Dr. Darin Davis

I usually don’t go for the stuff that requires a huge “suspension of disbelief“, but once in a while something comes along that I just have to share.

Growing up I remember watching a lot of invisible man movies. There was also a TV show starring David McCallum.

Just like most people, I used to think about how cool it would be if I was invisible (you can use your imagination to come up with your own reasons why). But eventually, you would figure out that it really sucks, because people would keep bumping into you all the time. On top of that, you would spend your days either freezing or sunburned depending on your chosen climate (they hadn’t yet perfected invisible clothing in my fantasy).

The good news is that despite all the problems, you would still be able to find work in Japan.

In addition to covering the “salted nut of the day” and their web exclusive section of “What’s Up in the Hubs“, Continental Airlines Magazine has an article about the female executives at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in their January 2010 issue. How I even came across this, I’m not sure.

One of the biggest problems with the wrestling in the WWE can be summed up with one quote (the emphasis is mine):

There are two things WWE wants you to know. First, the operative word is “entertainment,” not “wrestling.” Second, watch how you refer to the talent. They’re not wrestlers; the men are “superstars” and the women “divas.”

The WWE has spent at least the last several years, maybe the last decade, telling anyone who would listen that they are an entertainment company and not a wrasslin‘ company. Wrestling is apparently a dirty word.

Here are a couple more choice quotes from the same article:

As Wilson points out, there’s a certain logic inherent in having women at the top of WWE. “We’re an entertainment company,” she notes.

and this

Goldsmith, who moonlights as an extra in TV soap operas, says her biggest challenge is dispelling misconceptions about WWE. “One of those,” she states, “is us constantly being called professional wrestling. That term just doesn’t give us the credibility we deserve.”

Nice. What is that supposed to mean? You have wrestling in the name of your company! Other than putting out some crappy movies using their WWE roster as “talent” (See No Evil, The Marine, 12 Rounds, The Condemned), what do they do besides wrestling? The article talks about TV, Pay-Per-View, and merchandise, but it’s all wrestling related.

I’m not sure when all this distancing started, but it may have been around the time they went public with some of their stock. Or when they started putting out crappy movies (although No Holds Barred came out way back in 1989). There was definitely a shift when they decided to enter the talk show circuit and go with the weekly guest hosts on WWE Monday Night Raw.

I doubt they would ever drop the second ‘W’ from their name (so as not to be confused with that women’s channel on cable), but how long before they change what the acronym stands for?

Remember The Nashville Network (TNN)? When they started to change their format from redneck to a “the first network for men” (which is what I thought ESPN was), they kept the logo and abbreviation but put out a press release that they now wanted to be called “The National Network“. Prince and P-Diddy would be proud. Eventually they would change to “SpikeTV” and get sued by Spike Lee, but that’s a whole other story. Now I guess they’re just called “Spike”

How about World Wide Entertainment? After all it used to be the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) until they dropped the ‘W’ in 1979.

My advice for the WWE– don’t forget what brung ya to the dance. The more you distance yourself from the wrestling, the more you will distance your fans.

I’ve already gone on about how some of us “want our wrestling back“, so I won’t go into detail again. If they think they can generate their $530 million in annual revenue off of producing direct-to-DVD action movies (The Marine 2), they haven’t looked at DVD sales charts lately.

Say what you want about TNA (and most people do), they go out of their way to proudly state they are a wrestling company.

Unfortunately, it’s right before they bring out Lacey Von Eric, the worst third generation wrestler of all time.

TNA Wrestling had a live 3 hour broadcast on Monday Jan 4th, in direct competition with the WWE’s live Monday Night Raw program. Of course, the big reason to watch Raw this week was the return of Bret “The Hitman” Hart after 12 years out of the limelight. For TNA, the reason  to watch was supposed to be the appearance of the immortal immoral Hulk Hogan.

