Grumpy Gay Wrestling Fan

They say ‘never meet your heroes’. I don’t know who ‘they’ actually are (Fourtune?), but to them, I say ‘poppycock’!

Last month, I had the great pleasure of sharing a road trip with my mate Dan and the one and only Colt Cabana on the way to the Fight Club: Pro International Tekkers show. He was such a sound guy: friendly, chatty, funny and witty. Essentially, the guy that you hear on his podcast and see in the ring, the fun-loving wrestler who is a wrestling fan, was sat in the car chatting to me and Dan.

Being the sound guy and media mogul that he is, Colt was more than happy to do an interview with me for the new gaming website, Egg Says Whut?, that I am writing for.

Check out my interview with Colt Cabana for Egg Says Whut? here.

While you're there, why not check out the rest of my stuff, and indeed the whole site too? It's awesome!

This is just a quick entry, mainly for myself to be honest. I mentioned previously that last month I announced a Ring of Honor title defence by Davey Richards at the last Fight Club: Pro show.

I thought that I’d post some pictures of the event, including a couple that aren’t on the FCP facebook page.

All photos are by JAMIEphoto.

There's Davey Richards, and there's me shouting out his name in the background - one of the proudest moments of my life!

Kayfabe breach warning! Me backstage all giddy about the real life RoH title belt! I don't care - I'm still a fan, so this is a big thing as far as I'm concerned!

The ringside team during the title defence itself - Dan, Scott and me. Yes, I am touching the actual RoH belt!

I don't generally bother with wrestling forum, and tend to put any of my strong opinions re: wrestling into this blog. Also, life is too short to waste one's time engaging in 'flame wars' with the mulish and the foolish.

However, I do enjoy the Ministry of Slam radio show, and have been following their discussions on their facebook page which they reference in the show. As such, I couldn't resist  having my say about the current Punk/ Cena situation when the subject was bought up on their facebook wall.

I thought that my readers might like to see what I wrote:

It seems to me that with the recent change of booking team for Raw, the WWE have struck gold. They’re making intelligent, informed, and justifiable decisions the majority of the time at the moment.

CM Punk gets booed by the kids and cheered by the ‘smart’ fans; John Cena gets booed by the smart fans and cheered by the kids. Both the kids and the smart fans are important demographics that they need to retain and/ or expand upon. As such, the genius of the current Punk/ Cena feud is that they’re not patronizing the fans and spoon feeding them who they should cheer for over letting the two talented mike men (particularly for their current respective audiences) lead the audiences themselves. This faith in the two performers has garnered significant positive feedback, and incredible live crowd reactions – proof that it’s working for both of the demographics (something that seemed borderline impossible previously). So, I suppose, both Punk and Cena transcend face/ heel/ tweener as they’re being specifically marketed as ‘you make your own choice’ to the fans rather than the previous condescending attitude that WWE seemed to have as policy.

Even things like putting more Zack Ryder on Raw/ Smackdown are significant. Previously, he was spited for his internet success rather than celebrated for his admirable entrepreneurial attitude and hard work. Now, they’re capitalizing on his success for their own (and, of course, Zack’s) benefit, putting him on TV, and his new T shirts are selling by the bucket load making all involved lots of cash. Simple business sense. So what if his popularity wanes when he gets exposure? Milk that cash cow while you have it!

I can’t sing the praises enough of the new, fresh writing team and the decisions that they are currently making. Maybe Vince really is taking a back seat seeing as they’re making so much sense?

Look at me being all enthusiastic about my new 'thing'! Check out the latest blog that I've posted up in 'From The Flames'!

You should check this out: From The Flames.

Why should you? Because it’s my kayfabe blog that I’ve been asked to write for Phoenix Pro Wrestling!

Hoorah for kayfabe – it really isn’t dead!

Anyone that is friends with me or a fan of GGWF on facebook or follows me on Twitter (or indeed anyone who read the blog yesterday) will know that I was the ring announcer for an RoH World Championship match at Fight Club: Pro’s Fight For Honour event last Friday.

Unfortunately, this event clashed with Phoenix Pro Wrestling’s Return of the King event. As you may know, I am also PPW’s ring announcer. Simply put, Fight Club: Pro booked me first, and as such, I honoured that booking. If I could be in two places at once, I’d have done both, obviously. But I can’t.

As such, I needed to be written off Return of the King. We could have just gone with ‘Mark can’t make the next event because he’s got something else on’, but instead we went with an angle. ‘The Prodigy’ Paul Malen is PPW’s top heel, so PPW’s promoter booked me to take a bump (a punch to the jaw and my specs stamped on) from him to write me out of the next show.

