Double Double, Toil and Trouble

On June 16th, Beyond Wrestling and St. Louis Anarchy are coming together to bring Cleveland the most mind-blowing wrestling event you can possible imagine and then some. Double Trouble.

I've been trying to write this release for about an hour now, and let me tell you the one singular piece of information you absolutely need to know.

The main event is ACH vs. Johnny Gargano. 

That's it. You really don't need anything else to want to come to this show. I don't care if you've never heard of St. Louis Anarchy, or if you could care less about Beyond Wrestling. I'm going to go ahead and tell you that you need to know about St.LA and that you need to care about Beyond Wrestling, but if you need to be further convinced about this show, I have no idea how you even got here. (You should probably go here instead)

'Well,' you might be saying to me, 'That's all fine and well, but that's only one match. It's a great match, but do I want to ship my ass up to Cleveland for one great match when the rest of the show is a bunch of asshats I've never heard of and don't particularly care to see?' 

My response is a sigh and this look -________-

But if you need something else to look forward to, other matches and appearances announced include:

*Dan Walsh, St.LA Champ vs. Rickey Shane Page

*Mark Angel vs. Drew Gulak

*Arik Cannon, Darin Corbin and Christian Rose vs. Pierre Abernathy, Evan Gelistico and Gary Jay (also known as the Submission Squad)

*Aaron Epic, Sugar Dunkerton and Pinkie Sanchez vs. KJ Crush, Jack Verville and Maserati Rick

Also scheduled to appear includes RD Evans. That's another one of those things I don't even need to elaborate on. RD Evans is going to be wrestling. Come on now. But also Mat Fitchett, Davey Vega, Chase Burnett, Zane Silver, Johnny Mangue, Matthew Justice, the Pitboss, Corvis Fear and Johnny Cockstrong. Among many others.

And that's just so far. We still have a little under a month for more fun and excitement to be announced.

But okay, enough TALKING about wrestling. Let's have some LOOKING at wrestling.

Here's Dan Walsh vs. Davey Vega from Metro Pro Wrestling, located in Kansas City. Now, imagine this, only with RSP instead of Davey Vega. Do you think the Danimal is going to get splattered all over Turner's Hall? Because I think the Danimal is going to get splattered all over Turner's Hall. Better not sit by any trashcans.




Here's a good bout between Aaron Epic and Drew Gulak from Beyond's Tournament for Tomorrow. It's pretty heavy on the grappling and the holds, but quite lovely just the same. It gives you a good feel for their characters, I believe. See also Pinkie Sanchez and Sugar D in the background. Those three will be wrestling. Yeah.




The Pitboss vs. dany only vs. KJ Crush vs. Eddie Graves. There's a lot going on in this matchup. There's a venue-spanning brawl between dany only and the Pitboss, there's chairs being thrown between KJ and Graves. It's pretty intense. And I would like to remind everyone that the last time Pitboss showed up in Cleveland with Beyond, he was forcibly ejected from the venue for being a douche. So. That should be fun.



Unfortunately, this whole match isn't available on Youtube, but you should have already bought the DVD. RD Evans vs. AR Fox, from the last time Beyond came to Cleveland, Back in Flesh. This match was exactly as brilliant as you would imagine. "Hey ref, count me out! Oh wait, it's no DQ!" I'm pretty sure this match cemented my love for both AR Fox and for RD Evans. I need to go watch it again. (Because *I* bought the DVD. I might also be in the background in this video *shifty eyes*)

Come to this show. Just do it. It's good wrestling. You like good wrestling. Hell, you love good wrestling. If you want to see it, I can guarantee it will be in Cleveland on June 16th.

--
St. Louis Anarchy and Beyond Wrestling come to Cleveland June 16th at Turner's Hall, 7325 Guthrie Avenue. Doors at 6:30, bell at 7:30. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased here. Be here or you suck.

A Conscientious Fan

I got the notion to write this after seeing this article the other day. In summary, a guy saw John Cena on a shuttle and John Cena refused his request for a picture. The man took incredible offense to Cena's denial, though to his credit seemed understanding when he learned Cena had just filed for divorce.

But I was more intrigued by the first aspect of the story. I've heard a lot of stories of fans interacting with wrestlers. Some good, some... not so much. I find it so interesting to see how "normal" people interact with "famous" people... especially when that behavior shades to the poorer sides of it.

So I thought I could say a few things.

For the record, I don't by any means claim to be a "good" fan, though I like to believe I have common sense when it comes to interacting with "famous people."

Also, this is geared towards the fans of wrestlers, because that's just how I do. And I think you're more likely to run into, you know, CM Punk at the grocery store than Angelina Jolie. However it's probably a good basis for running into any kind of Famous Person.

