Former major league baseball player Warren Cromartie (R)
and his partner Ryoji Sai shrink back
from Indian wrestler Tiger Jeet Singh,
seen brandishing a sword at ringside,
and his tag-team partner Joenosuke Sai (not seen)
at a tag-team match part of the
Hustle Aid pro wrestling event
in Saitama, north of Tokyo, June 17, 2007.
REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon (JAPAN)
I don't know what pushed Warren Cromartie to do this...
At 53 years of age, he's wrestling a maniac who wields a sword...!
Not only that, but he won that match too!
(His baseball uniform evokes his old uniform
but this one reads "SAMURAIMEN" I do believe
- maybe a local Japanese team he's sponsoring now;
the same way Youppi used to sponsor the defunct
Montreal Expos...? But I digress...)
Of course, it has been done before -
many times - maybe too many times...!
The WCW really went all-out,
back in the day
bringing into the "sport" of wrestling
cross-sports athletes
from the Baseball field
from the Football gridiron, primarily
and even from the basketball court -
EL GIGANTE came from there, after all!
Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman
appeared on WCW/nWo pay-per-views;
Cromartie seems to be the first
MLB player to actually WRESTLE
because Pete Rose's crappy
"performances" in the old WWF
simply do not count!
AMERICAN FOOTBALL -
not real football aka soccer;
it needs precising -
is, of course, the ideal playground
to find new "recycled" wrestlers;
Lex Luger, the late Brian Pillman,
Jim Neidhart, Steve 'Mongo' McMichaels,
Lawrence Taylor (one-shot 'un-wonder')
and several others through the years
have made that transition
(often with disastrous results)
The only NHLer I recall seeing making
any sort of cameo OF NOTE
was former Detroit enforcer
Bob Probert, on WCW Nitro.
He and Tank Abbott had exactly ZERO chemistry;
and it does take two to tango -
it doesn't work when both belligerents
have exactly ZERO charisma!
So, it wasn't repeated...
Brett Hull and others did make an odd cameo
-also on WCW Nitro-
alongside Chuck Norris
and Bill Goldberg
(as if Goldberg needed the help!)
but it was very inconsequential too -
Goldberg had already done all the work
dispatching all nWo goons
to the four corners of the ring!
All of these "special appearances"
bring, in the end, absolutely
NOTHING, really...
It is amusing for exactly 1.5 seconds -
and then the "crossover wow" effect
wears completely off -
as we come to realize that,
really, these guys
who come from such different walks of life
- they really have NOTHING IN COMMON!
Norris, Cromartie, Mongo, Rodman, Hull...
nah - NOTHING IN COMMON AT ALL!
Bringing them together in a wrestling ring
is just a cheap grandiloquent display of "pull"
- whether it's the WWE, Japan or WCW
they are all or were all showing
they have some contacts and some stroke...
Ultimately, that is sad
and very much pointless too;
for it does NOT enhance the spectacle
AT ALL...!
Good writing, like we saw
in the WCW/nWo saga
- now THAT enhances a show!
But that is another story...
And now to something else that leaves
the thinking man quite unphased -
grappling tarts
passing themselves off as pin-up models!
At least Cromartie did not
associate himself with those!
I see no correlation at all
between brawling bimbos
and sex-symbols.
Beth Phoenix is not titillating
(thank God for that - she's a seemingly
man-hating "glamazon" after all)
and the rest of them strike me
as more annoying than anything else
(Jillian, Melina & Maria, certainly,
and to a lesser extent, Mickie James, pictured)
Sometimes, all I do see there
is wannabee porn actresses
looking ridiculous trying to "fight"...!
As scantily-clad as they always are to be found,
every move risks exxxposing them
(not that Candice Michelle minds that)
so, they might as well be with Jenna's club!
They already misuse the term "divas" -
while further perverting the American lexicon
with the addition to the Merriam-Webster's
of the 'un-word' per excellence - "smackdown"!
No need, really, to diminish the impact
that true sex-symbols
(like, say, Marilyn and Bette)
true supermodels
(Giselle... Cindy Crawford... Christie Brinkley)
and real catwalk legends
(Inès de la Fressange)
by diluting the only real contribution
of all of these and more like them -
by allowing just any tart of the squared circle
to pose glamourously
and act (faux) "divaish" any...!
Labels: Cromartie, Divas, Wrestling
