W.W.W. featuring The Diamond Stud and The American Males

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." 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 video of 60 wrestler impressions in 90 seconds 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- Scott Hall RARE promo



Adam's response...

Ah yes, the good old days. A time when men were men, women were women, and that's it. Everyone had class out the ass. Kids these days don't even know, you know (tm).

1/3rd of this group are men.

Take for example, Magnum TA. The man may have been paralyzed on one side and can't wrestle anymore, but he had class. Sure, many sports broadcasters go to events wearing a suit (and looking professional), but he goes above and beyond. He wears a tux with a festive red bow tie! I'm thinking of a word that starts with a CLA and ends with an ASS.

Or the hair? Lordy lordy, how about that hair? Business in the front of course. This is a classy time. But the back? Party town USA, bro. It's important to straddle that line, as it means both the boss and the janitor take you seriously.

Dick Whitman

Of course, this isn't a style guide. No, this is an office. An office of pain, no doubt. But an office nonetheless. And that's where this segment falls apart. I'm speaking to you, Diamond Dallas Page. First thing is, you're trying too hard. The Z Man should want to work with you, not be afraid of your Diamond Stud. Second, you're lying. No one pays "good money" for the advice of an iliterate. But still, I can tell you need a little more convincing.

This life that we live. It's more than just body slams and arm bars. It's about taking time out to smell the roses. It's about remembering what it means to be a child. We aren't selling a ticket to fans.We're providing them a dynamic morality tale set in the fast paced world of tomorrow. Good vs Evil, hard work vs the easy way. All at our finger tips. Hell, it's almost within our influence. So sure, let other promotion's dish out "wrasslin'" with contempt for their "marks." We'll be better. We'll dish out one slice of America at a time. Now gentlemen, I don't know if that's something you'd want to buy, but I sure can bet that it's not anything but damn appealing.

Adam's video to Matt - The American Males vs. Dick Slater



Matt's reponse...

Director's Commentary for WCW Saturday Night

Ah, yes...here we have a marquee match-up, indicative of the type of action you'd normally see on the show. Dick Slater, having done something to upset these two gentlemen, is going to face them in a two-on-one match. This should be a good time.

I love how we cut to that fan giving the thumbs-down. That's a good way to show new fans that this Slater fella is not someone you should cheer for. He's unpopular with the fans in attendance.

Alright...now, I can't really explain why we decided to run a pre-recorded message from Bagwell and Riggs during their introduction. You can't really hear what they're saying, and what's worse, you can't hear their incredible theme song. Of all the decisions made at WCW, this might be one of the worst. Only time will tell, I suppose, but it's a shame nonetheless.

You may think it a fault of the commentators to talk about the upcoming six-man lumberjack match coming up, but that was my call. You see, I knew this match was going to be the big draw on the show. That's the perfect time to promo a match that really isn't going to have that much hype in the first place. Hogan and Macho? Who cares? So this was a good time to make sure people were aware it was coming up.

And yes, I did tell them to say "Dick isn't afraid to take on two men."

Finally, despite the commentators throwing it to a different clip, I thought it was important to show you the finish of the match you just saw. Really sink that in. Also, it's good to go all the way back the Males entrance. It really has nothing to do with the outcome of the match, but it's worth seeing again, isn't it?

LOL, Wresslin' movie review: Ready to Rumble

Remember that movie The Wrestler? It was the little indie flick that could and got some attention for a while. Eventually it was forgotten because it forgot the best part of professional wrestling; the spectacle! Sure, being a pro wrestler is a hard life and it involves drug use and a Bruce Springsteen song, but what about the ride up!? The fun times! The mad cap antics and zany adventures that forge friendships for life!

Thankfully, World Championship Wrestling (and AOL TimeWarner by extension) produced one gem way back in 2000. It is called Ready to Rumble and it is fantastic.

The film so fine they gave it two tag lines!

Now, we know all our readers are legal scholars, so before we get into the real meat of this review we shall assuage your fears. WCW totally cleared the trade mark for the phrase "ready to rumble." Michael Buffer used to do some ring announcing for them, so they already had a preexisting working relationship, so all the kinks were worked out no problem. Everyone feel better now? Good.

Here's the basic synopsis used by the finest research tools at our disposal:

Sewage workers Gordie Boggs (David Arquette) and Sean Dawkins (Scott Caan) watch their favorite wrestler, WCW World Heavyweight Championship holder Jimmy King (Oliver Platt) cheated out of the title by Diamond Dallas Page (playing himself), an evil WCW promoter named Titus Sinclair (Joe Pantoliano), and DDP's partners. After the match, the two wrestling fans humorously express their rage in their septic truck, resulting in a car crash with Gordie and Sean surviving.

