The Sunday Morning Hangover 1.07.07: My Favorite PPV

Well, can you tell me where to find that Mystery God?
I don’t see him, so you know the shit is kinda hard/
I searched and searched, but still there’s no sign
It’s gotta be a trick for the deaf dumb and blind…
* Brand Nubian – “Ain’t No Mystery”

For my first official piece at 411Wrestling, I will be using a more subdued approach to my writing. Regular readers may be fond (or not so much) of my egotistical ranting in almost every piece of literature I’ve ever penned for 411Music (I own that page by the way, ask Melchor). So under advisement of my lawyers I am writing to you without the use of my usual theatrics and pyrotechnics. Expect strictly business like Lou Thesz on the cover of an EPMD album.

In today’s brief episode I will formally introduce myself as an official member of the 411Wrestling team. I will tell you who I am and why I deserve to be here. I’ll even roast a fat blunt with you if you want. Whatever it takes to get you nice and comfortable, as you settle in for the inaugural edition of MSD‘s Sunday Morning Hangover. Pour the coffee and pass the paper, ma. Daddy’s still drunk from last night.

Right now I’m at the public library, freshly spoofed off a Vanilla Dutchmaster. I have an hour on the automatic computer clock before it shuts me off, and I’m happy to be here. The train of consciousness is now leaving the station. Let’s see what these dancing fingers can come up with.

28 is my lucky number. January 28th in particular. Same birth date as the God MC, lived at apartment #28 in Broken City my whole life. Wifey was born on a 28th. This month – January 28th 2007 – I will be reborn again. This month – as a birthday present to me – I have been granted the most precious gold bar in the 411Mania treasury. A platinum opportunity to join the hallowed fraternity that helped birth all those other great internet wrestling scribes (you know, what’s their names. I think they wrote a book). Now I have earned a spot as benchwarmer for the fabled 411Mania wrestling team. Hoping to live up to its lofty benchmark.

For over two years I’ve paid my dues in the dungeons of 411Music, banging out hit after hit for the rap fiends worldwide. My job got raided, I got killed and I’ve been interviewed by Fox 25 News. I’ve even watched some guy get shot to death! All during my grizzly tenure at 411Music. But I’ve been here for years. I was a regular reader back when this joint was just “411Wrestling.com”, it hadn’t quite attainted the “Mania” yet. So I understand that this entire pop culture scene was built upon the mighty backs of our smark forefathers. This month, I emerge from the bowels of 411Music into your annals of internet GODS.

January 2007 represents my resurrection. But my style brings it back to 1980. Bruno Sammartino versus Larry Zbyszko, Shea Stadium Showdown style. I bring it back to acid trips and TLC hits from 2000, “Trigga Gots No Heart”/Big Van Vader/Cactus Jack style from 1993. I’m telling you this is the rawest element of internet wrestling smarkdom. I’m bringing it back to the essence. Like the homeboy Mac Dre said, we’re about to get stupid. Just like THIZZ…

THE SUNDAY MORNING HANGOVER: Inaugural Edition
My Favorite PPV

My grandfather once had basic cable, and because I pitched it as a birthday gift to myself I got my mother to splurge once a year for a WWE PPV. This would grow to become my Royal Rumble tradition. The first time I ever saw a live PPV was in January of 1992. My 12th birthday – 6th grade – and I sponsored a PPV bash for all my little friends. We all wound up wrestling each other, boys and girls, about halfway through but that’s your average elementary attention span. We eventually went back to the show for its big finish.

A few things I distinctly remember about that event:

• At one point during the telecast, my mother (who knows NOTHING about the sport) wanders by the TV and makes another one of her sarcastic comments. “Who’s THAT old man?” she wondered aloud, referring to none other than the “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. It’s not just funny that he went on to win the whole thing that night, but that he’s STILL wrestling weekly 14 years later!

• I vividly remember Sid Justice dumping Hulk Hogan out of the ring from behind, and my whole living room cheering! But for some reason, Hulkster reached up (ostensibly to shake Justice‘s hand for being the better man) before illegally pulling him out of the ring! He cheated, Justice was screwed, Flair won and my friends booed the hell out of that finish. But what’s most memorable about that ending, was the live audience reacting in the same way. Everybody booed Hulkster for his brazen display of unsportsmanlike conduct. But on later telecasts – especially while building to the Justice/Hogan WrestleMania match – WWE revised the entire event! They dubbed in sounds of the crowd booing when Hogan got dumped and cheering when Justice did! It was a total mind-fuck and another brilliant example of McMahon Manufactured Memories ®.

