10.31.98 by AG
 

Al Jourgenson, back during Ministry's synthpop days, wrote a song called
'Everyday Is Halloween' that I was really into when I was sixteen, clumsy, and
shy, if you will. It was all about being different -- being persecuted for
wearing all black, DM's, and eyeliner in a Reebok, Izod, and Rattail world. In
this song, anyway, there was a price to be paid for one's tragic attempts to be
hip -- you end up costuming everyday, and it's a real endgame. A bad thing.
I hung out with my friend Allison tonight and left her apartment around 10:30.
I rewound the Smiths' Louder than Bombs before leaving her apartment, and put
it into play. She lives in a Washington, DC suburb called Arlington; I live in
a DC neighborhood called Glover Park. We live about 4 miles from each other,
which is usually a fifteen minute commute given DC's perpetual traffic
congestion.
Well, it took me more than fifteen minutes to get home. I got stuck on
Pennsylvania Avenue and, through dint of sclerotic traffic patterns, it took me
seventy-five minutes to get home. I got to listen to the entire Smiths album.
And I saw a parade of entirely generic costumes. And I got to thinking about
wrestling, knowing that I had to watch WCWSN when I got home and come up with
something intelligent to say about it.
I sat in the aforementioned sclerotic traffic and watched beefy frat boys
dressed in drag sashaying with their overfed girlfriends wearing devil outfits.
I saw more hags in training wearing witches outfits than I could count without
an abacus. I could only look on as DC's surplus of aspirant politicians and
lawyers and political scientists shed what passes for their critical thinking
skills in our temp-to-hire, rent-to-own, rock-n-roll, pizza and beer world just
to cut loose. To have fun. To party with a capital P, drinking 2 for 1 shooters
at some hopeless Georgetown nightclub, wearing the same damn costumes, sporting
the same sad gimmicks everyone else does.
And I thought, for no particular reason, of Van Hammer and Reese and Sickboy.
Of Bret Hamner and Mike Tolbert. Of every juiced-up Power Plant trainee who's
ever dreamed he could and emphatically couldn't. Of Barry Darsow, at the
twilight of his career, searching for one more gimmick that might get him back
on the Big Show. On any big show. Of Al Green, who never had a gimmick and who
has marginal talent and who works as stiff as Louise Jefferson. Of Mongo and
Stevie Ray and Ed Leslie; of Tenta and Wayne Farris and then I was distracted
by some bigassed Iranian girl with a misbegotten dominatrix outfit, her stomach
sticking out like she was Paul Wight auditioning to be the third member of
Demolition. And then I got philosophical.
Look, I know this is a world where our best poets and novelists and musicians
wait tables and work customer service and drive Ford Escorts. I know someone
like Lorenzo or Trevor Blanchard (who's Trevor? You'll find out!) has no real
reason for being in the ring. But perhaps this is God's plan, putting the chaff
in front of us so we know what wheat is. I don't know. If man is five, the
devil is six, then God is seven. All I'm saying is try to accept these crap
workers for who and what they are, maybe putting a bit of thought into why they
chose professional wrestling as a career and why someone with considerable
experience in booking decided they merited national TV time. Or something. Now
here's the report proper.

What Worked

-- This was LWO Saturday Night, damnit, and it felt GOOD.

-- La Parka and Steve Armstrong have a competent little match which meshed
about as well as it needed to. Parka knew Steve can't really work Lucha and
Steve knew that Parka's not US Pro style yet, so they played to each other's
strengths. Armstrong hit a pretty missile dropkick (.7 on the Alex Wright
scale); Parka landed a beautiful plancha from the top turnbuckle on Armstrong
outside the ring. A cradle that La Parka put on for a two count looked kinda
choreographed, but the match flowed, and the chairshot finish worked in context
of the match (LWO's Parka gets the win, but doesn't diminish the already
microscopic Armstrong, who woulda won, but he was seeing if the ref was OK).

-- The LWO calls out Lionheart! Eddy vows revenge for Jericho putting the deep
hurt on Psicosis! Eddy shoots with some of the most vicious epithets imaginable
on Jericho, callin' him "Mr. Ponytail, Mr. Sissy, Mr. Runaround". Brutal
tongue-lashing from the most G-Rated Stable Leader in Pro Wrestling history.

-- The increasingly over Chavito works one of them six minute lucha matches
with the underrated Ciclope, and Chavito lets his opponent actually do stuff,
none of which I actually wrote down. But it was good.

