanageable scenario for unification.

It is more accurate to recognize that in the modern history of one on one combat sports there has never been a truly undisputed champion. Even when they hold the undisputed championship, there is a man who claims they are most deserving. If they are more entertaining than the man with the belt, a belt will be created. You would think one on one fighting would be the ultimate no controversy no excuses scenario, but anyone with a passing interest in the fight game knows this is laughably far from the truth of the situation.

There are times when the athletes transcend the nature of the game though. Today, we have nearly every fighter of note under contract to Dana White and UFC – creating nearly unanimously recognized champions in most divisions.

In the 1970s- a time those of us who enjoy boxing feel intense nostalgia for despite not breathing one breath in the decade – you had the heavyweights.

******

In another world, Joe Frazier might be the most famous man in boxing. He was a true underdog story – hitting frozen cows before Rocky, building his own equipment, raising himself from the segregated south to Philadelphia, travelling to the Olympics, receiving a shot at the medal by virtue of an injury to the man he was there to spar with, winning the gold and moving on to take the World Heavyweight Championship. He was dominant. He was memorable.

Today, in our world, not an obituary was, can, or should be written without spending almost as much time talking about Muhammad Ali.

Ali has surpassed Ruth as the sporting icon of America. Ruth was a fat man who ate hot dogs and drank and hit home runs in black and white films in a white league. Ali, clearly, represents something different. He deserves his spot in the American pantheon.

Yet – does Muhammad Ali, icon, exist without Joe Frazier?

Probably.

If we’ve learned one thing from a weekend of disillusionment in the sporting world, it’s that individuals are not perfect and stories do not end the way they should have been written. I would like to say that Joe Frazier made Ali, and that without him, Ali is just another fighter. The truth is that Frazier is inextricably linked to Ali because Ali made Frazier into something more than a famous boxer – he made him into a true legend of sport. If a rising tide raises all boats, Ali was a tsunami who brought Foreman, Norton, Quarry, and –  perhaps most of all – Frazier into the halls of mainstream celebrity.

I would also like to say that Frazier and Ali reconciled after he was unfairly maligned by The Greatest – but there seems to be precious little indication that actually happened. There’s anecdotes that Frazier was now “ok” with it, but nothing hard, nothing official, no tangible proof. I don’t know if he went to the grave bitter about how he was treated. I’d be hard pressed to blame him if he did.

I obviously did not know Joe Frazier and I am not a scholar of his life by any means. I am a fan of boxing, and MMA, and wrestling, and I do feel a sense of loss today.

Frazier was a less complicated man than Ali. He was not a genius, he was not ignorant, and he was not the fireball of personality Ali was. From all accounts, he was a hard working man that rode his above-average gifts to greatness through extreme dedication and focus.

He did the best he could outside boxing – from movie cameos to officiating the main event of Starrcade 1984 to beating up Barney Gumble.

He was a Philly fighter that inspired Rocky and received almost no credit – while Stallone got a statue.

He stood up for Ali when he was banned – and he was called an Uncle Tom.

He did not light an Olympic torch.

 

Michigan to Add Varsity Lacrosse; Competitive Birthing

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The University of Michigan announced the addition of two new varsity athletic programs today – Men’s Lacrosse and Women’s Competitive Birthing.

“In order to comply with Title IX, we must add an equivalent number of female scholarships to the athletic department,” said Brandon.

“Competitive birthing has a rich tradition in colleges across Eastern Europe, and we intend to bring the same competitive desire we bring to all of our sports to this new venture.”

Competitive Birthing is a simple sport with long roots. The female athletes are impregnated in the beginning of the season by non-scholarship walk-on “studs”, or as they are known within the sport, “fuck monkeys”.

The athlete has ten months in which to foster their off-spring inside the body and give birth. Winners are determined by overall mass of the ejected human. Multiple children are added together for a mass total. Additional points are awarded for the athlete who forces the largest cranium through their vaginal canal during the birth.

“We expect competing in this new endeavor to be a challenge at first, but we’ve already begun laying the foundation for future success,” said Brandon.

Michigan will construct new facilities to support the team, including the lavish “David Terrell Fucktorium”, where the fertilization will occur during the first week of classes. It is expected that the season-opener, traditionally known as the Spread’Em Invitational, will draw a large enough crowd to pay for the facility within the first three seasons of operation.

Once the female athlete has been fertilized, the team begins working together to ensure their offspring grow to their largest. Genetics and luck play a role in the process as well, explained new Michigan coach Igor Vastransky.

“We must feed baby many grain and protein to ensure healthy, strong product,” said Vastransky.

Vastransky is coming to Michigan after working several years for the national squadron of the perennial World championship contenders in Bulgaria.

“Large product is desirable, but more desirable is multiple product. Production of several baby from  the womb of one reduces overhead and help make lucaritve package offers, or as you say, the BOGO.”

Michigan will compete with fellow Big Ten schools Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan State in their division.

“Michigan will have an excellent chance to compete eventually, especially with the luxurious new Fucktorium, but these schools will have a built in advantage over them at first,” said Competitive Birthing analyst Jim Bob Duggar.

“The key is the fuckmonkey. They have to be of the right stock to really pump that uterus full.”

In addition to the new facilities and coaching staff, Michigan must educate prospective birthers on the regulations of the sport. Since the revelation that professional birther Kate Gosselin used illegal fertility enhancing drugs before her pregnancy, the NCAA has stepped up enforcement. All births must be through natural means, with no enhancement.

