Hey TW, I’m yer latest columnist. Who am I? No one really. I’m what wrestlers tend to call a parasite, making a living off their hard work. Although that’s not at all true, I make nothing from their hard work, I just enjoy watching it. If I was a parasite, Id die pretty quickly. But hey, one day I might make a bit of money off this game, and then I can finally be considered scum by my childhood heroes. That’d be nice, eh?

That said, I don’t intend to mislead anyone into thinking I know what I’m talking about. I do though. I’m in no way part of the wrestling business, I’m merely a fan who has been given a chance to be vocal about my fanaticism. So take nothing I say as absolute truth. I have been watching for quite a while though, and have been living the smark life for many years, so take nothing I say as absolute crap either. Most will fall somewhere in between, and it’s up to you to work out where.

So I’ll introduce you to my column. I intend to be reader-friendly, in that I’ll be opening more or less all of my content to you. There will be, for now, two main sections. First is a Q and A, basically you guys can email any question you want to me at chuxTW@hotmail.co.uk and I’ll answer it. Simple as that. Try to keep it about wrestling though! Email your question, name and location, although if you’re a regular member of a wrestling forum, tell me where and I might stick that up there instead of a hometown. That is, if the fatcats upstairs allow bonus advertising. That sounds more fun to me than boring old towns. I’m English anyway, so “Mark from Detroit” means very little to me. Sorry if your name is actually Mark and you live in Detroit, your input will, of course, be welcomed. Sorry about your name.

I might throw in a review or two when something catches my interest, I regularly watch all of WWE’s shows and TNA, although I am a little behind on Impacts recently. This week my questions come from a couple of guys over at my home forum, 4w (check out http://4w-forums.com regularly, we rock), namely Pretty Evil and Sery. They’re good lads, and made this possible until – hopefully – other people will join in.

You’ll probably find I spam the hell out of 4w too, because it’s my baby and it’s fallen on relatively hard times. We have some awesome stuff over there on the forums, something for everyone, including you. So go have a look!

The second section will be a rolling quiz. More on that theory later. First, the Q and A.

– Do you boo for John Cena? (from Sery, 4w)
– At home, I do. I can’t stand the guy. But the one time I saw him live (back on SmackDown in 2005) I cheered. Not just because he beat up Rene Dupree, because I actually quite liked Rene, but because he was the face. Maybe I’m just not cynical enough to hold back the inner mark when Im at a live show, but something takes over…it gets hard to hate like you do at home. That might just be me though, email me if you get overtaken by the markiness, let me know I’m not alone.
Actually, I find it much harder to do the opposite – boo the heels. A lot of my favourite wrestlers – especially in WWE – are heels. At that 2005 SmackDown show MNM had only recently debuted, but I was sold. I had a sign matching their entrance video, and when that awesome music hit I popped. No one else did though, I was the only one in the whole Birmingham NEC cheering. Or making much of a noise at all. More recently I went with 4w’s Compy to a SmackDown house show in Cardiff, and to me the heels totally overshadowed the faces. Shelton dragged a good match out of Kane, even Kenny Default heeled it up to perfection against Kofi Kingston, and Miz, Morrison and MVP cut hilarious promos. In fact, a local show came to Bristol not long ago and debuted…Rene Dupree! I wanted to cheer him too, but had to stop myself. To these guys, being booed is being appreciated. It’s just hard to remember that when you’re supposed to react to one of your favourite wrestlers.
Before I forget, Raven wrote a great article about this over on WZ, basically saying that when he’s a heel he doesn’t want to be cheered. There’s always a smart fan who wants to cheer his favourites whether heel or face, which is understandable, but isn’t what the wrestlers want. It’s a two-way performance, you react to them and they react to you. Out of respect, I try to boo. And for Cena…next time I see him live I’ll just stay quiet.

– Why does WWE force people to cut their hair? (from Pretty Evil, 4w)
– Presentability, isn’t it? They want all their guys to look professional outside the arena. I’m just a fan myself, not Vince! But I agree, it makes little sense for guys like Kid Kash to have to cut their hair to look professional while Mike Knox has that beard. Snitsky in a suit is still Snitsky.

