Wednesday, November 11, 2009

W.W.W. featuring a WCW dance-off and the Undertaker in public

On Wednesdays, we here at LOL, Wresslin' like to really pull out the stops and offer up a double shot of righteously killer content. Why Wednesday? Well, we could impress you with market research, work habit studies, and human psychology tendencies to show you there's a scientific reason the middle of the week is the best time to bring your A-game. However, truth be told, we don't have any of that stuff and settled on Wednesday because that was the only day that didn't have any content scheduled.

So, here you have "Watch Wresslin' Wednesdays," the ORIGINAL wrestling-themed, YouTube video comedic co-commentary. Please feel free to suggest a better title, because we are woefully uncreative when it comes to naming stuff.

Better at naming stuff than us

The idea of W.W.W. is we each send the other a video that is related to wrestling (a match, promo, interview, guest starring spot, etc.). The only restriction is that it cannot be user-created, so your hype video for the Hogan/Flair Australia tour ain't going to fly here, pal. Neither of us know what kind of video we're going to get that day.

After viewing, we each write a response. This could be anything we choose: a straight commentary, a philosophical enlightenment, or classless ridicule. Just as we don't know what kind of video the other will select, neither do we know what the other will write or how they will write it. What you end up with is a mash-up of styles, which in our book equates to two-blogs-in-one, and we can take the rest of the day off.


Matt's video to Adam- WCW: Ernest Miller vs Disco Inferno In A Dance Contest



Adam's response...

"I'm the greatest! Hit me! One! Two! One-two-three-four!"

That phrasing should accompany me everywhere I go. It's not like Ernest "The Cat" Miller is using it anymore. No sir, he's too busy killing Rammy "The Ram" Rammerson.

However, there was a time when he did have a legitimate claim to this phrase. Back in 2000, in the Dubya See Dubya. Now, I'm sure some of you may be snickering at this video. Murmuring to yourself about how this indicative of all things stupid WCW. And it is. But not for the reasons your thinking.

Is a dance contest stupid? Sure. But it's no dumber than any other time filler, mid-card segment we've seen or will ever see. No, the reason it's stupid is because no one can be bothered to even sell it like it's remotely cool. Let's start with LOL, Wresslin' favorite Tony Schiavone.

(l-r) Blabber-mouthed idiot, mush-mouthed idiot

He never knows what's going on! And not in that cool "Did Goldberg just literally kill a man?" way, but in the "Fuck it. I don't need to read a script. I'll just interrupt David Crockett whenever I want to" kind of way. Here's the direct quote.

"Now I uh...I'm going to be very honest with you fans. I...I know there's a dance contest. I don't know, I don't know who's going to be judging this. I don't know if it's the Nitro Girls are going to be judging the dance contest, or we've got a hand, or what's going to happen, but we're going to see some dancin'..."


Wow. You're actually dumber then John Madden, Tony.

"The team that scores more points usually wins! Right?"

Another dumb thing is WCW's stupid way of naming things. Calling an Asian dude "Sonny Ono" is not a clever pun! It's just taking a letter of a more famous person's name! Or Disco Inferno! What a dumb name that was!

Well, it's not totally dumb. For a gimmick of a disco dancer (which got more over then it had any right to), it's a decent name. It conveys what the gimmick is while bringing back fond memories of a Trammps song. What makes no sense is the name with his theme music. Sure, "Disco Inferno" is a song with a probably pretty hefty licensing fee. I get that. Use a knock off called "Disco Fever." But then call the character "Disco Fever!" It still conveys the same thing and the song makes more sense! Jesus Bischoff, what were you thinking back in 1995 when you booked this tripe!!?

Oh yea...

As for the actual dance contest, well I think it was legit. Nick Patrick's mullet called a fair match. Sure, The Cat had some flashy moves, but he failed the simple rule of dancing; stay in rhythm with the music! He just kind of moved his feet. Disco Inferno, despite just doing rudimentary disco moves, at least worked within the beat. He should have won and did. Of course, the main meat of the segment was The Cat's beat down of Disco after he lost, thereby continuing their feud and making me want to buy a PPV.

Oh wait. The camera/director were too enamored with the Nitro Girls' tits. Silly me. Why would I ever want to see the action in the ring?

Eh, I can't blame them.


Adam's video to Matt - Undertaker and Paul Bearer on TV



Matt's response...

Ah, the good ol' days, when wrestlers could come out in public in character. I'm glad those days are over.

Yes, we all look fondly on wrestling when we were younger; when we thought it was all real. In some ways, they were better. We enjoyed it more. We had more at stake. People's lives hung in the balance, and wrestlers like the Undertaker could cast magic at will.

But then you get situations like this. Where not only do Undertaker and Paul Bearer have to go out and act, so do Regis and Kathy Lee. They have to ask what's in the urn. They have to feign fear of the Tombstone piledriver. Regis has to pretend he's trapped in a casket.

All for what? I'll be honest - I didn't watch this show when I was growing up. I don't watch it now. I'm not in what you would say is their demographic, and I would imagine that's remained pretty much unchanged from when this segment aired. So who are they selling this match to? The elderly? Stay-at-home moms? The unemployed?? Ok, I'll believe that last one.

Like I said earlier, this just proves that things that happen on Earth-53 should stay on Earth-53. The Undertaker is one of those characters that should exist in the WWE Universe only, because otherwise, he's not scary. He's just dumb. And Paul Bearer isn't creepy. He's just a sex offender.


I'll tell you the best thing about this video though. We see the first iteration of one of my favorite WWE products: the wrestler teddy bear. And this one is just flat-out awesome.

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