This video proved particularly popular when I posted it on facebook, so I thought I’d post it here. Thanks to Karl from PPW for posting it. Some non-wrestling fans even thought that I had been legitimately hurt, expressing concern and condolences! Who says that kayfabe is dead?!

Phoenix Pro Wrestling Presents: Ligero Vs Storm 2, Main Event Ending from Karl Robinson on Vimeo.

‘The Voice of PPW’ Mark Adams get clocked by ‘The Prodigy’ Paul Malen (I get smacked at the 4.20 mark)

The PPW website reported that Paul Malen broke ‘The Voice of PPW’s’ jaw in true kayfabe fashion. The success of this angle with the kids at the shows thinking that I’d been properly beaten up (as well as my concerned friends on facebook) has made me smile. It’s nice to see that even in this cynical modern society, kayfabe can still be important.

I actually got to say that.

For clarification: I guess that anyone could just say it, but I actually got to say that in a legit context too.

Last Friday (15th July 2011) was one of the most amazing nights of my entire life. I was the ring announcer for Fight Club: Pro’s Fight For Honour event. At this event, the current Ring of Honor World Champion (widely regarded as the best in the world), Davey Richards, was booked to appear. This was awe-inspiring enough, but when I arrived, I was informed that the RoH title was going to be on the line at the event.

Two years ago when I asked a friend whether I could give ring announcing a go for his company when the announcer they were using stepped down, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would ever announce a Ring of Honor World Championship match.

For anyone reading this that isn’t a massive wrestling fan, the way I described it to my partner who is into musicals was that it’s akin to appearing on stage with Angela Lansbury or Kristin Chenoweth. There may be more famous wrestlers than Davey Richards in the world, but there are precious few that're as highly regarded for their technical skill within the industry. 

Much to my utter glee, a video of my introduction to the RoH title match has appeared online that was recorded on the night by a Fight Club: Pro fan called Stephen.

"This match is for the Ring of Honor World Championship!"

There are no words for how amazing a feeling it was to be in there doing this. I could never attempt to do the euphoria justice by trying.

I guess that I just want to say thank you to the Fight Club: Pro promotors for the opportunity, the Fight Club: Pro fans for supporting us and making this possible, and special thanks to Stephen for posting the vid.

It’s been confirmed that Orlando Jordan has been released by TNA/ Impact Wrestling. Although this wasn’t a complete shock, I’m still saddened.

After such an incredibly promising start and a significant push of his openly bisexual but legit tough guy gimmick, let’s be honest, Orlando’s character was subsequently tweaked to outrageous and pervy, and then dumped to the lower mid-card. For me, this was a missed opportunity, but at least there was an LGBT character on their roster.

OJ was also used explicitly as an open bisexual man in an anti-bullying campaign clearly stating to wrestling fans that bullying people because of their sexual orientation was not okay. Don’t sell this short: this was legitimate groundbreaking stuff – there’d been gay characters before, mostly camp heels that reinforced stereotypes, but never a positive role model of a real, out bisexual man (outside the sometime pantomime of kayfabe in this case too).

So, like any LGBT gimmick that we’ve ever seen in wrestling, it could have been done better. However, this could have been done a lot worse.

Orlando himself was classy and dignified in his reaction to his release:

"I want to thank (the) TNA locker room for allowing me to shake things up, and try to shine a light on some preconceived perception I deal with every day personally and professionally. I got my wings back, so let's fly. Thanks TNA and wish nothing but the best."

So thank you TNA and thank you Orlando.

First thing’s first, take a look at the table below. It’s a list of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s worst gimmicks of the year since 1986.

Some of them, I would definitely agree with. Glaring examples would be The Gobbledygooker, Oz, The Shockmaster, and the Fakes.

However, one thing about this table makes my inner activist want to scream: seven of the fan voted worst gimmicks in twenty five years, that’s over 1 in 4/ over 25%, are LGBT gimmicks. When you think about this, in an industry where there are very, very few LGBT characters and the characters getting these wooden spoons would be the only example of an LGBT character in their company at that moment in time, this is a disgrace. Also, in other years, there probably weren’t any LGBT characters around at all in mainstream wrestling companies.

Also, these awards are fan voted, and as such this strongly suggests that wrestling fans are just homophobic, and that deeply saddens me. And it’s not getting better either: last year’s award went to Orlando Jordan. This must be particularly insulting for OJ as it’s based mostly on his real-life personality. This was the year that we had previous winners Greak Khali and Hornswoggle still going as well as Eric Young’s offensive mentally ill gimmick, ‘video game character come to life’ Suicide, and irritating racial stereotype JTG.

