Gancarski Apr 11 1999, 3:00 am show options
Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling
From: gancar...@aol.comingtodie (Gancarski) - Find messages by this author
Date: 1999/04/11
Subject: WCWSN Workrate Report for 4.10.99
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Making the readers' monkey asses famous: XXGree...@aol.com writes the following
missive:

<<I just wanted to let you know that you have one of the BEST (if not the best)
workrate reports on Ollie's site. It's pretty refreshing to see that you focus
on workrate versus how other people on other sites or message boards rate
matches (cool highspots, good interviews, whether that wrestler is "cool" or
not, and other lame crap like that.). You even cover psychology and transitions
(marks out)! A couple of questions if you don't mind:
1.) Who do you think are some of the better wrestlers out thar' today?
2.) Depeche Mode and Garbage - What do you think of them?
Thanks for your time and keep rockin' with your cool Saturday Night
reports!>>

Ha! I get props from reader! I accept props. Got two words for ya: Work. Rate.

As far as the queries go, I like all the folks everyone else seems to, and
think its tragic how WCW wastes some of its most solid workers putting over its
crap workers time and again. I wish the Armstrongs weren't the 90s version of
the Mulkeys. I wish Norman Smiley could have a belt. I really dig Silver King,
La Parka, Psicosis, and find it repugnant that undercard wrestlers seem to
disappear if they get themselves over. It's appalling to me that WCW bought the
future of workrate in North American wrestling and seems to do everything
possible to keep these workers from getting over. So, to answer question number
one, I'm down with all the wrestlers who put obvious time and thought into
developing their craft, perhaps even more so because they do it just for the
sake of it. The Armstrongs, for example, have no tangible incentive to work
hard every time they wrestle except pride in craft. As a writer who lives in a
cultural backwater with very little hope of seeing any of his novels in print,
I find it inspiring as hell that there are wrestlers who treat what they do as
art.

As far as Depeche goes, I really dig Black Celebration and Music for the
Masses. Garbage is an exceedingly well packaged pop act. They always have great
singles and really bangin' remixes, and that's all I ask from a band. Those
Fatboy Slim remixes of Foghat, though. . .

What Worked

I liked what Fit Finlay did on offense against Rick Steiner. His blows seemed
infused with a renewed stiffness, and Fit also worked off a rear chinlock
nicely.

Norman Smiley is incredibly over and has new trunks to boot. He managed to make
a mat sequence with Ernie Miller look credible, and it was kind of cool that
Tenay alluded to the controversiality of The Big Wiggle. One wonders how WCW
might handle Hiro Hase's pelvic thrusts, for example. I personally reckon that
if the right white guy had possessed the presence of mind to incorporate said
wiggle into his repertoire, WCW might find it mesmermizing and phemomememal.
People called Bill Watts racist, but the manifestations of his alleged racism
(black wrestlers being pushed, even to world titles, based on an understanding
that ethnic wrestlers being pushed often gives the members of said ethnicity
someone to identify with in the storyline) don't seem as repellent in
retrospect as the unstated yuppiefied dictum that No black man will ever
advance beyond the midcard. If you think I'm wrong, show me an example in the
Bischoff era of any minority member getting anything approaching a main event
push. And, no. The wiggerz of the Wolfpac don't count.

Barbarian hit a decent enough powerbomb and a reasonably credible chair shot.
Jerry Flynn acquitted himself well in the main event tag rematch of last week.

I'm sure Phil Schneider dug Meng's pants, so they're here because I know he
probably got all tingly seeing them and thinking about his boyhood idolatry of
the Hammers Van and M.C.

What Didn't Work

Well, Rick Steiner brawls for shit and still knows nothing about applying that
bulldog. He doesn't deserve to be in the same ring with a professional as
exacting and precise as Fit Finlay.

Hey, Ernie Miller. Your offense drags worse than one of my fellow workrate
reporter's Wank Rock of the 70s tapes. The ending of your match with Norman
Smiley sucked balls. I'm more over with the WCW fans than you are at this
point. Maybe you should let Rick Steiner practice his finisher on you or
something.

The main event was quite the root canal of a match, with predictably tepid,
bloodless brawling. It was almost as if WCW was just filling time. Go figure.

"Tugboat" Tony Gancarski.
--Writing fake fan letters is the secret ambition of every writer.
(suck.com;1.12.99)