After this event, Gordie believes that the car crash was supposed to happen and that they should make Jimmy King once again a title holder.

That makes a lot of sense to us!

The story progresses with Jimmy King sobering up and making amends for all the mistakes in his life. It's a true coming of age story, as The King, who may have had all the rich$ and luxurie$ in the world, learns what truth wealth is when he has nothing at all. Also, Gordie has sex with Nitro Girl Sasha (she's the head Nitro Girl because she doesn't have a stupid name like "Whisper" or "Prancer") played by Rose McGowen. One truly LOL moment was when she was trying to seduce him and she unveils her "secret weapons" (her breasts). Gordie, being the brain dead wrasslin' fan he is, screams "Foreign objects!" and commits domestic violence on her. This only turns her on more, because hey, she wanted it!

Of course she ended up being a spy for Joey Pant's character the entire time, but...we're going too deep into this.

So on the road to redemption, Gordie and Dale try and recruit various face wrestlers to team with Jimmy King, and also get Martin Landau to train him. Once the heel wrestlers (ok, Sid and Bam Bam Bigelow) get wind of this they decided to take out the old man and summarily get their asses handed to them. Only then does Sid come up with the bright idea to hit the old man over the head with a pipe do they subdue the wily octogenarian. This puts him in the hospital and it's also where Sasha's evil tendencies are revealed.

However, after hearing of the old man attack, no one will help Jimmy King, in fear of crossing Sinclair. Then Gordie is called back home to Wyoming to take the police officer's exam (which his overbearing father who pays not attention to his son wanted). Things never looked bleaker for the King, but he perseveres. With no wrestlers to have his back, King recruits a rag tag band of misfits to be his posse. He'll be ready for the big title match against Diamond Dallas Page. And the stakes have never been higher. Win, and King is king. Lose, and King is done. And top top it all off, this match will be contested in a triple cage!

Before the match, Sinclair instructs Sting, who we have never seen before in this movie, nor was he ever mentioned, to not get involved. Sting looks at him silently. How could he get involved though? It's a cage match, specifically designed to keep outside interference outside of...interfering...right. Still, that detail must have been lost as all the heel wrestlers (Sid, Bam Bam, Juventud Guerrera for some reason) come out to assist Page. Things are at their lowest for King, when suddenly, a bunch of face wrestlers come out to even the odds! Goldberg! Booker T! Disco Inferno (what?)! But there was one heel wrestler who completely tipped the balance. At first he was masked, so no one knew what to think. But then he unveiled himself to be Jimmy King's own inbred son! And even though no one has ever seen him before, Mike Tenay and Tony Schiavone immediately knew who he was. Thankfully, this was soon resolved as Gordie comes out wearing a policeman's uniform with the sleeves cut off. But he travels in style, as he rides a motorcycle and jumps it into the cage wall, knocking that wall down and landing perfectly in the ring. Miraculously, no one was killed.

So more brawling ensues in the triple cage (CageCageCage?) and eventually both DDP and King are brawling on the top cage. The objective is to grab the belt hanging from the ceiling. DDP knocks King off the top of the cage, ostensibly winning the match. But before he can grab the belt, none other but Sting emerges from the rafters to attack DDP for no reason despite how he was going to win the match clean. This leads to King winning the match, despite needing the help of Goldberg and Sting and a motorcycle to beat an inbred and The Juice.

Of course, what makes a great movie? We'd argue that a great movie makes you think about it well after the fact. It presents interesting questions that may not have clear cut answers. So here are a few that we've pondered over the years:

1. How are so many people watching WCW Pay Per View? That's not a slam against WCW's product (well, it is a little), but seriously. People with rabbit ear televisions were watching the event in crystal clear standard definition. People at their jobs were watching the PPV. We're willing to suspend disbelief, but not that much.
2. Is wrestling in this movie a work or shoot? We're going to assume shoot since King legitmally wants the title, but their are scenes where you see people booking.
3. This movie started the trend of movies dancing around the topic of Goldberg having a giant, cut hog. Shouldn't that alone put him in the Hall of Fame?
4. How does Gordy, a mid-late 20's virgin, have the self confidence to reject pre-car crash Rose McGowan?

