Warning: in order to proceed reading the following, you're going to have had previous knowledge of the wild, wild world of professional wrestling once upon a time in your wretched... er, wrestled (?) life! You have been duly warned...
Good Ol' J.R. ''retired''...?
He was unceremoniously
FIRED, that's what he was! And all for being reticent (respectful as he is, as he should be, of the ''legendary'' Ric Flair and Four Horsemen ''mythos''...!) and outright unwilling to cut off ''the Nature Boy'' as he was talking about his recently deceased son, the funeral that followed and his touching gesture involving the two rings he was awarded in relation to the ''WWE'' and its parody of a ''hall of fame'' (bogus hall, if you ask me - call it the hall of shame and it will be closer to the truth! Or even better: dub it the ''museum of plastified bogus 'heroes' for the brainless masses that sold enough tickets for unscrupulous promoters - mainly McMahons'' and it will be RIGHT ON! But we're digressing right here...)
For those who don't know, Ric Flair took off one of his Hall of Fame rings and put it on his dead son Reid's finger - how he managed that is beyond explanation, when one takes into account rigor mortis and all... I couldn't even place a cross firmly between my dear one's hands, at that 2006 funeral I had to organize on such short notice -aren't all funerals on short notice, though, right? Anyways... This is definitely turning into a lugubrious simulpost here - again, if only an unofficial one at that - which is ironic as, of all possible ''brother blogs'' belonging to the TLB Prime Network to be paired up with, this ''lukewarm'' one is usually always updated jointly with the lugubrious one indeed. They go together, like a horse and carriage... Like a BORG and Klingon... Like a DROID and Clone... Like a JEDI and SITH... Like... er, well, let's not go where we are trying to avoid going with this, OK?!?
So... Then... Back to the topic here, really...
J.R. GOT FIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRED.
Big... freaking... deal... WE SAY!
J.R. stole his name (his
marketable name) from an old character (lately, before he croaked for real, he was really old too!) the most identifiable one (because he got shot, most of all) on an insufferable night-time (some would say 'prime time'' - ha!) soap-opera I personally could never stand. I can't even believe that they relaunched it, lately, on one of those exclusively-on-cable networks NOBODY WATCHES... I fully expect someone to have the dumb idea to resurrect rival shows DYNASTY, FALCON CREST and KNOTS LANDING, any day now! (Never mind the fact that half the original casts are DEAD: and all the others have seen their CAREERS DIE after the demise of their show!) The last one on the short list there having been a spin-off from the first (let's name it: Dallas, duh; happy?) way back in the late 80s/early 90s, it is not that far-fetched an idea at all, somewhere down the road in 2014... Old Krystle meet a new beau; or a lesbo? But we are digressing once more!
J.R. thought the world of himself, releasing some God-awful barbecue sauce to compete with another late, so-called great one who had cornered the market all to himself as the only previous celebrity with such a product ''out there'' - Paul Newman! Newman's Own or ''Good Ol' J.R.'s'' - which one would you risk your HEALTH with, quite frankly? Kudos to your brain cells if you answered NEITHER...
J.R. had respect for his predecessors, for ''the business'' and for the big names who built that business for him to make a living in: however, he repeatedly showed a lack of it for his old stomping grounds, namely WCW, where he started out, where he had been, arguably, at his best ever and where he honed his craft as a so-called ''blow-by-blow broadcaster'' with any kind of credibility. He had those odd colloquialisms and pet words that he would use ad nauseam (things such as ''physicality'' and ''Stone Cold! Stone Cold! Stone Cold!'' - sheesh!) but we all forgave him those as he was OLD... as in ''Good Ol' J.R.'' surely... and since half of his face was paralyzed, most would assume that so was half of his brain ''or something''... THAT would explain why he repeatedly forgot to mention that WCW had been the place where he had truly been AT HIS PEAK as any kind of ''broadcaster'' of any ilk; he fails to admit so
here, once again, in an interview segment on WrestleTalk, for example, choosing instead to focus upon *himself* yet again, and his best interests, as he contemplated the somber scenario of seeing his employer driven to bankruptcy by WCW circa 1997-2000... Like you didn't know, back then and even moreso today, with hindsight being 20/20 (as we all know it to be - right?!?) that you, Jerry Lawler and several other "talents'' would have been welcomed with open arms to a triumphant WCW
the very moment McMahon's ''Titan Sports'' castle of cards would have crumbled down to pieces...! The whole sorry lot of you would have most likely wound up in the nWo, which would have SUCKED TREMENDOUSLY, but still; it would have been a far more enviable scenario than seeing Ed Ferrara do his impression of you, J.R., while supporting THE OTHER STONE COLD: the REAL Steve Williams, ''Dr. Death'' as he was called, another one who is REALLY DEAD nowadays, too...
