The 50th No Smark Zone: Changes In Wrestling & The Biggest Shock In NSZ History!!
I had a completely different idea for this bicentennial NSZ. I was going to take a look at the wrestling world as it was 2 years ago when I started doing this column. But there have been some really interesting topics to come up since I wrote that, so Im going to focus on them as they are way more interesting, IMO. What I am talking about is the advent of new rules in the WWE and the WWE's continued targeting of kids as their primary demo. Both of thee have kicked off a shit storm here in the IWF and Im totally down with getting in on it, moreso than I already have.
The WWE have recently amped up their campaign to appeal more to kids. They have toned down the overt bloody violence and the sexual overtones. Also, a lot of the WWE superstars are using a bit more kiddy juvenille humor. Got a problem with that POOPY PANTS!? It seems a lot of people do. Now, personally, I dont really care. I enjoy juvenille humor. Maybe not "poopy" per se, but I like the sophmorish assholery of guys like Santino Marella or the antics of Cryme Tyme. I, however, am in the minority it seems as a lot of people have been vocal about how much they hate this change. And really I dont blame them too much, if you dont want to watch a show aimed at kids, you dont have to, and if you want to disagree and say "hey this is bull" thats fine. But I think all of those who dont like this need to realize one something. Wrestling, much like every other form of pop culture, is a reflection of where society is at that time. If you dont believe me, you can go back in the annels of wrestling history and take a look. When wrestling first started, way back in the late 1800s, when it was still mostly a shoot, there were only men for the most part who were coming to the shows. Now think back in history, who was the focus of American society during that time. Was it women? Nope, they were still fighting for equal pay. How about kids? Kids were essentially treated as second class citizens back then so, who cares what they like. Then something happened. Women started to get more of a stake in what happens in the home and around the world. And what do we see? The first wrestler who appealed to them, Handsom Jim Londos. He was literally a Greek god. Ok maybe not a god, but he was greek, and his matches in Europe were the first to ever draw women just because of how good he looked. As a little historical aside, his finisher was an arm bar. Yeah, fuck your Canadian Destroyer.
The next huge change came in around 1905. A man from Nekoosa, Wisconsin (yeah thats right Wisconsin bitches) named Ed "Strangler" Lewis started wrestling at the age of 14. And that is legit, not a work like William Regal and Finlays bios. He started wrestling in carnivals and came up with a hold that no one could get out of, the Sleeper. He went undefeated in America and then started touring the rest of the world and was eventually recognized as the undisputed world champion. No one could beat him, and no one ever did. That was, of course, until Ed became the very first Vince McMahon. Ed wasnt just a hell of a shooter/hooker, he knew how to read a crowd. And he sensed that the public in America got tired of seeing him win all the time. He decided he would choose another wrestler to lose to to keep the fans interest up and whenever he wanted the title back, if the guy wouldnt drop it, he could take him in a shoot anyway. Now did Americans suddenly get a short attention span? No, I dont. I do believe, however, that as older fans either left the sport or died off, the newer fans just didnt appreciate the pure physicality of a shoot. That wasnt what the next generation valued. Incrimentally, since then, the wrestling business has become more and more of a work and less than a shoot. It wasnt until the 70s or very early 80s that the shoot was pretty much done in professional wrestling, even in those crazy Jap feds >_>. Also, as another historical aside, Ed "Strangler" Lewis had over 6,200 matches and was defeated only 33 times. How do you like DEM APPLES!?
The last MAJOR change for professional wrestling before the Attitude Era really came around the mid 60s. And we all know what started to happen in the 60s dont we? Those god damn dirty HIPPIES came into prominence. Its not so much the counter-culture thing that happened, its more that the youth of America became a focus. Before this point in time, it was unheard of outside of the music industry to target kids. But now, the younger people, maybe not the jobless hippies, but kids had money, and at that point, they had more than they had ever had in history. So what promoter in his right mind wouldnt take advantage of that? It is around this time we started to see the more colorful wrestlers, Don Muraco, Jesse Ventura, The Iron Shiek, Sgt. Slaughter, and a whole host of others. These werent necessarily "kid friendly" characters, but they were overt characters, almost cartoonish. Especially the Shiek. PRAISE BE TO AYETOLLA MCMAHON!! Ahem, excuse me, I dont know where that came from. But ever since then we have gotten bigger and bolder characters. Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, The Ultimate Warrior, Ric Flair, etc.