It happens...


You're out minding your own business and by strange fate or providence, you come to discover you are sharing space with a bona fide Famous Person. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. What do you do? HOW DO YOU APPROACH? WHERE'S SOME PAPER? DO I HAVE A PEN??

Before you run up to John Cena and start waving a paper in front of his face, I want you all to run through a few things in your head. Put the cap back on your Sharpie and take a second to use your noggin before John Cena shorts it out.

1. Wrestlers are people too.


When you see a wrestler outside of the ring, he's just a normal dude. Be it John Cena or Josh Prohibition, all he wants to do is his normal dude stuff. Buying his groceries, eating dinner with his family, taking a leak, working out, calling his wife or his children on the phone. He just wants to do his thing with the minimum amount of hassle possible. I think that's something we can all relate to, right? You just want to get to work; you don't want to deal with asshole drivers cutting in front of you, or rush hour traffic, or rubberneckers rubbernecking at an accident on the opposite side of the highway. Wrestlers just want to do their own thing too.

Maybe he's in a good mood. Maybe he's not. Maybe he's dealing with a divorce, or his kid is sick, or his parents are sick, or his parents are getting a divorce, or he's hungover, or he's sleep-deprived, or his stomach is upset from all that shitty on the road food he's been eating. You don't know. Just as your tolerance for bullshit goes down when you're in a bad mood, so too does theirs. Before you go up to a wrestler just trying to be a normal dude, remember that he just might not want to deal with some stranger getting all up in his face. It has nothing to do with you personally; nor is it a credit to his character. Sometimes people just have bad days.

2. Timing Is Everything


If you absolutely must approach a wrestler on his normal-dude time, try to do it at an appropriate moment.

Appropriate moments do NOT include:

*When he's in the bathroom. CM Punk complains about this on Twitter all the time. I would assume it is common sense, but apparently it's not. Don't follow a dude into the bathroom. It's fucking creepy and weird. If there is absolutely no other moment you can catch him and you absolutely NEED to catch him, at least wait outside.

*When he's with his family. Leave the man alone, okay? Like I mentioned previously, he's just trying to be a normal dude and spend time with his family. Bear in mind, he's probably on the road a lot so he doesn't get to see them very often, let alone spend quality time with them.

If you're not sure, just think about it. Think about how you would feel in that situation. Getting off a plane after a twelve-hour flight. Out of a car after an eight-hour drive. In the middle of dinner. At the gym. I see that gripe a lot from wrestlers on Twitter. I don't go to the gym, I do not purport to understand gym etiquette, but it still goes back to normal dude on normal dude time just trying to do what normal dudes do.

3. Wrestlers do not owe you anything, nor do you have a "right" to receive anything from them


This is a little touchy. You could argue "He wouldn't be famous without his fans! The least he could do is spare me a shitty autograph!" or "He knew what he was getting into before he got famous!"

I agree with the former statement. If not for fans, no one would be famous. Fans make the famous dude famous. And it's nice to receive a little recognition.

But just because you stumble across a wrestler on his normal dude time, it doesn't mean you are automatically entitled to go up to him and get a picture and/or an autograph. If you're at a show or a meet-n-greet or some type of fan-oriented deal, that's one thing. He's still in wrestler-mode. He's well prepared for fans.

But when you run into him at the grocery store, or the gym, or the restaurant, or whatever, you're cutting into his normal dude time. He's not in the ring, he's not in his gear, he's just buying food for dinner. He's running his errands. It's his personal time. He's not getting paid. He's not on the clock.

Have you ever been at your job, running some errands after your shift is over, and someone asks you to help with something? Or at a store you don't even work at and someone walks up to you? I mean, at your own work you probably try to help them, right? At least point them in the right direction. At the very least, you're polite about it. But you don't OWE them any help because you're not on the clock. You're just trying to run your errands after a long fucking day so you can go home and get off your feet.

Just because John Cena happens to be out in public doesn't give you the automatic unassailable right to get in his face and demand a picture or an autograph or both. He's off the clock, so to speak. He'll do it, to be nice, to be polite, because I'm sure he generally enjoys his fans. But he doesn't OWE you. You're on HIS time.

4. Social Media


Stop asking for RTs and follows on Twitter. This is spam. What you are doing is spamming. Nobody likes spam. NOBODY. LIKES. SPAM. John Cena is not going to follow you. John Cena is definitely not going to follow you if you ask him to 9000 times a day. And this is just my personal opinion, but I'm less likely to follow someone if they ask me.