The TNA announce team (and I’m assuming also the boneheads in charge) apparently thought that they would have a lot more new viewers to the program because it was on a Monday, and people are only allowed to watch wrestling on Monday nights. The normal Thursday time slot is probably what was keeping most people from watching TNA. Yeah… right.

Let’s get right into how this program faired, and what kind of impression the broadcast would make on someone watching for the first time (you know, the ones who bowl on Thursdays).

The Good

I thought the TNA Knockouts (a.k.a. female wrestlers) were given some decent air time to showcase their talents. The ODB vs. Tara match was good, and the Hamada/Awesome Kong vs. Taylor Wilde/Sarita tag match was very good. Both matches resulted in title changes, but I’m not sure if that really matters much anymore. Gone are the days when a champion would hold a title for over a year [I held the MIW TV Title for 15 months, but don't ask me how many times I defended it ].

The D’Angelo Dinero vs. Desmond Wolfe match was also very good. I think Desmond Wolfe is becoming one of my favorites, mostly because he seems to bring his opponents up to his level and focuses on ring psychology and actual wrestling during the match.

The main event of A.J. Styles vs. Kurt Angle was awesome. This sentiment was echoed by the fans as they alternated chants of “This is awesome!” and “This is wrestling!“.

I thought it was also good that Hogan came out afterword and publicly said that “these two are the greatest wrestlers in the world today”, to at least give us the impression that his ego may not take over the entire company.

One problem is that a lot of viewers probably didn’t stick around through all the other crap that went on to make it to this, or were switching over to Raw to see Bret Hart’s confrontation with Vince McMahon, so they may not have seen the best TNA has to offer. I saw a few comments around the net about the TNA and WWE Monday shows that bashed TNA and didn’t mention the Styles/Angle match at all.

The Bad

Now the bad [...deep breath...]. The hardest part here is limiting this to less than 10,000 words. There is so much I can say, but I’ll try to just touch on a few things. A lot of what was bad about it had to do with setting us up to think it was going to be good.

Here was the setup… The lip service from Hogan and Bischoff has been that they were going to “shake things up”, and they would “change wrestling forever”, and that it “won’t be like what you’ve seen before”. Sounded like they were trying to say it wouldn’t be another WCW. They also made the point that there is a lot of young talent in TNA that deserves the spotlight.

Right on!

They interviewed fans outside of the building who said that they “want to see wrestling” and didn’t want to see some cartoonish “kiddie” wrestling or sports entertainment (meaning WWE). Basically, they want their wrestling back.

I’m with ya!

So TNA had a full hour head start on WWE Monday Night Raw. They had a lot of time to showcase how they are not just the same old guys, and how this will be different, and how the young talent should be getting a push.

Here’s how they blew it:

Reason #1: Dumping on the Cruiserweight Division

Instead of having several matches during the night featuring X-Division wrestlers (TNA’s cruiserweight “division”), they throw eight of the most talented ones in the ring for a single match. In a steel cage. One that looked like a bird cage. A bird cage made out of steel. WTF?

They put them in a match that can’t possibly showcase their skills because it’s total chaos, you can’t really go off of the top rope or outside the ring, and nobody can even figure out how to get out of the damn thing. The company has bragged for weeks about the skills of their young talent. Well, here they are folks.

On top of that, you end the match quickly calling it a “no contest”. This was during the opening of the show. Your new viewers get to hear the entire arena chant, “This is bullsh*t!” while the sound guy fumbles for the mute button. Good first impression.

And then, what about all of the guys they’ve talked up for weeks (Motor City Machine Guns, Beer Money, Rhyno)? At some point during the night they end up layed out in the back from some unknown attacker.

In the first hour and 16 minutes there were exactly two matches.

Two.

Did you forget we said we want our wrestling back?

Reason #2: Hogan’s Cronies

They start out the show with their new “broadcast partner” Bubba The Love Sponge to do fan interviews. Then throughout the night more of Hogan’s cronies appear. Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags (The Nasty Boys). Val Venis. Sean Waltman, the bloated tick that is Scott Hall. And of course Eric Bischoff.