“That’s why the fuckmonkey is so key. It takes a lot of work to make such a potent sperm. You only get one chance in the arena, so if it doesn’t take, you’ve really let down the team.”

Competitive Birthing rules state that fertilization must take place within a four hour window. With only one stud per female, it is imperative to find males with multiple orgasm capability.

“We plan on having open tryouts in the AD office over the summer. If the male prospects can perform in front of me while I eat Domino’s naked and rub hundred dollar bills on my nipples, we’ll know we have a keeper. Everyone just needs to trust the process,” said Brandon.

Athletes interested in trying out for the Competitive Birthing team – male or female – are encouraged to send a highlight video, measurements, family pregnancy history, and pictures of their genitals to the Michigan Athletic Department.

Space is the place

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There might have been smoother, or more charismatic, or more believable. But perhaps none in the modern history of professional wrestling combined it all like “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

In the craving-for-acceptance world of wrestling, the mightiest stars are judged not by their titles or in-ring credentials, but by how thoroughly they crashed the mainstream pop culture zeitgeist. There are few in this pantheon. Opinions will vary, but two names shined above everyone before and arguably since  - Hogan and Savage. The Hulkster, The Macho Man. If someone has heard of one, it’s a virtual certainty they know the other. Hogan, the ultimate hero. Savage, the ultimate nemesis. Occasional friends, frequent enemies, they are tightly linked to each other from the time Savage burst onto the WWF scene in the mid-80s. From his first run as challenger to the epic Mega-Powers story to the NWO to the wacky rap album, Hogan-Savage is, in my lifetime and view, the greatest feud in the history of wrestling. Macho Madness is the yin to the Hulkamania yang. The twisted, complicated brother raised in the basement.

Hogan made moments of inspired brilliance mixed in with long periods of cliche-ridden drivel. Ric Flair wrestled the same match 900x in the span of a decade in the 1980s, but then did it again in the 1990s – only on TV where we all noticed the patterns. The Rock and Stone Cold? Legends of a different era, with a flame that burnt arguably brighter but ultimately shorter; also the only comparable super-duo to the Mega-Powers. None of these, in my mind, compare to the utter insanity and unpredictably that Randy Poffo gave to The Macho Man.

The other stars have lived their lives in full-view. The Rock is a movie star, we know all about Austin’s domestic issues, Flair has been a lavish-living spectacle for decades, and Hogan had his own vanity reality show. Theyve shaped their legacies in part through their personal lives. The Macho Man’s personal life is, like the character, a fascinating enigma. Few know much definitive about the true nature of his relationship with Elizabeth and their divorce. Fewer still know the reason for his exile from the history of the WWE since leaving for WCW in the mid-90s. He’s been out of the public eye for years – but people still remember the robes, the sunglasses, and the Ohhhh—Yeeahhhhhh!.

Savage stole the show at WrestleMania III with Rick Steamboat. He provided Hulk Hogan with the larger-than-life legitimate threat to his dominance that was so critical to sustaining the success of the Andre The Giant feud. He carried the Ultimate Warrior and Diamond Dallas Page to career-defining matches. His interviews are unlike anyone else in history. The wrestling world has lost a singular talent, a true genius of the craft. That doesn’t necessarily resonate with most of America, but for the believers, it’s a genuinely heartbreaking loss.

But the enigma certainly continues. There’s a reasonable chance (I’m trying to be generous) that years of steroid use to maintain a massive physique that wasn’t suited to his smaller frame contributed to the (probable) heart attack that killed him. That the years of intense dedication to the business and art he was obsessed with eventually did him in. And we profited from that – in the memories we relive now. Wrestling devours the meat puppets that drive it in a way no other sport or entertainment business does. Try to watch WrestleMania VII (1991) now – of the 51 performers, 14 are dead. Compare to the 1991 Super Bowl – not a single player on either team has passed.

One of the most famous moments in the history of WWE and the Macho Man happened at that WrestleMania. Do you remember? The Ultimate Warrior pinned Macho (deceased) in a “Retirement” Match. Macho’s manager, Sherri (deceased) then attacked him. He was saved by his lost love, the lovely Elizabeth (dead) and they rode off into the sunset. Some middle-aged man in a raincoat was immortalized crying like a baby at ringside. It lead to the wrestling marriage of Savage and Elizabeth later that year at SummerSlam – right around the time their real-life marriage ended. A few years later, Savage was giving advice to Lance Storm – who he had mistaken for Chris Candido, who was in a real-life relationship with future WWE diva Sunny – “I see you’re doing an angle with your wife. I did that once – and she’s not my wife anymore”. Wrestling has a long tradition of breaking up  or creating couples on screen, only to have the real-life relationship end shortly after. Like so many others, “the business” had ate his marriage away.

The Poffos are notorious in wrestling for saving their money, and Randy was no different. He was living a comfortable life, nearly a decade after he was last seen in the ring and about the same time since Elizabeth had overdosed, and married to the girl he had dated in high school when his biggest dream was to make it in MLB. Apparently the tentacles of wrestling never quite recede though, and the ring took another one down before their time.

Some kids in my town grew up pretending to be Cecil Fielder or Barry Sanders on the lawn. I did that; but I also spent hours dropping flying elbows on an inflatable dinosaur from the diving board of our pool. The Hogan perfect hero that cheats but won’t admit it is grating. Give me the vicious but honest ethics of the Macho Man – win and make no apologies. The moral dilemma of supporting the wrestling industry in any form is stronger than ever, but as Macho once so profoundly said – “What it isssss …. is what it issssss”.