Whats the point of all this? My point is the business moves in cycles, it always has and it always will. The smart fans dont want to admit it and the casual fans dont care. Wrestling mirrors society, for better or worse, and that is true of all entertainment. And if you get something like the WWE, "that appeals to people from ages 8 - 80" as the old saying goes, you have a good microcosm of what society want at that time. So if you dont like it, thats fine, there are plenty of other places to go and get what you do like. But to sit there and say "well the WWE are selling out the real fans" or "Vince doesnt know what he's doing" is Blue. Guess what, Vince has made, lost, made, and then lost again more money than you have EVER seen and EVER WILL SEE. You can say you dont like it, but to say its "wrong" is competely fucking dumb.
The other topic that has set the IWF on fire is this business of the WWE enforcing new rules on its wrestlers. The WWE are now allowing closed fists, and calling for an automatic DQ if you use the ring post, choke someone, and pulling the tights. Now, I am totally in favor of making it harder for heels to cheat. Back in the day, heels worked really hard to make you believe, within the context of the match, that they are evil, disreputable, assholes. They would make the ref look one way and jack the guy right in the face with a closed fist or a poke to the eye. And the face, when he got hit, sold the fuck out of it. I don’t mean necessarily rolling around on the ground like an idiot, not that that cant be good to see at times, but a look of pain came over their face and you believed that it hurt. They snapped their head back. If a heel got hit with a closed fist, he’d overact a bit, go out to their manager, and if he was a pretty boy douche he’d complain about how his face is a valuable commodity. Now a days, on ALL LEVELS in the wrestling business, a lot of guys don’t even bother to snap their head back. What the fuck is that? And that is only the beginning, when a heel wants to get the advantage by pulling hair, poking in the eye, or whatever else that is supposed to be IL-LE-GAL, they do it right in front of the fucking ref. Al Snow put this point better than anyone else I have ever heard when he did his shoot with ROH. He posed the question “If you are watching a football game, and one guy facemasks another guy right in front of the ref, who are you mad at?†Sure, if you don’t like the player you’re going to be mad at him, but usually the first response is “WHAT THE FUCK REF!? THROW A GOD DAMN FLAG!!!!†Am I wrong? So when The Miz wants to get some heat on JTG in a tag match, and it’s the heels turn to get some heat, he pokes JTG in the eye right in front of the ref, its gonna make most people (not the so called smart fans because they are so far above it) go WHAT THE FUCK REF!? So now the WWE are making it harder for heels to be lazy, which I am in favor of, but I do have some reservations.
It’s probably a sign of the times, as I said, but I think the closed fist being “legal†is probably a good idea. The simple fact of the matter is that most wrestling fans in this generation know it’s a work as opposed to the last generation. Since they know it’s a work, the idea of hitting someone with an “open fist†(whatever the fuck that is) is kinda silly. The same thing can be said for the faster pace wrestlers go at now a days. The fans, for whatever reason, arent always up for a slower, longer match. There has to be a bit more action. Back in the day, a guy could work a headlock spot for about 5 minutes. That shit doesn’t fly now. The automatic DQ for a choke, I really don’t like. It’s complete bull and here is why. If this happens, they are going against what they have trained the fans to believe about wrestling for the past 60-70 years. Imagine if you are watching Batman and one day he is a Chinese guy or a Puerto Rican guy speaking Spanish in the barrio’s of La Gothloma? That’d be dumb. Sure, it COULD be done, and it might appeal to a targeted audience, but it flies in the face of everything Bob Kane did since he started Batman in the early 1900’s. Imagine that? Almost a century of history thrown away on a whim? Craziness. And the other things they are talking about, like the eye poking and the pulling of the tights, well they should be an automatic DQ because they are braking the rules. And if you don’t have rules, you cant have a heel break them, and in a match, if you have no heel, you have no heat.