But that's another sad story, right there; let's NOT go there either...
J.R.... Argh, I am sick of calling him that! The name's JIM! As in ''he's dead, Jim!'' But it's another Jim here: Jim ROSS! So then...
Jim Ross has been manipulating things behind the scenes for far too long as it is - trying to goad nitwit public perception of what was going on with his profoundly biased descriptions of the action FOR FAR TOO MANY YEARS...! That pathetic angle in which he delivered the dubious lines ''
why do you think so many of them have been coming here and so many have gone over there? I have been VERY, VERY BUSY'' (I paraphrase) comes immediately to mind: what a sorry attempt to minimize the impact (no TNA pun intended here - at all!) of the sudden departure of ''
Razor Ramon'' and ''
Big Daddy Cool Diesel'' over to the competition (WCW) in 1997, triggering the Monday Night Wars and all that SITH; while, in apparent exchange, the then still-WWF was salvaging every last little scrap dismissed by WCW: the likes of ''Johnny B. Badd'' and ''Man Mountain Rock'' come to mind... In sharp contrast, it wasn't so bad when he was in WCW (I remember his honest statement when Jake The Snake Roberts showed up on WCW, to attack Sting of all people: all he was saying on the spot was ''Jake The Snake Roberts is not scheduled to wrestle here!'' - which used to be true, for the most part of Roberts' career, at that point...) but once the sole voice of the then-WWF (before it got the smacketh down by
the REAL WWF's Panda, in court...!) he started presenting a warped view of everything, even in the optic of ''kayfabe'' and all that SITH indeed... ROSS has been a pawn of the McMahons, selling his soul to them in exchange for all that comfort and extra opportunities (re: the crappy, indigestible barbecue sauce, backstage politics, including talent management and perhaps even acting as some sort of executive producer on all of those z-movies starring wrestlers...!) and he stood to lose all that if WCW had come out on top around the year 2000...! (Yeah: the year 2000 really should have been the END OF THE WORLD - it very nearly was for McMahon's world, anyway!)
Ross being fired, now, in the decidedly twilight of his career, after failing to even host some sort of open forum on stage, featuring a panel of so-called ''superstars'' (boy, did he push that silly label with gusto, for all those years spent at ringside, subbing for Vinnie Mac himself...! It is so ironic that it came back and bit him in his big butt, in the end!) a panel that he couldn't keep under control, ultimately... Well, that is just PRICELESS, actually!
Mean Gene Okerlund never had any problems keeping panelists in check on shows such as
this - on that subject, though, it is amusing now, given all that has transpired, to listen to Ross state ''what is wrong with WWE today''
on the very same show...! LOL #TrulyPriceless - in retrospect! Hindsight being 20/20 and all, once again!