As far as this movies lasting effect, well, the less said the better. WCW did implement the triple cage concept. Of course, Chris Kanyon almost killed himself in one of them, so that's how much of a good idea that was. Also, to promote the film, WCW had David Arquette win the heavyweight title in a tag match. Diamond Dallas Page, the film's secondary antagonist, was his tag partner. Yea, it was pretty stupid. To Arquette's credit, he thought it was dumb as well and donated all money he made to some dead wrestlers' families. WCW closed a year later.

Of course, we're not going to end on a sad note. No, this movie holds a special place in the our hearts, because it's another example of our unstoppable friendship that was forged in adamantium by the gods themselves. A few years ago, Matt was visiting Adam on the east coast and we watched Ready to Rumble for the first time together. There is one scene of blatant product advertising where Martin Landau's character is in the hospital and being visited by Gordie and Dale. Gordie brings him a non-descript candy bar, to which he is met with a "Get me a Butterfinger! That's my favorite!." Cut to a vending machine full of Butterfingers. Now we Twins paused the movie and laughed over how blatant the plug was but then said, "You know what though? A Butterfinger would be good right now." Cut to us driving to Seven Eleven to buy three Butterfingers.

But wait, it gets worse.

A few months later Adam was going to Austin for South by Southwest. One of his friends was coming along. So they stopped in Dallas for a few days to visit Matt. Matt and Adam recounted what marks for Butterfingers they were and a hearty laugh was had by the three. Then, one fatal sentence was muttered: "You know, a Butterfinger would be good right now." Yes, it got us twice!

How many movies can lay that sort of claim?

The Original Laugh Twins

W.W.W. featuring Mrs. Undertaker's Stalker and Scott Hall vs. Chris Jericho

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." Please feel free to suggest a better title, because we are woefully uncreative when it comes to naming stuff.

Better at naming stuff then 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 montage of photoshopped nude Diva photos ain't gonna 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.
Adam's video to Matt - Undertaker's wife's stalker revealed



Matt's response...

I'll save you the suspense (and obviously so will the video preview) - it was DDP.

It's a LOL, Wresslin' pictogram!

That's right, Diamond Dallas Page was stalking the Undertaker's wife, presumably because he had nothing better to do.

Actually, Page provides a reason for committing this crime; he's coming after the Undertaker. See, this was right after the WWF purchased WCW, and Page was in a little need of work. So what do you do? You show up at your new job and go after the best guy that's already working there. It's a prison mentality, I believe.

DDP shows up and says he wants to take on Undertaker because he wants Taker to make him famous. Apparently he's been doing a pretty poor job of it on his own. So how did that work out?

Well, Wikipedia's description of Diamond Dallas Page's run in the WWE is only two paragraphs long, so that should tell you something.

*Not the WWE Championship

I'm sure all of you are wondering what happened at the King of the Ring in question. Page did what he said he would and bought a ticket to the event to sit in the front row. It seems strange that Vince McMahon would let him ride down to the ring on a motorcycle, cut a five minute promo on someone, and then make him buy a ticket to get to an event. What an odd business.

So the Deadman showed up, after taunting Page all night with hidden video of DDP getting to the arena and stuff like that. They tussle a bit, and Page runs away.

Did that make him famous? Not long after, he changed to his "Positively Page" gimmick and then left the company. Then he wrestled some independent shows, went to TNA (which I guess you could call a step up, but I'm not sure) and lost a championship match to Jeff Jarrett. But it was 2004, so everyone lost to Jarrett - don't feel bad, DDP.

After that, he and his smoking hot wife divorced, and now he's a motivational speaker. Next, I expect him to be a TV pitch-man, selling the newest kitchen utensil, the Diamond Cutter!

Not better than him, though.

So what exactly was the price of the Undertaker making you famous, Diamond? Your health declined, you don't wrestle anymore, you wasted money on PPV tickets, your wife is gone, and now you can only serve to motivate others by saying how crappy things were for you.

But that's not a bad thing, it's a GOOD thing.

What an mixed-up world wrestling is, as well. As far as I can tell, Page stalked someone (criminal harassment), committed voyeurism (invasion of privacy), and stole private property. Yet when he rides to the ring on his pilfered motorcycle and admits to all of this, he gets a huge pop. At the very least he should be reprimanded and given a less-than-hospital welcome at the arena.

I can understand law enforcement being slow to respond though. He did, like the Diamond Cutter, appear out of nowhere.

Matt's video to Adam- WCW Scott Hall vs. Chris Jericho




What's this? A video involving Scott Hall? After last week's video about Jake Roberts? Me thinks Matt is trying to tell me something. Seriously, what's up with these slow ones over the plate? You think I'm not funny enough, Matt? I'm not good enough? Well I'll show you! I'll eat a pint of ice cream and then get a make over, which mostly consists of me dying my hair and getting it get really short.

