Feedback Feedback–03.14.2002

 

Scott's Feedback Feedbag! - Pre-Wrestlemania Edition!

by Scott Keith

03/14/2002

Greetings and welcome to a boredom-induced edition of the Feedback Feedbag! Why am I bored? Have you ever actually sat down and printed out 400 pages of text on a home inkjet printer? IT'S BORING. I'd rather listen to Scotsman lie about his heterosexuality for the millionth time once it gets to 245 or so.  (Sure, he has kids now, but then so does Ricky Martin.) 

So anyway, the big show is on Sunday and no one cares. In fact, much of my inbox has been filled with "I'm not ordering the show this year for the first time in 5 years" type of stuff, which I take as not a good sign. Further, our own little group of PPV-watchers is currently arguing over who gets stuck spending the $45 to order this thing. (Yeah, that would be ME.)  Personally I attribute the potential drop in buyrate to Scotsman being there live.

Speaking of Wrestlemania and the buildup, over on Some Other Messageboard where I don't post (but they still talk about me and how they don't care about me 24 hours a day like a bunch of nattering schoolgirls), (I don’t even remember which one it was, to be honest.  There were so many outlets for hatred of me at the time.  The Other Arena maybe?)  it was pointed out that I hit a new low by making fun of the potential death of a storyline dog as though it was a good thing. To which I reply, "Hey, you're just not paying attention to precedent". The WWF doesn't DO murder -- they say so in their press releases all the time. (Well, I mean, eventually some people within the company would do murder…) And besides, it's HHH's dog, so all that would happen is she would return from the dead the next night for Smackdown with a bandage around her ribs and cost Steve Austin the WWF title. 

On with the mail!

Scott Blair helpfully titled this one "Mailbag Fodder", so the least I can do is answer it. 

"Is there any lineage to the WWF Canadien Heavweight championship. I remember back in 1987 or so Dino Bravo held this title. I actually think I saw him with a belt and he defended it on one or two occasions. Is this a title belt that the WWF just made up for him to try to get him over and then dropped when it failed or is there any actual lineage for this title?"

It is indeed an actual title, and the time you're thinking of is 1985, shortly after Vince went national and started strong-arming every two-bit promotion north and south of the Mason-Dixon line to do things his way or the highway. Bravo and his IWA promotion in Montreal chose the Vince Way and sold out to the WWF, so as a concession to his fragile ego Vince let Bravo come into the WWF and started recognizing the IWA Canadian title as an official WWF belt. Unfortunately, Vince is an ass and started ignoring the deal a few months later, leaving Bravo and his belt to head back to Montreal shortly after. The title never changed hands in the WWF, so most disregard the Canadian title when thinking of WWF belts. 

Corwin Haught writes...

"The "Anti-Drug" Commercials you complained about in your most recent Not-Necessarily-The-News Update are, in fact, funded by another entity you complained about in the same paragraph as the "Anti-Drug" commercials" the Government of the United States of America (more specifically, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a Federal Office In Which under the jurisdiction of the President created during the Reagan administration). And guess what? They're spending our taxpayer dollars to air these things."

He also has some stuff to say about Canadian TV, but this is the important part. (I have no fucking clue what either one of us were going on about in the above paragraph.) 

Anyway, I've formed a new theory related to the above: If you rant and rave about two apparently unconnected subjects in the same column for long enough, pretty soon a conspiracy will reveal that they are connected after all. For instance, were I to rant about Joanie Laurer's Playboy spread and then talk about a sudden drop in the frequency of sex worldwide, well, I'm sure you can fill in the gaps.

One of my regular AOL drones writes...

"How come you don't have a place to send feedback on your Smarks rants?

I just read you ECW Hardcore Revolution DVD review and I was wondering two

things.

One what is an 'easter Egg' and how do you open it?

Two who was that big fat black guy that broke his leg during the Tyler

Fullington skit? "

Well, first of all, you're writing to me, so I guess I do have a feedback address (skeith at shaw dot ca).  (Shaw can kiss my ass.  Terrible customer service, and they started capping my bandwidth around that time.  Once I moved to Saskatchewan and discovered the wonder of Sasktel, which is a bit more limited in speed but is totally and completely unlimited, I decided to stay with them for good.  And I’ve been a customer for going on 10 years now.) 