– Do you think the Undertaker is an ego-maniac? (from Sery, 4w)
– No idea, but I don’t think so. I think he’s given a hard time for being successful. It’s a dominant character, he can’t really give as much as he takes and still stay as popular as he is. Could he lose a bit more? Definitely, as could Shawn Michaels and Triple H. One or two losses wouldn’t hurt them, but they keep winning because they’re supposed to be top guys. I’m sure Taker has a lot of control over his matches, but that’s not really having a massive ego. I’m not saying he doesn’t have one, he might, he wouldn’t be the only one. But then he’s over. He’s undoubtedly one of the biggest names the business has ever seen, and with that comes a lot of wins. I love the WrestleMania streak myself, and I don’t think anyone should break it. It means more as it is than it ever would giving it to someone. And who is worthy? There’s no guarantee the streak-breaker would be good enough for long enough. There’s probably similar thinking backstage, because I really doubt it would stand (and grow) on Taker’s wishes alone.
Wrestlers, especially top names, do tend to have ego problems though. That comes with the business, it’s harsh and apparently you have to take it on yourself to make sure you make the most of everything. If that means politicking and abusing your position…! We’ve all heard the stories.

– What was a worse angle, Al Wilson or Katie Vick? (from Pretty Evil, 4w)
– Uhh…Al Wilson. At the very least, Katie Vick was a legit angle between Triple H and Kane, and tried to add to the Kane character. Al Wilson did very little, even between Torrie and Dawn Marie, and even if it had who would care? Kane is now always going to be an accidental murderer. That’s something pretty major. Besides, the only difference between Katie Vick and any other, more commonplace bad angle was “that” segment. There wasn’t any actual necrophilia, and there wasn’t any actual sledgehammer up Triple H’s arse. At least, I don’t think there is.

– Triple H or John Cena? (from Sery, 4w)
– Now you’re having a laugh! I can’t stand either of them. Triple H’s burials are as bad as Cena’s staleness if you ask me. Both theme songs trigger a massive groan because I know exactly what’s coming. But actually, Triple H is pretty stale too. I’ve seen everything from him now, he’s dull. Heel and face, what more can he do? Whereas if Cena were to…I won’t say turn, because that won’t work. People are always saying “Cena needs to turn heel”, but I don’t think he can. If he were to “turn” and become edgy again, we’d all like him more! But that’s not the question I guess, so although I hate both, I’ll choose Cena because he potentially has more to offer.
But as it stands, Cena’s “intense” promos are hell. I’d prefer to watch Randy Orton (that cowardly jellyfish) talk at me in his “boring, robotic Randy Orton voice.” I’ll leave you with a picture to demonstrate my point. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v345/chuxx0r/Image007.jpg

That didn’t go too badly, did it? I think it was alright. I hope. I want to try a cool little feature called the rolling quiz here. I’m not sure if it’ll take off or not, but it’s worth a try. The theory is I leave you three wrestling-related questions and you email me with answers. With your answer, leave me another question (and answer) for me to post up in my next column, and we’ll cycle. The first correct answer I recieve for each will be considered a win, but I have no prizes for you unfortunately. It’s just for fun!

1. Who did Hulk Hogan defend the WWF title against at The Wrestling Classic?

2. On the February 7th, 2002 episode of Smackdown, Chris Jericho brought out his own Stone Cold imitator. Which star of MADtv played Austin?

3. Who faced Road Dogg in the first round of the 1999 King Of The Ring tournament?

Email your answers to chuxTW@hotmail.co.uk and don’t forget, any answers without replacement questions will be ignored!

So thanks for reading, I can more or less guarantee things will only get better from here…as long as you get involved! If you like something email me more of it. If you hate something, email me something you’d like more. This column is for you guys to have your say and for me to have a say about your say. Or something.

– [chux], chuxTW@hotmail.co.uk