Future me

Anyway, on to the task at hand. Mr. Hall comes out of the locker room with some very small belt on. I don't know what belt it is, since no graphic nor announcer felt the need to tell me. Still, it's almost comically tiny. Sort of the anti-Jack Swagger.

Kinda like that.

Still, this is standard Scott Hall. He comes into the ring, gives a little "Hey yo" and goes into the nWo survey shtick. Surprisingly enough though, the nWo are actually heels this time. That's because we're live from Charlotte, North Carolina! Flair country! Wooo! Woo! Woooo!

I mentioned this the last time Matt sent me an nWo video, but the director of this show is terrible. He always cuts to the exact opposite of what should be seen. Case in point, WCW is being cheered during the survey, and he gets to this:



And this:


Now, I honestly want to know what the nWo needs this survey data for. Is it to sell more of their tee shirt brands, as Mr. McMahon would say? Or do they want to have an empirical way to rank the super hunks of the New World Order? Maybe the political leanings and mean age/income of an nWo supporter for future pledge drives? Or is the far more likely answer of "ego." Unfortunately, it seem that most of the nWo is now billed from "Parts Unknown" so this will have to remain a mystery.

And how does Hall end the segment? "One more for the good guys!" I understand the heat he would get by misinterpreting a crowd reaction, but Scott Hall has billed himself as "The Bad Guy." So which is it, Razor? Are the nWo ironic good guys or heelish bad guys? Santa has an answer!

A grown man made a sign about what a make believe man thinks of a make believe organization.

As for the match itself.... pretty good actually. I know I should be all like, "Scott Hall's a drunk LOLZ!" but the whole reason we make fun of Scott is because of his epic failure. The failure wouldn't be epic if he wasn't once successful. This was part of the good days. Seriously, for match this short it told a nice story and got everyone over. Jericho had some good offense and got a couple of near falls, and the announcers do a good job of putting him over, citing his eventual loss due to a "lack of experience." Hall sold pretty well for Jericho, got in a few good spots, and showed some real personality out there. Like his reaction to the pro-WCW survey response:


And his mocking of the Giant after using the Giant's signature choke slam:


So all and all, Scott Hall did good in my book on this night. Of course, here's what happened backstage with the boys after the match:

Yo! It's me! It's me! It's "I- Can't- Read!"

There are some wrestlers, who despite over whelming odds still achieve success. They could be small guys who found a niche' and got over. They could be one legged wrestlers who go into programs with Vince McMahon and Brock Lesnar. They could even be notties who became hotties and then like to show up all the kids who made fun of them in school.

And then there are people like Diamond Dallas Page who got over for no discernible reason.

You know (tm), we don't think we're talking out of turn when we say DDP may be one of the worst world champions this side of The Great Khali (FYI, it goes David Arquette, DDP, Great Khali). But the question remains, why did he get his run?

1) It was mid-90's WCW.

While yes, WCW made some terrible booking decisions which ultimately led to their closing up shop, they still were a dominant force between 1995-9. So although Page never got a world title run until April of 1999, he was still a main event fixture.

2) He's charismatic.
Coming out to a public domain version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" does not make you an edgy rebel that relates to the kids. Yelling "BANG!" does not make us think your hands are a gun. Self high-five? Really? When was that ever cool? And the diamond cutter logo is actually sign language for "vagina." Hope you knew that.

Pussy

3) Speaking of not knowing what things mean, DDP is an inspiration due to being illiterate until his 40's.
The man is a pro wrestler, not an astronaut. Seems like his only career choices were professional wrestler or working the ski-ball machine at Jenkinson's (Adam says "Keepin it local, son!"). Yet somehow, he headlines a tag match with fellow mush mouth Karl Malone??

Team Dyslexic

Diamond Dallas Page got two world title runs after the age of 40, was the second lead villain in the film Ready to Rumble, made boat loads of cash selling merchandise, and married her:

Call?

All while never carrying anyone to a good match, having the "I'm so cool I scream everything!" charisma, being from the Jersey Shore (Adam: Hey!), and not being able to read until his 40's.

Richard Pryor and George Carlin are dead, but Carrot Top shoots himself silly with steroids and is still alive. John Lennon takes multiple bullets, but Yoko Ono (standing right next to him) doesn't get one. Diamond Dallas Page wrote a book. There is no justice. God is dead, and we're alone.

Excuse us, we're going to go hang ourselves.

New tag team: Chin and Perm