I knew there was a reason that I started this blog…

I hate myself for posting this. I really try not to slag off TNA because I deeply respect and love their roster. In my opinion, TNA’s roster is, frankly, vastly superior to that of the WWE, but that’s a blog for another time. However, I lay into WWE all the time – it would be wrong to refuse to lay into TNA out of loyalty to their roster. After all, this isn’t a whinge about their wrestlers’ skill, it’s a whinge about the way they are treated by the bookers.

I can’t be the only person that thinks that a heel or face turn should be a huge deal – a swerve used sparingly to shock and awe an audience. Yet in TNA, they turn their performers seemingly at the drop of a hat.

I wondered if I was overreacting, but after scouring their website roster page, I came up with the following stats:

• 65 performers on the roster (7 of whom are not wrestlers)
• 33 turns (face – heel or heel – face)
• 8 double turns (IE: they’ve gone face – heel – face again or vice versa)
• 33/32 ratio of performers turning
• 33/25 ratio if you discount non-wrestling performers

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this list of turns in TNA over the last year(ish):

1. Abyss: Old school babyface – monster heel
2. AJ Styles: Stable stooge – babyface stable leader
3. Angelina Love: Sassy babyface – hypnotised machine like heel
4. Bobby Roode: Stable stooge – gritty legit babyface
5. Brian Kendrick: Weirdy tweener – champion of the repressed babyface
6. Bully Ray: respectful veteran tag team babyface – bullying heel
7. Christopher Daniels: heel who turned on his best friend – babyface reunited with his old frield
8. D’Angelo Deniro: hugely over charismatic babyface – cowardly mean spirited heel – misunderstood tweener trying to do the right thing
9. Douglas Williams: stable stooge – reformed tough guy babyface – cocky foreigner heel
10. Eric Bischoff: friend of the good guy boss – baddie in charge
11. Eric Young: resentful foreigner heel – goofy face
12. Generation Me Jeremy: whitemeat babyface – selfish heel – crusading stable member
13. Generation Me Max: whitemeat babyface – hard done to babyface - – crusading stable member
14. Hernandez: Immigrant and proud American citizen babyface – Militant foreign heel
15. Hulk Hogan: ‘The Immortal’ and ultimate babyface – ‘Hollywood’ vile heel good guy gone bad
16. James Storm: stable stooge – generic face
17. Jeff Hardy: daredevil babyface – antichrist heel – rejected and hard done to repentant babyface
18. Jeff Jarrett: hard done to babyface – wife-stealing stable stooge heel
19. Kazarian: stable stooge – generic good guy/ face stable member
20. Matt Morgan: brutal heel – stable stooge – crusading locker room hero
21. Mr. Anderson: cocky heel – cocky babyface – cocky heel
22. Miss. Tessmacher: heelish PA – reformed whitemeat babyface
23. ODB: comedy babyface – hard done to heel
24. Orlando Jordan: Gritty Bisexual tweener – comedy camp babface(ish)
25. Ric Flair: legend babyface – shouty old lunatic heel
26. Rob Terry: muscular (dull) babyface – stable stooge
27. Samoa Joe: tough guy heel – dirt dishing babyface – jealous and resentful heel
28. Scott Steiner: loyal bodyguard face – jaded veteran heel
29. Shannon Moore: anti-establishment babyface – disrespectful and arrogant heel – anti-establishment babyface
30. Sting: Ambiguous heel – rebellious babyface
31. Tommy Dreamer: Old school tough guy veteran face – vicious but troubled heel stooge
32. Tara: classic babyface – stooge/ bodyguard heel – classic babyface
33. Winter: weirdy tweener – date-raping lesbian

The following have not turned:

Alex Shelley, Amazing Red, Anarquia, Brother Devon, Chris Sabin, Christy Hemme, Cookie, Crimson, Desmond Wolfe, Don West, Gunner, Murphy, Hector Guerrero, Jeremy Borash, Jesse Neal, Karen Jarrett, Kurt Angle, Madison Rayne, Magnus, Matt Hardy, Mickie James, Mike Tenay, Rob Van Dam, Robbie E, Rosita, Sangriento, Sarita, SoCal Val, Suicide, Taz, Velvet Sky, and Willie Urbina.

The following are are non-wrestling performers:

Christy Hemme, Don West, Hector Guerrero, Jeremy Borash, Mike Tenay, SoCal Val, and Willie Urbina

Am I the only one who thinks that this is a joke? How can an audience expect to invest emotion into a roster that is, essentially, totally fluid? A casual viewer must be utterly perplexed by this epidemic of turns!

It’s such a damned shame because TNA’s roster can put on truly superb matches! Did you see last week’s show? They have three or four 4+ star quality matches!

All these turns do is dilute the product and the characters. It’s just so frustrating that something that could be so good can be ruined by idiotic booking.

I fucking hate Travis