Asking for RTs is lame. If you really want to be retweeted, maybe say something worth a RT, other than "Hey plz RT me" because no. Unless you do that to CM Punk, and he probably would RT you just to call you an idiot. But hey, if that's what you're going for... knock yourself out.

So... let's all agree that that needs to stop. Besides, wouldn't you rather be RT'd for something cool you said, or something intelligent, or interesting, than just because you asked for it? Doesn't that have more meaning? I think it does.


I also want you to recognize the fact that you are not the only person who tweets John Cena. John Cena probably gets literally a bajillion tweets a day (half of which are probably asking for follows or RTs!) He doesn't have time to reply to every single one of them, or RT all the ones that ask for it. He probably doesn't even look at his @replies all the time.

So if you consistently tweet at John Cena and he never tweets back, he's not ignoring you. It's not personal. He's buried under 10,000 tweets of the same content and consistency. I just searched @JohnCena, a little scientific experiment here, and he's gotten 22 tweets in the last ten minutes. Average it out a little, that's two tweets a minute. That's two tweets a minute ALL THE TIME.

Also, if John Cena does, god forbid, have a few minutes to himself and go "Hey, I'm going to converse with my fans on Twitter for a bit." do you think he's going to be more likely to reply to a well-thought-out question or someone just saying "Hi" or "Sup John". Plus when all his followers (of which he has over two million of, by the way) see he's tweeting at fans, think of how many tweets/minute that would go up to. Ten? Fifteen? Thirty? I can't even imagine. The man simply cannot get to all of you. 

Also, you might be spamming him. See above.

5. Don't be creepy


Let me share with you this story I heard some years ago.

WWE was doing an Australia tour. This girl went to the airport and waited at the gate for the plane that Randy Orton and John Cena were getting off of. I don't know how she was able to GET to the gate, but she did.

When Cena and Orton got off the plane, she followed them from the gate to the baggage claim. Not just that. She had her camera on them, with some setting that allowed automatic pictures to be taken every three seconds or some nonsense. FROM THE GATE. TO THE BAGGAGE CLAIM.

One of the superstars (I seem to recall it was Orton) actually told her to knock it off, and she actually had the gall to take offense. Let me remind you these two men just spent upwards of twelve hours on a plane and this girl was following them around with a camera like the fucking paparazzi like this was a sane and okay thing to do.

Short answer; no, no it's not.

Long answer; oh my god, are you insane? If I have to break down for you all the ways that that is rude and inconsiderate and shady and batshit crazy, you need to go back to your home planet, sugarpie. I don't think there is any one part of that story that can be considered acceptable.

If you want to wait someplace where you know a wrestler may happen to be, fine. I know a lot of people have done that. I have done that. I am not entirely proud of it, but I have. Not in an airport though, for the love of Jesus. But there's a line. You get your autograph and your picture and you go on your merry way.

If you have to lurk around to meet or greet your favorite wrestler, you're doing something wrong. Please reconsider your tactics.

In closing...


I want you to meet your favorite wrestler. I really do. I want you to have pictures and autographs -- autographed pictures! -- and those memories. Those memories are the best. I'm there with you, I promise. I just want you to try and do it in a way that makes the experience as pleasant as possible for everyone involved.

It's easy to get starstruck, I know. Something in your brain short-circuits when you get near some of these guys. I completely lost my brain when I met Chris Sabin, for example. I can't even be entirely sure actual words came out of my mouth.

Just before you go up to anyone, before your brain gets too frazzled by realizing that oh my god I'm breathing the same air as John Cena right now and you fumble for your Sharpie, just think. Is this moment appropriate? Is John Cena about think you're a huge douchebag? Do you WANT John Cena to think you're a huge douchebag?

Do you, while your brain is busy going oh my god I'm talking to John Cena right now, want John Cena to be thinking "Oh my god, can't this asshole hurry it up, my ice cream is melting."

Or "Oh my god, what a creeper."

Just... think for a second. Is he busy? Is he with his family? Is he in the bathroom? Are you lurking right now?

Do you know where your Sharpie is?

Wrestlemania 28; The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Yesterday I watched the "Once in a lifetime" Wrestlemania event (at least until next year's Wrestlemania) in a bar stuffed to the rafters with wrestling fans. Which is pretty much the only way to watch any kind of wrestling show whatsoever.

Here's what I thought about the WWE's mainest of all main event shows.

The Good:

Undertaker vs. Triple H. There was a spot right in the middle where the both of them had very, very near falls on the other. HBK nailed a Sweet Chin Music followed by Triple H's Pedigree, Undertaker landed a Tombstone. Both kicked out. I have to tell you, the bar lost its shit in that moment. It was amazing. Unfortunately, after that moment, the finish felt a little anticlimactic.