Now, this last thing I want to touch on is something that I am pretty sure 99% of you don’t think is in me, and with good reason. The fact is I can be hyper critical of TNA a lot of the time, and while I think it is warranted, some of you don’t. TNA, I think, are on the verge of hitting a home run with this Main Event Mafia stable. If you look back in the history of wrestling, some of the biggest drawing entities in wrestling have been stables and tag teams. The list of them is endless, The IV Horsemen, the nWo Degeneration X, The Heenan Family and I could go on and on. And the beauty of these are, even when done bad, stables are a draw, especially more so now. The smart fans have been CRAVING for this for a while. Ever since the attitude era and the nWo era, they have been clamoring for it. So this will pacify most of the base fans. But the causal fan, who is drawn in by the names of Kurt Angle, Sting, Booker T, and Kevin Nash, they will say “fuck, these guys are in a stable? I have to watch!†And to be honest, I am right there with them. You heard it here first. I, Kaedon, will be watching TNA this week because I want to know what the hell is going on with these guys. Will Samoa Joe and AJ form a counter stable? Will they run roughshod over TNA? Who besides AJ and Joe will stand to oppose them? And how will good ol Commissioner Foley deal with this? That, btw, was the dumbest thing to end a show on. Build up this huge surprise, and it’s a lame ass trick already used by thousands of feds in the past. Just lame. But the Mafia, that shit is tight. And you know, you KNOW that someone from the face side is gonna jump. Who will it be? I see Joe going over, imo. But Christian and AJ are very good at playing annoying, cocky pricks so who knows.
And that does it for the 50th No Smark Zone. Once again I want to thank everyone who is a regular reader. I really enjoy reading your feedback and getting into little discussions and arguments with you. Now lets look forward to another 50 editions and hopefully my column will be retired to the IWF Hall of Fame like I should be!!!
I had a completely different idea for this bicentennial NSZ. I was going to take a look at the wrestling world as it was 2 years ago when I started doing this column. But there have been some really interesting topics to come up since I wrote that, so Im going to focus on them as they are way more interesting, IMO. What I am talking about is the advent of new rules in the WWE and the WWE's continued targeting of kids as their primary demo. Both of thee have kicked off a shit storm here in the IWF and Im totally down with getting in on it, moreso than I already have.
The WWE have recently amped up their campaign to appeal more to kids. They have toned down the overt bloody violence and the sexual overtones. Also, a lot of the WWE superstars are using a bit more kiddy juvenille humor. Got a problem with that POOPY PANTS!? It seems a lot of people do. Now, personally, I dont really care. I enjoy juvenille humor. Maybe not "poopy" per se, but I like the sophmorish assholery of guys like Santino Marella or the antics of Cryme Tyme. I, however, am in the minority it seems as a lot of people have been vocal about how much they hate this change. And really I dont blame them too much, if you dont want to watch a show aimed at kids, you dont have to, and if you want to disagree and say "hey this is bull" thats fine. But I think all of those who dont like this need to realize one something. Wrestling, much like every other form of pop culture, is a reflection of where society is at that time. If you dont believe me, you can go back in the annels of wrestling history and take a look. When wrestling first started, way back in the late 1800s, when it was still mostly a shoot, there were only men for the most part who were coming to the shows. Now think back in history, who was the focus of American society during that time. Was it women? Nope, they were still fighting for equal pay. How about kids? Kids were essentially treated as second class citizens back then so, who cares what they like. Then something happened. Women started to get more of a stake in what happens in the home and around the world. And what do we see? The first wrestler who appealed to them, Handsom Jim Londos. He was literally a Greek god. Ok maybe not a god, but he was greek, and his matches in Europe were the first to ever draw women just because of how good he looked. As a little historical aside, his finisher was an arm bar. Yeah, fuck your Canadian Destroyer.