-- Sonny Onoo comes out to the ring and does some David Carradine hai karate
posing stuff. He calls out Kaz, they tease at having a match, and the nefarious
Ernest Miller comes out and standing side kicks Ol' Kaz in the head. Then that
devious Sonny Onoo covers Hayashi for the three count. This was very Oliver
Humperdink Wins The Florida Title, and hopefully will help get Kaz over in the
same way Malenko kinda got over working against the Sonny Onoo managed Ultimo
Dragon. In terms of visibility for Kaz, it's helluva better than wrestling once
a month on Nitro for six minutes.

-- The Barrys Darsow and Horowitz spend ten minutes working this Darsow is a
golfer and therefore can't/won't wrestle schtick. Horowitz loses the match
because he misses a putt. There's no wrestling here, but there wouldn't have
been all that much if Darsow hadn't been wearing his golfing gear, so we're not
exactly losing Kobashi/Misawa here. This stuff is really, really funny for me,
and I couldn't tell you why.

-- Gene Okerlund has the hottest scoops! Well, him and Al Isaacs, anyway. Guess
what? On the hotline, you could hear about some last minute lineup changes for
Halloween Havoc! Hot Damn! That's still 360 days away! Call now!

-- Van Hammer takes on Tully Blanchard. Whoops. TREVOR Blanchard. This was so
bad that it was good. They've planted Hammer fans in the audience -- with signs
and everything. Hammer's been watching those old Flair tapes, as he's almost
picked up that high vertical sue-play (and he's only been a pro for a decade!).
Regal's bitch then lays in the weakest knife-edge chops this side of Jessica
Tandy in a Shaw Brothers' fight scene. And Trevor, boy, he's no prize either.
He's got the size of Rey Mysterio Jr. and the body of Andy Capp. His offense
was, uh, problematic; I've seen paralytics hit better flying dropkicks.
Mulkeyesque, and I don't just throw that one around.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

--Eddy and Jericho go walking in Memphis in the Main Event. Considering that
these two could go thirty minutes and not repeat any spots, to give them five
minutes (especially given the Stalling Heel nature of Jericho's gimmick) is a
recipe for disappointment. The work, what there was, was as crisp as you'd
like, and I dug the LWO assisted visionary fall after the bell. But after the
no-name chumps and recaps that filled much of the rest of the show, it takes
very little imagination to make some judicious cuts and give these two a twenty
minute block. This still might have worked in spite of Crockettesque time
constraints if they hadn't seemed so much like they were watching the clock and
waiting for the moment when Jericho could grab the belt and walk toward the
dressing room, only to be intercepted by the L...W...O...(por vida, la raza).

-- FFWD doesn't slow down for Jerry Flynn and Mean Mike. Nope. Not at 2 AM.

-- Chip Minton. Lenny Lane. Minton goes by 'Mr. World Class'; Lane counters by
dubbing himself 'Mr. Memphis Power Pro'. Lane seems to have made the LDOD one
of his signature spots, which slowed down FFWD. But Minton wins the match with
a standing splash -- did Earthquake Ferris sponsor his thesis at 'rasslin
school?

-- Mike Sanders. Al Green. Sanders has the athleticism to be something in three
years, but logic tells me that he'll end up logging in some hours at the Power
Plant, and becoming one of those stiffs who thinks versatility is hitting a
halfass tope or something. This wasn't really something you'd want to televise,
and Al Green takes a walk on the wildside here, competing with some serious
heavyweights like Mongo, Neidhart, Adams, Warrior, and Stevie Ray for the
designation of WCW's Worst Wrestler. There oughta be a battle royale for that
one, I'll tell you what.

-- Scott Armstrong takes on Lodi. The ring work here was dull as dishwater, and
doesn't really bear any significant comment except that Scott Armstrong's
single career aspiration seems to be to take the New Breed's time machine back
to 1981 and work against Pvt. Jim Nelson at a Mid Atlantic TV Taping at WRAL TV
in Raleigh, NC. What concerns me more is the professional development of Lodi.
He's not going anywhere, folks, and Fat Tony'll tell you why. He sees himself
as a tragedian. Yet he's working comedy -- the broadest kind at that, that of
the opening match comedy heel -- and he's not good at it. His gestures and
actions look strained; he brandishes his signs with the conviction of a hollow,
defeated man. You would think that Scott Levy woulda taught him that he had to
master Scotty Flamingo and Johnny Polo, toiling in the nether regions of Global
and early 90s WCW and WWF, before being allowed to become Raven. But Lodi is
stagnating: he wants to be The Man, but he's not the worker than his
contemporary Kidman is; he wants to be a player, but until he learns and
masters his role, he's going to get played until he's recycled to the Indy
circuit full-time.