I'd felt on the fence about whether I believed Taker would be retiring at nice, round number 20 and 0. Seeing everyone hug it out after the match made me wonder a little harder if this would be the last we saw of the old guy. I would be sad, but the ending was very poignant.

That One Spot in the Big Tag Match. Team Teddy and Team Johnny. Nothing particularly spectacular throughout the whole thing, unless you want to count the time Miz almost jobbed to Santino. Despite being the biggest Mizfit that EVER was, I found that potential outcome quite hilarious. Poor Miz. How far the mighty have fallen!

But there was one spot. You know the spot I'm talking about. Team Red was mostly outside of the ring. Team Blue picked up Hornswoggle and put him on the top rope. He leapt onto Mark Henry, who caught him and tossed him to the side. SUDDENLY OUT OF NOWHERE THREE PEOPLE LEAPT OVER THE TOP ROPE IN A BEAUTIFULLY SYNCHRONIZED SUICIDE DIVE.

Caps and all. It was beautiful.

Punk and Jericho. Unfortunately, I missed a chunk out of the middle of this match because the bar lost power. And then the fire alarms went off. And noooobody evacuated. It took a little while for the satellites to reset and all told I don't think we missed more than five or so minutes. It FELT like a long time though.

I was really surprised that Punk walked away with the belt. I would have bet that it would have been Jericho. So... I'm impressed.

The Bad:

Hey, Let's Squash the WHC Title, Guys... That'll Be Great. I like Sheamus. I like Daniel Bryan. What I did not expect was to see was a ten second squash match of the heavyweight title in the opening match of the show. Really? That was a good idea? To SQUASH one of your main championship titles? Really? And to OPEN YOUR SHOW with that? I can't remember if Daniel Bryan was in Wrestlemania last year. He wrestled a dark match. So if I read everything correctly, this would have been his first real Wrestlemania. He was "headlining" Mania as a heavyweight champ. And he dropped the belt in less than five seconds. How awful must that feel.

Also, you just know they're setting it up for him to blame AJ, and they're gonna further this "Daniel Bryan is an abusive boyfriend" storyline, which is just a BRILLIANT angle, if you ask me. (Unless at some point in the future, AJ rises up righteous and kicks the crap out of Daniel, which of course won't happen, because wrestling is the men's work in this company, darling, why don't you head on back to the kitchen and make us some coffee)

Speaking of Women and Wrestling. I hate Kelly Kelly. I'm sure in real life, she's a wonderful person, and she's very pretty, but she couldn't wrestle her way out of a paper bag if it was wet. She's been wrestling for WWE for six years. She still can't run the ropes. Her "finishers" are a glorified cartwheel and shaking her ass in your face. (I'm sure there is a select number of people in the 'verse who would love to wear Kelly Kelly's ass as a hat. We are not talking to those people... they are very strange.) That's not wrestling. That's an affront to any women wrestlers who actually bust their asses and train and scratch and claw to be taken seriously in the ring.

Maria Menounos is not even a wrestler. Maria Menounos is a TV personality, who barely qualifies for the "star" portion of "Dancing With The Stars." She is quite possibly the only person they could have found who is less of a wrestler than K2.

And instead of pulling a decently qualified member of the lady roster, or someone like Natalya, they pulled in  some random person off the street that I'm willing to bet a comfortable percentage of the people watching had never heard of.

Already this match was an affront to any sane fan of wrestling.

And Maria Menounos pinned Beth Phoenix. I can't even formulate anything to say to that. How weak does that make Beth look, honestly. Beth Phoenix is one of the strongest women they have on the roster, and they job her to this NOBODY? For what purpose, exactly? What in the name of all things does that seek to accomplish??

The Ugly:

Somebody Call My Momma. I have to confess, I died laughing at Brodus Clay's "momma" and her booty shaking bridge club, because it was just SO ABSURD. I literally had no other way to react to it. You guys realize that Brodus Clay and his army of Mommas got more air time than the WHC match? With goddamned DANIEL BRYAN? There's your problem, WWE. That's where you're going wrong.

The Eh:

Randy Orton and Kane. The viper! The big red monster! How could this go wrong? It went wrong.

Do you remember a couple years ago when Orton was out of his mind and he punted Stephanie McMahon in the head and then kissed her while she was unconscious? That was great, right? I thought so.