And so, Ross and Flair's careers were intricately linked to the very last: Ross was arguably at his finest (and less annoying) when describing Ric Flair's classic matches and feuds with Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk, in the late 80s in WCW. To see the former's career end ignominiously as it does while he proves unable to contain the latter's exuberance (even in the relating of the saddest, most tragic subject there could be; although, on the excerpt
still available to watch on YouTube, it is all hilarity and mirth. However, on that excerpt, we can already see how totally unable to reign in the controls of the proceedings our poor ol' J.R. is: the moment Paul E. Dangerously (still call him that; and always will!) walks over and rips his sheets to shreds makes it all painfully official. After all, this crappy
''WWE 2K14'' panel had been assembled to promote an umpteenth damnable GAME and/or PAY-PER-VIEW, supposed to rake in loads of money for the McMahons, once again; money they sorely need after Linda gambled a huge portion of it in two failed bids to be elected into Congress, of all places...! Thus, Vinnie Mac and and his wrinkled Linda SORELY NEED THE MONEY TO COME IN, IN DROVES: and what is happening here? Wrestlers are having fun there, instead, or talking about other things, totally unrelated to the God-damn ''wrestlemania'' upcoming merchandising and/or pay-per-view... Things far more important even, if ever-so briefly, such as the short life and unfulfilled silly dreams of a young man who wanted only to live up to the make-believe legend that his dad fabricated in this business. A young man who died way too soon, due to substance-abuse that could have so easily been avoided, perhaps more easily so if he had never been found attempting to reach that level his famous dad and those ''dreaded Four Horsemen'' of kayfabe have been at for decades now; for the young man's entire lifetime, more or less, as it turned out.
Jim Ross' professional demise came off-stage (well, as it should have, really: he was always a lousy on-stage performer...!) and it has been dubbed
''the Stamford Screwjob'' in honor of the infamous time when McMahon sent off Bret Hart to the competition (and what a Trojan Horse THAT turned out to be...!) both as tainted goods as well as a defeated competitor (mostly defeated in his egotistical pride, which, for a Canadian, is truly an oxymoron! But that's another story, too...) Well, then, if no one else will say it, I'll say it (sigh) even though I am as lukewarm about this as I am about everything else that shows up here, on this particular blog...! Just as they said ''Bret screwed Bret'' (almost typoed it as ''Bret screwed a Beret'' - yikes! Well, ''the Hitman'' always claimed to be able to take it as well as he could dish it out: it should apply to
this crap as well!) I will then state, here and now, that ''Jim Ross screwed Jim Ross'' - end of discussion! And, it is for damn sure that, as
Stone Cold would say, at the end of that specific 2K14 panel, Ross was very happy to see the end of THAT discussion...!
One can wonder, now, whether Jim Boy here will be suing the Stamford, Connecticut conglomerate for wrongful termination anytime soon...? After all,
everybody sues (and loathes, deep down) the WWE - that is common knowledge, I do believe! (Just like everybody had a price for the
Million Dollar Man of old!
Not this one!) Aye, verily, everyone with half-a-brain despises this brand of lowest common-denominator so-called ''entertainment''... methinks! And with good reason, too... The ''down-in-the-gutter'' approach alone, which salvaged it from near-bankruptcy in the late nineties, them naughty nineties, is enough to turn thy stomach...! But here we are digressing again.
So then, as we are all
extremely lukewarm about this topic... let us move on already!
Let us move on to...
the Four Horsemen!
Because Ross, Flair and the Horsemen are so intricately linked, as we've both noticed and mentioned earlier, right here on this lukewarm blog post... They are so linked together, it is amazing! As if their deep south origins made them siamese conjoined twins of sorts, career-wise: and all of their careers are ending quite pathetically indeed. And ONE culprit for all this can be pinpointed with ease: no, it is not
Stone Cold... It's Vinnie Mac! Vincent Kennedy McMahon! Who else...
How many lives has McMahon ruined, already? And even more so-called ''careers'' too... That is, *if* you are willing to call it a ''career'' being willingly exposed as a circus freak, taking all of that ''physicality'' abuse for years, toiling for an egomaniacal barker like that, who will throw you out and reel in the next dozen or so circus acts the moment all the pain-killers (and assorted performance enhancers) you took stop producing the desired effects...