The next huge change came in around 1905. A man from Nekoosa, Wisconsin (yeah thats right Wisconsin bitches) named Ed "Strangler" Lewis started wrestling at the age of 14. And that is legit, not a work like William Regal and Finlays bios. He started wrestling in carnivals and came up with a hold that no one could get out of, the Sleeper. He went undefeated in America and then started touring the rest of the world and was eventually recognized as the undisputed world champion. No one could beat him, and no one ever did. That was, of course, until Ed became the very first Vince McMahon. Ed wasnt just a hell of a shooter/hooker, he knew how to read a crowd. And he sensed that the public in America got tired of seeing him win all the time. He decided he would choose another wrestler to lose to to keep the fans interest up and whenever he wanted the title back, if the guy wouldnt drop it, he could take him in a shoot anyway. Now did Americans suddenly get a short attention span? No, I dont. I do believe, however, that as older fans either left the sport or died off, the newer fans just didnt appreciate the pure physicality of a shoot. That wasnt what the next generation valued. Incrimentally, since then, the wrestling business has become more and more of a work and less than a shoot. It wasnt until the 70s or very early 80s that the shoot was pretty much done in professional wrestling, even in those crazy Jap feds >_>. Also, as another historical aside, Ed "Strangler" Lewis had over 6,200 matches and was defeated only 33 times. How do you like DEM APPLES!?
The last MAJOR change for professional wrestling before the Attitude Era really came around the mid 60s. And we all know what started to happen in the 60s dont we? Those god damn dirty HIPPIES came into prominence. Its not so much the counter-culture thing that happened, its more that the youth of America became a focus. Before this point in time, it was unheard of outside of the music industry to target kids. But now, the younger people, maybe not the jobless hippies, but kids had money, and at that point, they had more than they had ever had in history. So what promoter in his right mind wouldnt take advantage of that? It is around this time we started to see the more colorful wrestlers, Don Muraco, Jesse Ventura, The Iron Shiek, Sgt. Slaughter, and a whole host of others. These werent necessarily "kid friendly" characters, but they were overt characters, almost cartoonish. Especially the Shiek. PRAISE BE TO AYETOLLA MCMAHON!! Ahem, excuse me, I dont know where that came from. But ever since then we have gotten bigger and bolder characters. Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, The Ultimate Warrior, Ric Flair, etc.
Whats the point of all this? My point is the business moves in cycles, it always has and it always will. The smart fans dont want to admit it and the casual fans dont care. Wrestling mirrors society, for better or worse, and that is true of all entertainment. And if you get something like the WWE, "that appeals to people from ages 8 - 80" as the old saying goes, you have a good microcosm of what society want at that time. So if you dont like it, thats fine, there are plenty of other places to go and get what you do like. But to sit there and say "well the WWE are selling out the real fans" or "Vince doesnt know what he's doing" is Blue. Guess what, Vince has made, lost, made, and then lost again more money than you have EVER seen and EVER WILL SEE. You can say you dont like it, but to say its "wrong" is competely fucking dumb.
The other topic that has set the IWF on fire is this business of the WWE enforcing new rules on its wrestlers. The WWE are now allowing closed fists, and calling for an automatic DQ if you use the ring post, choke someone, and pulling the tights. Now, I am totally in favor of making it harder for heels to cheat. Back in the day, heels worked really hard to make you believe, within the context of the match, that they are evil, disreputable, assholes. They would make the ref look one way and jack the guy right in the face with a closed fist or a poke to the eye. And the face, when he got hit, sold the fuck out of it. I don’t mean necessarily rolling around on the ground like an idiot, not that that cant be good to see at times, but a look of pain came over their face and you believed that it hurt. They snapped their head back. If a heel got hit with a closed fist, he’d overact a bit, go out to their manager, and if he was a pretty boy douche he’d complain about how his face is a valuable commodity. Now a days, on ALL LEVELS in the wrestling business, a lot of guys don’t even bother to snap their head back. What the fuck is that? And that is only the beginning, when a heel wants to get the advantage by pulling hair, poking in the eye, or whatever else that is supposed to be IL-LE-GAL, they do it right in front of the fucking ref. Al Snow put this point better than anyone else I have ever heard when he did his shoot with ROH. He posed the question “If you are watching a football game, and one guy facemasks another guy right in front of the ref, who are you mad at?†Sure, if you don’t like the player you’re going to be mad at him, but usually the first response is “WHAT THE FUCK REF!? THROW A GOD DAMN FLAG!!!!†Am I wrong? So when The Miz wants to get some heat on JTG in a tag match, and it’s the heels turn to get some heat, he pokes JTG in the eye right in front of the ref, its gonna make most people (not the so called smart fans because they are so far above it) go WHAT THE FUCK REF!? So now the WWE are making it harder for heels to be lazy, which I am in favor of, but I do have some reservations.