Unfortunately I also have to include my favorite of all time, Ric Flair, in this list, who also showed up to collect a pay day without speaking or having any involvement.

After telling us for weeks that it isn’t going to be like it was before, they bring all of these old guys in. Like before.

Even if it was just for one night, it was one night too many.

Reason #3: WCW All Over Again

We’re going to do something new and exciting! We will spend 20 mins or so teasing Hogan’s arrival by showing you his limo driving through the streets of Orlando. If you were to put in a crawl at the bottom of the screen, it would be the same thing they did in 1994 on WCW. Too bad he wasn’t in a white Ford Bronco if they were going for nostalgia.

Hogan comes out with pseudo nWo music playing, with the dark beard and the black clothes. Later he’s got Hall, Waltman, and Kevin Nash in the ring. Just like back in the ’90s in WCW.

Oh, look. It’s Sting. He’s dressed in black and up in the rafters. Just like we all remember from WCW. And he’s also a mute again too.

Someone dressed in black wearing a hood attacks Styles again. Looks like the Black Scorpion angle from WCW (please, don’t let it be Flair under the hood again!)

And a Few On the Fence

I’m still on the fence about a few things. Jeff Hardy showing up on TNA was surprising to me (I don’t read the spoilers). I couldn’t tell if he was actually going to work for the company, or just showed up for an appearance like the rest of the riff-raff. He would definitely fit in, but I have a hard time seeing him anywhere but the WWE right now (if circumstances didn’t prevent him from working there).

Ric Flair (I know I already had him listed under the “bad”, so what) is another wildcard. With his great “retirement” sendoff in the WWE after Wrestlemania 24 in 2008, I hate to see him take the chance of ruining that moment by being involved with TNA. But it’s clear that even at the age of 61 he can’t stay out of the business.

What’s in Store for 2010?

The reason I get so ticked off about TNA is that they have such great talent that constantly gets misused by “creative”. I keep reading about how everyone says TNA sucks and I just don’t get it. Their storylines suck, but if you look at their roster, 80% of them are as good or better than any of the wrestlers in the WWE. WWE programming is slightly better because of their production quality and storylines, not because their talent is better. But if you’re like me and fast forward through the WWE storylines every week and just watch the matches, it’s like getting a crap sandwich- hold the bread.

I saw this quoted somewhere else, but I can’t remember where:

It took Jeff Jarrett over 6 years to build up TNA to what it is today. It will take Hogan and Bischoff 6 months to run it into the ground.

I don’t have a good feeling about this based on the first show with Hogan in control. I’ve already said that I would be monitoring the quality of wrestling programming through the end of June of 2010. If the Hogan/Bischoff clock started on January 4th, that should be all the time I need to see it hit rock bottom.

If I told you I had just watched a classic wrestling match where the only two moves used in the first five minutes were a side headlock and a cravat, you would probably ask me what 1950’s-era bout I had seen. Actually, your first question might be “what’s a cravat?“, depending on how familiar you are with the terminology of wrestling holds. But it wasn’t the 1950’s, or the ’60’s, or even the ’70’s. No, it was less than a week ago, right here in good old 2009.

In a match on the 12/17/09 episode of TNA Wrestling, Christopher Daniels and Desmond Wolfe (video) managed to build things up “old school” using basic wrestling moves. Not only that, but at the same time they were able to keep the attention of the crowd. By the time they worked up to a simple shoulder tackle, the crowd popped. Later in the match when they went into their various high spots and false finishes, the moves had a lot more impact because of where the match started, and it resulted in one of the best matches of the year, IMHO (the only negative was the finish).

With professional wrestling’s constant attempt to outdo themselves with more “extreme” matches and storylines, seeing things go back to basics last week was refreshing. It put some energy and variety back into a match in a way that got me more engaged than I have in quite awhile.

When the business can no longer top itself, what do you do? One thing you could do is start over. You could drop kick “sports entertainment” and bring the wrestling back.