Horsemen members have fallen by the wayside under said treatment like clockwork, over the years: Brian Pillman died, suddenly... Eddie Guerrero, though not an official Horseman, died a similar death: and, through his association with the four ''Radicals'' who defected from WCW together, as a group, some 12 years ago, I say he was at least an ''honorary Horseman'' - at the very least. Chris Benoit died a most horrific death, taking with him former Horsemen valet
Nancy Toffoloni and an innocent child; the theories abound about what triggered that tragedy but a factor was surely the undue pressure placed upon him ''career-wise'' - which came with little or no appreciation at all, in the end. And to think that he had defected to the WWE with hopes of ''being treated much better'' by the powers-that-be in authority
there...! Again, what a terrible, cruel irony - terribly sad...
Careers became casualties, too; the careers of one ''Sid Vicious'' (made into a Psycho, after Justice failed him, by the purported to be ''creative genius'' that McMahon is...) along with Dean Malenko, Lex Luger, Jeff Jarrett (whether Arn admits it or not, HE WAS A HORSEMAN) and even J.J. Dillon's;
all of their so-called ''careers'' took a downward spiral, at one point or another, due to their passage (or repeated passages) through WWE territory - and none of them ever recuperated, really.
Ole Anderson remains the sole Horseman with enough dignity not to kiss McMahon's rear end, at any time, for any pseudo ''honour'' the latter could possibly bestow... On the contrary, Ole has been quite
vehement about McMahon on a number of occasions: it is all
on record, on various ''shoot'' interviews readily available all across the web, in which
Ole blasts number of people, not just Vinnie Mac... (With all that in mind, it remains doubtful that Vinnie Mac's RAW will even ring the bell three times once Ole passes, one day... It is possible that Vinnie Mac is THAT LOW and spiteful. Just look at what he did when it came time to induct the Horsemen into his bogus hall of shame there; Ole was completely ignored; him, a
founding member of the most elite quartet! Dillon himself, with all his bogus diplomacy, has no excuses for it
here! McMahon will ring the bell, still: but it will all be hypocrisy. But that's another story, once more)
The worst aspect remains, in fact, the core members handpicked for the ''honor'' here, all due to their cooperation, really: Ric Flair, J.J. Dillon, Barry Windham, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard (Tully, once expelled from the then-WWF for UNSPECIFIED SUBSTANCE-USE: can you imagine that!!! Tully!!! One guy who clearly was NOT a steroid freakazoid being expelled from the haven for such freaks, at the height of
THAT scandal - you've got balls, McMahon;
steroided balls! But we certainly don't want to go THERE either... As for Tully's substance of alleged abuse there, he has come out and
spoken about it amply; so we need not identify it here at all. Suffice it to say, both the WWF and NWA wouldn't hire him after that test result; another career ruined - thank you, McMahon!!! To his credit, Tully has somehow forgiven this, if not forgotten it. Not sure any other Horseman would have been so kind...) A
ll of them lowered their levels of both self-respect and dignity when they accepted to be ''pseudo-honoured'' in this fashion by the WWE, which immediately diminished all of their lifelong accomplishments into one single sentence:
''held every major NWA title in 1988'' - what, that's IT? That's all that these four dudes EVER DID? Such will be the reaction of the ignorant browser and casual fan stumbling across THAT bit of info right there: for the only other ''achievement'' listed is that ''this bunch of guys'' (as Windham himself phrased it, during the actual induction) was indeed inducted in 2012. (Is it 12 for 12 mere months of dominance? One has to wonder!) THAT IS IT, eh? Nothing else. No mention of all the individual championships collected by each (selected) individual member of the stable here; granted, there is no real need to mention the ''official'' (sweet and sour) sixteen by Flair (though the real number is something between 20 and 35!) but a casual fanatic has no real idea about those titles garnered by Arn Anderson, a tag-team specialist but also a former ''TV champion'' in his own right, or the many titles Blanchard and Windham won all on their own as well, both before and after 1988...