It’s probably a sign of the times, as I said, but I think the closed fist being “legal†is probably a good idea. The simple fact of the matter is that most wrestling fans in this generation know it’s a work as opposed to the last generation. Since they know it’s a work, the idea of hitting someone with an “open fist†(whatever the fuck that is) is kinda silly. The same thing can be said for the faster pace wrestlers go at now a days. The fans, for whatever reason, arent always up for a slower, longer match. There has to be a bit more action. Back in the day, a guy could work a headlock spot for about 5 minutes. That shit doesn’t fly now. The automatic DQ for a choke, I really don’t like. It’s complete bull and here is why. If this happens, they are going against what they have trained the fans to believe about wrestling for the past 60-70 years. Imagine if you are watching Batman and one day he is a Chinese guy or a Puerto Rican guy speaking Spanish in the barrio’s of La Gothloma? That’d be dumb. Sure, it COULD be done, and it might appeal to a targeted audience, but it flies in the face of everything Bob Kane did since he started Batman in the early 1900’s. Imagine that? Almost a century of history thrown away on a whim? Craziness. And the other things they are talking about, like the eye poking and the pulling of the tights, well they should be an automatic DQ because they are braking the rules. And if you don’t have rules, you cant have a heel break them, and in a match, if you have no heel, you have no heat.
Now, this last thing I want to touch on is something that I am pretty sure 99% of you don’t think is in me, and with good reason. The fact is I can be hyper critical of TNA a lot of the time, and while I think it is warranted, some of you don’t. TNA, I think, are on the verge of hitting a home run with this Main Event Mafia stable. If you look back in the history of wrestling, some of the biggest drawing entities in wrestling have been stables and tag teams. The list of them is endless, The IV Horsemen, the nWo Degeneration X, The Heenan Family and I could go on and on. And the beauty of these are, even when done bad, stables are a draw, especially more so now. The smart fans have been CRAVING for this for a while. Ever since the attitude era and the nWo era, they have been clamoring for it. So this will pacify most of the base fans. But the causal fan, who is drawn in by the names of Kurt Angle, Sting, Booker T, and Kevin Nash, they will say “fuck, these guys are in a stable? I have to watch!†And to be honest, I am right there with them. You heard it here first. I, Kaedon, will be watching TNA this week because I want to know what the hell is going on with these guys. Will Samoa Joe and AJ form a counter stable? Will they run roughshod over TNA? Who besides AJ and Joe will stand to oppose them? And how will good ol Commissioner Foley deal with this? That, btw, was the dumbest thing to end a show on. Build up this huge surprise, and it’s a lame ass trick already used by thousands of feds in the past. Just lame. But the Mafia, that shit is tight. And you know, you KNOW that someone from the face side is gonna jump. Who will it be? I see Joe going over, imo. But Christian and AJ are very good at playing annoying, cocky pricks so who knows.
And that does it for the 50th No Smark Zone. Once again I want to thank everyone who is a regular reader. I really enjoy reading your feedback and getting into little discussions and arguments with you. Now lets look forward to another 50 editions and hopefully my column will be retired to the IWF Hall of Fame like I should be!!!