At a time when Hollywood seems to be “rebooting” previous properties for better or worse (Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Transformers, GI-Joe, Star Trek, Land of the Frickin’ Lost), is it possible for professional wrestling to reboot itself? Could it start over again?

I doubt that WWE would be able to do it, as the short term ratings drop while they find their new audience would probably be too much for the shareholders to take (WWE is a publicly traded company). TNA may have been able to do it at one time, but since they’ve decided to bring Hogan in so that they can become “the biggest wrestling company in the world”, I think it’s too late.

Maybe a smaller promotion like Ring of Honor (ROH)? I haven’t seen any of their product, but Jim Cornette’s Contract With the Wrestling Fans makes me think they are listening to people who “want their wrestling back”.

Back in July of 2008, I decided to keep track of my viewing time of WWE Monday Night Raw, ECW, TNA, and WWE Smackdown to see if I would be able to tell anything about the direction of the quality of the programming. This was assuming that if the quality (in my opinion) was better, I would watch more, and if the quality dropped (again based on my tastes), I would watch less.

I ended that tracking last summer. You can find the results of the that year-long experiment, including the charts, data, and a summary on the TV Viewership Stats page.

The New Method

In July of 2009, I started collecting some different data about the same wrestling programming. After a few months of dragging my feet I finally decided on how I want to show the data, so I’ve added the information to the website.

What I am measuring this time is the number of matches per hour, and the quality of those matches as judged by a simple rating system (1 Thumb Up, 2 Thumbs Up, 1 Thumb Down).

You can find out all the details on the new TV Match Ratings page. There is a new tab at the top of the main page for this.

I won’t be posting too much about it on the main page, other than the occasional reminder that it is happening, and maybe a summary every few months. Those that are interested can check out the details on the ratings page, and those that aren’t don’t have to look at it at all.

To finish out this announcement, I’m including one of the charts from that page that shows the total “Thumb” ratings for each of the four brands from 7/7/09 through 11/20/09. The idea is that the higher the number, the better the overall quality of the wrestling matches of that brand (click on the image for a larger view).

Total Thumbs Up Ratings Thru 11/20/09

As of this writing, TNA is ahead, followed by Smackdown and ECW, with Monday Night Raw trailing pretty far behind. If I remember right, the change in format where Raw has a guest host every week started sometime in July. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Former multi-time AWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Bockwinkel used to say that while sleeping, he would occasionally lift one shoulder up to avoid a pinfall during the night. It’s a tough thing for wrestlers to deal with. You’re half conscious lying on your back and you aren’t sure if you are in a strange hotel room somewhere, or if you are lying in the center of the ring after taking a stiff shot to the head. Better lift that shoulder just to be safe.

Well folks, you no longer need to rely on veteran skills, ring awareness, or the muscle memory of Nick Bockwinkel to avoid a 3 count. Japanese gadget maker Banpresto is coming out with the GONG! Pro Wrestling Ring Bell Alarm Clock.

I’m not sure what the actual product name is (it’s all Japanese to me), but that’s what I’d call it.

When it’s time to get up, the referee starts the pin count. 1…2… If he gets to three before you lift your shoulder (and reach over, grab the hammer, and smack the crap out of the ring bell), your alarm will go off– ringing the bell for some unspecified period of time.

Hard to know what this thing is going to be like. The photo appears to be concept art, and this thing could be the size of my thumb for all I know. It’s only being made available in Japan, but apparently you can order from an importer like geekstuff4u.com for about $45 USD (I think that includes shipping from Japan to them, but not to your house). For those that have watched Japanese wrestling, you’ll remember that the referees count in English, so you shouldn’t have to learn a second language to use this.

They also have a boxing version, but everyone knows boxing is rigged, so why would you want that?

Breaking news today: Hulk Hogan signs with TNA wrestling.

The Hogan deal with TNA was brokered by my favorite wrestling personality in the world, Eric Bischoff.

On top of that, Bischoff and my other buddy Jason Hervey have a production company that signed an agreement with TNA to “...to develop new programming extensions of the TNA brand.”