As for the questions, an easter egg in DVD terms is a hidden feature that is revealed by finding a place in the menu that was previously not seen. Or if you're talking about an actual easter egg, you open it by cracking it on the side of a bowl.

Second, the big black guy was in fact Emmanuel Lewis, who had a bit of a growth spurt in 1990. Paul Heyman figured that having TV's "Webster" do a run-in and attack Sandman would boost business and possibly attract the attention of Gary Coleman for a celebrity match, but sadly Lewis broke his leg on the first appearance and never wrestled again. He was reportedly eaten by Viscera in 1999.  (That reply might have been facetious.) 

David Case brightens up my day when he writes...

"I grew up in East Tennessee when Nash was playing college basketball at

the U. of Tennessee. In my junior high/high school days, EVERYBODY

would make fun of Nash by pretending to be him under the basket blocking

his own shot by hammering it against the bottom of the backboard, or him

shooting a layup and bouncing the ball off the bottom of the rim so it

would come back and hit him in the face. Nash was a goldmine for

basketball-oriented class clowns in those days. He was quite possibly

the worst athlete to play center in the history of college basketball.

When your RAW column this week observed the inability of Nash to sell a

Thesz Press by the lack of enough athletic skill to fall backwards, I was

transported back to those playground basketball days of us kids spending

hours cutting on Nash's latest exploits on the hardwood. Little did we

know that those hundreds of blown uncontested layups, wide open under

the basket in ways both embarrassing and sometimes personally painful

were just his way of preparing himself for his wrestling career.

No one has ever made so much for himself out of life by the mere genetic

accident of ending up 6 feet, eleven inches tall."

Well, actually, I'd say that John Holmes was...oh, wait, you said 6'11" TALL.

Anyway, much like the layers of one of those Russian dolls, every time you think you've exhausted all the Kevin Nash humor possible, all you need to do is open another one to find more comedy gold. Now, see, Nash should be the one feuding with Edge over the Japanese Shampoo commercial, because I think Nash is the only one during the 1994 trials who got busted for buying steroids for his hair. 

And finally, a letter so scary it'll chill you to the bone, from Kashif Maq. TO THE BONE!

"Being a guy with too much time on his hands, I decided to rank all the WWF PPVs that you have reviewed.

What I did for each PPV was add up the total marks of each match and then divide it by the number of matches in the PPV. Obviously. this gave an average mark out of 5.00

I then listed the PPV's in order of rankings. Just to summarise, In Your House 16 came up on top with a huge 4.25/5 and King Of The Ring 1999 ranked as the worst WWF PPV of all time!

The ENTIRE list has been attached to this email as a Word Document. It might be useful to add to TheSmarks website as a guide? Just an idea!

Regards,

Kash."

And indeed, here is that chart...please use this only for good, and remember: No wagering allowed.

I'll leave you with the chart, and until next week, DON'T BUY SCOTSMAN AXXESS TICKETS. You'll only encourage him.