The point I'm getting at here is both Kane and Orton have been known in the not-so-distant past to be completely batshit insane. What I wanted to see was two completely batshit insane people tear each other and themselves apart in the ring. I wanted fire. I wanted blood. I wanted mayhem. I wanted Crazy!Viper!Orton. I did not get any of these things (unless you count the little bit of Kane's ringpost fire). I got a fairly standard run-of-the-mill match between two guys that really didn't seem to know why they were there. There were no spectacular spots, there didn't seem to be any particular heat between them, just a fairly average... boring match. Nothing was gained or lost in this match.

Boots To Asses. I don't even need to tell you guys how huge this match was hyped. I saw all the same video packages you did. This match had been building for a year. This match was going to be bigger than Jesus. More time was spent on RAW having these two guys talk to each other than any actual wrestling. This match was going to be the best thing ever. This was a ONCE IN A LIFETIME EVENT. This was THE ROCK AND JOHN CENA.

Did it live up to even a quarter of the hype?

I don't think so. I mean, it was okay. It had some good spots. I thought the Rock looked good in the ring for the first time in I don't even know. Cena jumped off the top rope, which he only does at PPVs. It wasn't bad, don't get me wrong, but for all that hype, goddamn.

And I'm not gonna lie, I would have liked to have seen Cena land a People's Elbow on the Rock. I think it would have been funny.

Granted, I think it's pretty hard, if not nigh on impossible to live up to any kind of expectation for a match that's been hyped for over a year. Maybe you shouldn't hype matches up for that long, I don't know. Maybe it was just too heavy, too overbearing.

And in closing. I thought it was fairly decent. Obviously there were a few things they could have done differently, or better, or not at all, but it did certainly have its standout moments.

I have to judge WWE differently than I do other wrestling. I don't watch WWE because I expect to get my mind blown; that why I watch AIW. If I watch WWE and I'm not disgusted or horrified or completely bored for the whole thing, it was a success. Please bear that in mind.

So what did you think?

What It Means To Be Athletic

So I found this article today. The Thirty Skinniest, Non-Athletic-Looking Wrestlers Of All Time

The first time I read it, I only managed to get to #10, which by coincidence just happened to be Chris Sabin. I later went back and read the whole thing out of sick morbid curiosity.

I truly don't understand what this author considers "athletic" to look like. Sometimes it seems that "athletic" just means "tall." So guys under six foot, like Jamie Noble, Evan Bourne and AJ Styles (AJ Styles isn't athletic, y'all)  by virtue of being, say, five foot eight, aren't athletic. Maybe in basketball athleticism equals height, but then again, consider Spud Webb at 5'7, or Muggsy Bogues at 5'3. A five foot three inch tall professional basketball player! That's barely taller than I am!

And yet Spud scored an average of 9.9 points per game. Muggsy had 11.2 Plus Muggsy was in Space Jam. Not that that has anything to do with athleticism... it's just awesome.

Anyhow, I digress. The point I'm trying to make here is that height and athleticism are not implicitly tied. Tall people aren't always athletic.

Of course, there were some people on the list who were quite scrawny. Colin Delaney, for example. Ginger luchador El Generico is another. El Generico regularly flips all over the ring, inside and out. But that's not athleticism? I'd like to see the guy who wrote this article pull off a split-legged moonsault or nail a 450* splash, I'm just saying.

Some entries on this list go right into "wtf" territory. Namely Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley and Chris Hero, not to mention Daniel Bryan and CM Punk. Perhaps you can lump Sabin, Shelley and Daniel Bryan into the "Short equals nonathletic" category, by virtue of being less than six feet tall.

Which leaves CM Punk, a comfortable 6'2, and Chris Hero, an even more comfortable 6'4.What puts them on this list? Skinny arms.

Or consider Jay Lethal, who is "only" 225 pounds. Only 225 pounds! My goodness! What a shrimp! What an absolute weakling!

Clearly the author values height and size as athleticism. So by that token, guys like Batista, Ezekiel Jackson, The Great Khali, Big Show, The Rock, John Cena, Triple H, and Mason Ryan are the most athletic guys in the business, or at least in the WWE roster's side of things.

According to this author (and probably Vince McMahon too, all things considered) athleticism is muscles. Huge giant probably ill-begotten (steroids!) musculature. Only that and nothing more. To be athletic you clearly have to have shoulders on your shoulders, a neck wider than your head, the inability to put your arms down (bulky snowsuits notwithstanding) and less than 3% bodyfat. Oh, and you have to weigh over 250 lbs and be taller than six foot, minimum. Six foot five and up is probably preferred.

So clearly things like agility and speed don't matter a fig where athleticism is concerned... at least to the author of that article. I hope he does the flip side and tells us who the thirty most athletic guys in the biz are. I'd love to see it.