Gee, that sounds great. I’m sure those two jabronies have some outstanding ideas they’d like to sucker someone into.

I guess the good news is that it will free up two hours a week of my time, since I won’t need to turn on TNA anymore. How could this not cause TNA to go down faster than the Titanic?

It can’t be overstated that Hogan has no wrestling ability, has a huge ego, and along with Nash and some of the other “vets” he will control the direction of the programming. So much for the X division. Now we get Hogan TV every Thursday.

How did this ever get signed? The P.R. nightmare alone seemed like it would be a deal breaker.

Since TNA apparently doesn’t seem to know what they’ve gotten themselves into, I thought I would give a quick little recap of the darker side of Mr. Hogan’s career.

The first “chink in the armor” happened with his involvement in the steroid scandal of the early 1990’s. The then WWF, and chairman Vince McMahon, was being charged with illegally providing anabolic steroids to his employees. Hogan was subpoenaed and had to provide testimony during the trial. Vince was not convicted, but Hogan ended up revealing what he really meant when he told kids to “…eat your vitamins.”

In 1994, Hogan signed with WWF rival World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Two years later, he would turn heel and join the New World Order (nWo), leaving long-time Hulkamaniacs crying in their “do rags”. For as many fans as he turned against him, there were probably more that had grown sick of his gimmick over the last decade that liked the new Hogan. For this reason, I think I would call this whole period a positive, rather than focus on the fans that may have been disappointed.  I think he was able to successfully win back his original fans after going back to the “good” side in 1999.

In 2005, VH1 aired the first episode of Hogan Knows Best, a “reality” show featuring Hogan, his wife, and his two children (along with a couple of his cronies). While it might not be fair to say that Hogan’s personal problems were not directly caused by being part of this production, history has shown that “reality” shows and relationships don’t mix (Jessica Simpson & Nick Lachey, Carmen Electra & Dave Navarro, Britney Spears & Kevin Federline, Bobby Brown & Whitney Houston, Jon & Kate, etc., etc. [did I miss any?]).

So what’s happened with Hogan since the first episode aired? You can follow the link above for details, but here’s a quick summary:

• Nick, Hogan’s son, gets into a drunken, high-speed car crash causing his passenger serious brain injuries. The 22 year old passenger, John Graziano, will likely spend the rest of his life in a nursing home. Nick Hogan is sentenced to 8 months in jail. Some unsubstantiated reports claimed that not only did daddy Hogan know about the high speed driving, but that he was actually racing along side his son when the accident happened.
• During Nick’s incarceration, audio tapes of his conversations with his family were released (middle of article has links to the MP3 files). The tapes included Hulk’s wife Linda saying that “[the crash victim's mother] didn’t care about him, she just wants the money“. Hulk can also be heard saying “…for some reason, God laid some heavy sh*t on the kid..I don’t know what he was into…“, followed by Nick saying that John was a “negative person“. They also discussed how to make some $$ on a reality show for Nick once he got out.
• Hogan cheats on his wife with a female friend of his daughter
• Linda files for divorce, then starts dating a 19 year old that graduated high school a year after her daughter.
• Since the divorce filing, Hogan tells Rolling Stone magazine, “I could have turned everything into a crime scene like O.J., cutting everybody’s throat” and “I totally understand O.J. I get it.“
• Linda and new boyfriend file a restraining order against her ex.
• Linda slams daughter Brooke in the press, claiming she got breast implants.
• Both Hulk and Linda claim the other was on drugs

Having learned nothing (or possibly just needing money to cover the messy divorce), a new “reality” show starts up on VH1 called Brooke Knows Best. Daddy Hogan is a co-star.

I sort of lost track after that, but apparently he has a new book out he needs to plug, so he’s making it around the talk show circuit.

Probably safe to say he won’t be a guest host on WWE Monday Night Raw.

Hey, TNA locker room– Head for the lifeboats, boys!