Scott Keith’s WWF Pay-Per-View Rankings

IN YOUR HOUSE 16 4.25

JUDGMENT DAY 2000 3.33

NO WAY OUT 2001 3.25

ROYAL RUMBLE 2001 3.10

SURVIVOR SERIES 1987 3.06

ROYAL RUMBLE 2000 / SUMMERSLAM 2001 3.00

ROYAL RUMBLE 1989 / ONE NIGHT ONLY 2.81

IN YOUR HOUSE 8 2.80

OVER THE EDGE 1998 2.79

WRESTLEMANIA X-SEVEN 2.78

BACKLASH 2000 2.72

SURVIVOR SERIES 1996 2.71

SUMMERSLAM 1998 2.69

ROYAL RUMBLE 2002 2.63

IN YOUR HOUSE 13 2.60

FULLY LOADED 2000 2.59

BACKLASH 1999 / BACKLASH 2001 2.57

ROYAL RUMBLE 1995 2.54

NO MERCY 2001 2.53

ROYAL RUMBLE 1988 / WRESTLEMANIA XII / UNFORGIVEN 2001 2.50

IN YOUR HOUSE 11 2.45

WRESTLEMANIA XIV 2.43

FULLY LOADED 1999 2.41

WRESTLEMANIA 16 2.39

SURVIVOR SERIES 2001 2.38

SURVIVOR SERIES 1995 2.33

KING OF THE RING 2001 2.32

NO WAY OUT 2000 2.31

SUMMERSLAM 1993 / JUDGMENT DAY 1998 2.28

ST. VALENTINES DAY MASSACRE / SUMMERSLAM 2000 2.25

NO MERCY 1999 2.22

SUMMERSLAM 1994 2.21

UNFORGIVEN 1999 2.19

ARMAGEDDON 2000 2.16

IN YOUR HOUSE 12 / SUMMERSLAM 1999 2.15

KING OF THE RING 1998 2.11

ROYAL RUMBLE 1991 2.08

SUMMERSLAM 1997 / NO MERCY 2000 2.07

NO WAY OUT 1998 2.04

WRESTLEMANIA X 2.03

SURVIVOR SERIES 1988 / ROYAL RUMBLE 1992 / WRESTLEMANIA 13 2.00

ARMAGEDDON 1999 1.97

IN YOUR HOUSE 17 1.96

ROYAL RUMBLE 1993 / SURVIVOR SERIES 1994 1.95

VENGEANCE 2001 1.92

SURVIVOR SERIES 1993 / IN YOUR HOUSE 14 1.90

SUMMERSLAM 1995 1.89

SURVIVOR SERIES 1989 / IN YOUR HOUSE 2 1.88

ROYAL RUMBLE 1994 1.85

IN YOUR HOUSE 3 / BREAKDOWN 1.83

IN YOUR HOUSE 6 / IN YOUR HOUSE 7 / IN YOUR HOUSE 15 1.80

SUMMERSLAM 1992 1.79

ROYAL RUMBLE 1990 / SUMMERSLAM 1991 / WRESTLEMANIA XI / SURVIVOR SERIES 2000 1.75

JUDGMENT DAY 2001 1.73

SUMMERSLAM 1996 1.71

ROYAL RUMBLE 1996 / IN YOUR HOUSE 9 1.70

KING OF THE RING 1993 1.69

ROYAL RUMBLE 1999 1.67

KING OF THE RING 1994 / FULLY LOADED 1998 / UNFORGIVEN 2000 1.63

IN YOUR HOUSE 5 1.58

WRESTLEMANIA III 1.56

KING OF THE RING 2000 1.55

SURVIVOR SERIES 1999 1.53

SURVIVOR SERIES 1997 / ROYAL RUMBLE 1998 1.50

INVASION 1.48

NO WAY OUT 2002 1.43

WRESTLEMANIA V / SUMMERSLAM 1989 1.39

IN YOUR HOUSE 18 1.36

WRESTLEMANIA VIII 1.33

UNFORGIVEN 1998 1.32

KING OF THE RING 1996 1.31

SUMMERSLAM 1990 / SURVIVOR SERIES 1992 1.28

IN YOUR HOUSE 10 / ROYAL RUMBLE 1997 1.29

WRESTLEMANIA / THE BIG EVENT 1986 1.25

WRESTLING CLASSIC / WRESTLEMANIA VII 1.20

SUMMERSLAM 1988 1.15

ROCK BOTTOM 1.13

WRESTLEMANIA XV 1.06

SURVIVOR SERIES 1990 / KING OF THE RING 1997 / SURVIVOR SERIES 1998 1.04

WRESTLEMANIA IV 1.03

WRESTLEMANIA II / IN YOUR HOUSE 4 1.00

WRESTLEMANIA IX 0.97

IN YOUR HOUSE 19 0.96

SURVIVOR SERIES 1991 0.95

WRESTLEMANIA VI 0.84

KING OF THE RING 1995 0.72

KING OF THE RING 1999 0.65