• This one could be a bit faulty, but blame that on years of blunt smoke. I do seem to remember that Royal Rumble 1992 was the first time we saw The Mountie as WWE Intercontinental champion. Last we knew, the champ was still Bret Hart (my all time favorite wrestler). At the time, the company NEVER changed titles off TV so to hear Bret Hart lost his title due to a 101 degree temperature (in the home of the Simpsons – Springfield MA none the less) was a complete shock. Roddy Piper went on to win the title at the RUMBLE after revealing a “shock proof” vest under his outfit that he used to counteract the Mountie‘s cattle prod. Kind of cartoonish but well received none the less.

• My first taste of PPV rip-offs came early in the card when the Legion of Doom brawled with the Natural Disasters to a double-count out. For some reason I had high hopes for that match, but from what I remember it was slow, plodding and dull. I think we were all buzzing about the exciting prospect of seeing a “Doomsday Device” on one of the two behemoths, so when it didn’t happen there was a slight let down. Nowadays we got everybody from Brock Lesner to John Cena and Bobby Lashley tossing around the Big Show like he’s a sack of potatoes. But back when that kind of stuff could have really made an impact, we never saw it. A body slam on Andre the Giant was a big deal. Imagine that same Hall of Famer trapped in the F5 or FU? Priceless. That’s just an example of the fast-food era of disposable art we all live in now.

• Shout out to my regulars carried over from Adventures in Elysian Fields. The same year Ric Flair won the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble I would get caught up in the easy listening of Arrested Development (“Tennessee” and “Mr. Wendell”) and fall in love with my first song of romance (“End of the Road” by Boyz II Men). Not to mention the EXPLOSION that was Kriss Kross. I swear to God that tape went with me everywhere. I had the whole thing memorized. What can I say? I was 12 years old.

OUTRO
Because of my usual birthday tradition, the ROYAL RUMBLE is the most closely-followed PPV of my life (not named WRESTLEMANIA). Everybody enjoys a good battle royal, whether they be casual viewer or big time fan. So the RUMBLE was a great PPV to throw a party around because anybody could enjoy it – even people who never watched wrestling. It was fast-paced and entertaining enough to hold most peoples attention while also giving real fans some potential dream matches (Axe versus Smash and the Ultimate Warrior / Hulk Hogan collision come immediately to mind). Even though it began to get watered down in the early 90s, they still never deviated from its main gimmick (like they did with the SURVIVOR SERIES, which nearly killed that whole PPV for me). I hated it the first time they switched entrances from 2:00 to 1:00, which rushed the whole thing and made the prior matches seem more important than the actual RUMBLE. I also disliked their new custom of not announcing all the participants before hand. Back in the day, we used to get 30 quick clips of all the participants before the match started. But soon enough, you wouldn’t know who was coming down the aisle until their music started. Their roster wasn’t even big enough to maintain a 30 man match at one point, prompting them to reuse wrestlers from the opening matches or throwaway guys like Dick Murdoch and Carlos Colon (who I’m sure were virtual wet dreams to smarks at the time, but didn’t make an impression me at all).

I still consider the 1992 RUMBLE to be one of my favorites, because the WWE Championship was up for grabs. I remember thinking what could they do for an encore next year? But ever since then the winner has received a title shot, so it’s only made the RUMBLE match even more important. This being my introductory month to 411Wrestling, it’s only appropriate that I celebrate with a retrospective on the first PPV I ever ordered. It’s even more fitting that in the month of my birth I am reborn as a 411Wrestling contributor writing about my all-time favorite PPV. I am truly blessed.

Thanks again to Ashish for the opportunity, it is well deserved. Shout to Larry Csonka my new Editor-in-Chief and to the rest of the staff and crew of 411Wrestling. In 2007, we gonna make them forget the names of those other dudes who used to write here. Here today gone tomorrow like smoke in the wind. We are the past, present and future of sports entertainment media. Without us there would be none.

Next week we get drunk, spark the piff and do it all over again. This time maybe I’ll spit it ’95 Freshman style, and recall Shawn Michaels victory over the British Bulldog in his typical Mobb Deep “Survival of the Fittest” fashion. Maybe I’ll bring it back home to Boston when Big Poppa Pump got booed out of the building in 2003, or classic Class of ’98 status when Jay-Z dominated the charts and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin tossed The Rock to headline WRESTLEMANIA. Whatever your dosage, any year will do. Cuz ever since they came Fresh for 1989, the ROYAL RUMBLE has pound-for-pound been the dopest PPV of the calendar year. Even better sometimes than the WRESTLEMANIA that preceded it (Wrestlemania IX and Wrestlemania 2000). So we’ll see you next week when THE HANG-OVER continues. Until then, this is MSD signing off and reminding you that “time is never wasted when you’re wasted all the time”.

Peace,

MSD