The disgusting feeling lingers on, even a full year removed from the actual ''ceremony'' - that all of them, from Anderson to Windham, chose to go with this crap, diminishing their impact upon the industry, their industry, not McMahon's, all for the promise of a weak percentage of sales stemming from the ''Hall of Fame'' action figures made to their effigy or the blasted DVD made of their history (badly rewritten, in a twisted way, as to avoid any mention of either anti-WWE sentiment, NWA greatness, WCW superiority or one
Chris Benoit...)
Arn Anderson - I thought you were better than that; I thought you were more like Ole, your mere lookalike ultimately because, quite evidently, there is not an ounce of common blood and genetic material shared between the two of you, notwithstanding the Horsemen genealogy... In fact, I am about to suspect that ''
C.
W.
Anderson'' is the one who has true kinship with Ole, not you, ''Arn''...
Tully Blanchard - I guess you took it as a form of reward from the Heavens above, finally - all good things come to those who wait, hmm? As a man of God, now, you chose to forgive the McMahon Circus for what it had done to you, back in 1989... I can understand THAT - so I'll remain your friend, on
My Space... (In my heart, I believe fellow wrestlers-turned-pastors Nikita Koloff and Ted Dibiase would have done the same; not that Koloff will ever get the ''chance'' to get inducted, though...)
J.J. Dillon - well, as an oftentimes ''executive'' (the on-screen variety) I am not surprised you would go along with all this, really... You're a ''suit'' so it's all up your alley, I'll suppose...
Barry Windham - now, I never cared much about B.W. or the alleged ''Blackjack Mulligan legacy'' that he carried forth... straight into the gutter, too, I'd say! Another type of gutter though, here; not like the one used by the WWE just to
survive...! Barry portrayed the role of ''the Horsemen traitor'' one-too-many-times (the worst one being alongside Eric Bischoff's nWo - WITHOUT ever joining the nWo per say, as they didn't even want him in the first place!) and that alone didn't endear your character to anyone at all; for nobody likes a mercenary without scruples - anyway, I don't. You'd expect some code of honor, even within kayfabe, at least that! Worker-wise, I was never all-too impressed either...
Ric Flair - I think I have already let known my growing disappointment with my former hero here. Flair is ageing very ungracefully, to say the least, and he was outright vulgar and pathetic (all at once; how did he manage that? Ask him. Woo!) during his brief passage through TNA, which he now takes jabs at every chance he gets. His so-called ''legacy'' has dwindled down to all that it really was, in the end: fake athleticism and silly antics. All that ''ladies' man'' crap has degenerated into ''old perv'' territory by now - which is extremely distasteful and disheartening, both. Seeing him buy into all the circus aspects of the business as he still routinely will, even as his son died due to wanting so much to become a part of said circus, does not shock me anymore. It just saddens me - for him and for his family. And he wants his daughter, Ashleigh aka Charlotte, to become a ''wwe diva'' now... *Sigh*
To accept the so-called ''honor'' of being inducted into that ''hall of fame'' when you know full well that you were lucky to pass through the ordeal of having had to work for that circus and coming out of it unscathed (whereas so many others were scarred for life - or lost their life) could be likened to accepting a medal for having gone to war for all the wrong reasons (entirely and purposefully fabricated reasons; America knows all about THAT, eh?) and being unfazed by the maimings and sheer trauma suffered by all thy fellow soldiers scattered out on the battlefield...
Now, isn't Jim Ross ALREADY inducted into that bogus, worthless hall of ''f-shame'' there, him too?
Yes,
he is...
Good thing they didn't wait for your ''retirement'' to take effect, Jimbo, eh? Said forced ''retirement'' would have likely triggered some sort of newfound lucidity and veracity in your tired old shell, one can imagine? What kind of speech would you have slurred out THEN, if it had been the case...
Wow - we certainly wrote a LOT about this; and we are so lukewarm about it all! Imagine if we were actually one iota passionate about it around here...! ;-)
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Labels: luminous pundit me, Wrestling
