Feels Just Like A Piledriver

Ever since I started telling people that I was doing a blog, everyone wanted to know when I would be covering wrestling on it.

In fact, one person even speculated that 95% of my posts will cover either the Lakers, Dodgers, Star Wars, and/or wrestling. [Bite me, Buse]

So far, I've avoided all of those topics!

But no more. I figure we should at least address wrestling once a week and what better day to do it than Tuesday.

So, who watched Raw last night?

I'm sorry. Truly sorry.

Each and every week after Raw or Smackdown go off the air, you can be guaranteed to go onto any number of internet wrestling message boards where you will find dozens of people up in arms over some harmless [usually] thing. Decrying how Vince McMahon is the Devil and Triple H is his Chief Of Staff. And of course, you must have the mantra... I'm done with the WWE!

Every week I see it and kinda chuckle. How could something done in as bizarre a world as pro wrestling actually offend you to that extent? I mean... really... are you that offended by HHH pretending to have sex with a corpse? Sure it's lame but seriously... offended?

Last night pushed me closer to the edge of "What the hell am I watching?" than ever before. I've sat through Mae Young giving birth to a hand... Mark Henry getting lovin' from a tranny... Vince McMahon pulling things from "JR's" ass...

But never have I felt quite so disturbed by last night's "skit." I'm not really sure why either. It was in poor taste... it showed poor judgment, sure. But is it really any more worse than the usual things we've seen in the past decade or so?

I think part of it stems from the fact that watching wrestling has always been kinda a throwback to my youth. Days into this year, I realize that I've now been watching pro wrestling for twenty years. Twenty years of headlocks, of piledrivers, of plastic bags tied around the throat, of barbed wire, of international objects, of dastardly heel turns... and yes, of Mae Young's hand.

Remember when wrestling had a kinda... innocent... feel to it? Before the Attitude days... before ECW...

I always remember two moments of WWF Television early in my viewing days that really hooked me. I may have seen other moments first... but the one that really sticks in my head as the absolute first was seeing Big John Studd and King Kong Bundy level Andre The Giant and cut his hair. I was shocked. Stunned. Outraged. How dare they take down the fan friendly giant? How dare they humiliate him like that?

And all they did was cut his hair. No one stole Andre's wife and gangbanged her in the middle of the ring. How things change in twenty years.

My other early WWF memory?

WWF Televison... some Saturday morning... "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff gets assaulted by the same evil duo of Bundy and Studd. But this time? They messed with the wrong guy. Orndorff had backup... big time backup. He made a call to the Hulkster and even though Hulk couldn't talk to him at the moment, we all knew he'd be there for him when it mattered. The match was set for the next Saturday.

All week I waited... I planned to be glued to my couch to see it go down. But then as I woke up on Saturday, the bomb was dropped.

"We're going shopping."

Oh, my... if I'd known expletives back then, they would have been flying. But I didn't and no amount of pleading would allow me to stay home to watch it. Off to the store we went.

But wait... there's a window of opportunity. The store we were going to, FedCo, had a television section. One step in the door of the store sent me sprinting to the television aisle, flipping an unused set on to WWF Superstars...

...just in time to see Mr. Wonderful, that son of a bitch, bury the knife in the World Champion's back. Hogan wasn't there for Orndorff when he called... and Paul made him pay for it.

Simple. Memorable. And no one had to do a run-in when Orndorff bent Hogan's wife over the bed.

It's all different now. And I hate to be one of those people who says "Remember when..." but I gotsta be one of those people.

I miss those days. I miss the wrestling I grew up watching.

Give me Sting... give me Barry Windham... give me Ricky Steamboat... give me the Midnight Express... give me Randy Savage... give me Jake Roberts... give me Eddie Gilbert... give me the Freebirds... give me the Von Erichs... give me Curt Hennig... give me Bret Hart...

Damn, I feel old.

UPDATE: That damn segment was the highest rated of the night and did a pretty big number. What the fuck do I know?

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