As some of you may have seen around the net, Ric Flair is an official spokesman of the North Carolina Education Lottery. He’s more than a spokesman, really. They designed a scratch-off game based on his character.

Ric Flair Wooooooo! Scratch-off Game

The “Ric Flair Wooooooo! Scratch-off Game” (at least now we know the correct number of ‘o’s is exactly seven) went on sale Sept 22nd 2009. You can win up to 16 times on one ticket, which is in reference to Flair winning a World Heavyweight Championship belt that many times. There has already been a $100,000 winner as of last week.

Take a look at the snapshot of the lottery poster, and the commercial airing in North Carolina at this site.

The tagline is “More Fun Than a Figure-Four Leglock“. Of course, Flair’s signature hold for the 35+ years that he wrestled was the figure-four leglock, so that part makes sense. The part that confuses me, however, is that there are a long list of things that are more fun than a figure-four leglock. They haven’t exactly cornered that market. In fact, anything that doesn’t cause you pain is probably more fun than the figure-four leglock.

In the nearly five years that I was in professional wrestling (and even if you count my battle royal participation earlier this year), I remember being in a figure-four exactly once. I wrestled Dan Burdick, Jr. in a VFW or American Legion in Coon Rapids, MN, and he put me in one. Even though I’m not a fan of scratch-offs, I’m guessing it would be more fun than that.

During that same time period, I never put an opponent in a figure-four leglock that I recall. Probably in wrestling camp, but not in a public match as far as I know.

I used to like to use a figure-four headlock, though. It was something that not many people were using and I thought it was more interesting than just the standard reverse chinlock. It also didn’t trigger the “smart” marks to chant “rest hold”, like they would whenever they saw someone apply the chinlock.

Outside of professional wrestling matches, I have put several people in the figure-four leglock on several occasions. The last one I can think of was after a wedding reception. My friend Tim was the best man in the wedding and was wearing a white tux. I put him in a figure-four leglock in the parking lot outside a bar in Superior, WI. Good thing he paid the two bucks for the extra tux insurance– though he would have needed it anyway with all the barbecue sauce he got on the front of it.

Come to think of it, that was pretty fun. I think I might have changed my mind about scratch-offs after all. Wooooooo!

This whole WWE Monday Night Raw guest host idea (where they have a different guest be the “general manager” of Raw each week) seemed like “stunt casting” to me. Other than a little media attention, I couldn’t really see what the WWE was getting out of it. On top of that, the guests weren’t necessarily fans, but celebrities that just happen to have something to plug. Freddie Prinze, Jr? Seriously? What has he been in lately (other than Scooby Doo and Sarah Michelle Gellar)?

I wrote about it a little over a month ago (Raw Guest Hosts Not About Ratings?) but until I saw an article in Variety it wasn’t clear what they were trying to do. According to the Variety article, the WWE has basically inserted itself into the talk show circuit. If you’re a celebrity with something to promote, after you’ve been on Leno, Letterman, Conan, and Fallon, you head on over to Raw to get in a two hour plug.

My first reaction was that it seemed brilliant from a marketing and ratings standpoint. They may be reinventing or creating a new genre even.

From the article:

“We wanted a different way to get our product out there and talked about,” Stephanie McMahon, WWE’s executive VP of creative development and operations, told Daily Variety. “Tying us in with celebrities in Hollywood raises our awareness and gets a variety of people talking about us, which is always a positive place to be. Hopefully it will translate to new viewers.”

“They have something to promote, and we have the platform they need,” said Chris McCumber, USA Network’s executive VP for marketing and brand strategy.

Outside the ring, WWE is gaining considerable exposure, with ESPN having heavily covered [Shaq] O’Neal’s appearance on “Raw.” Clips from the show were played when [Jeremy] Piven and [Seth] Green did interviews on yakkers like “Live With Regis and Kelly,” “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” and “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.” Wrestlers are also getting invited onto the shows as a result of the tie-in with Hollywood talent.

Given how successful the guest hosts have been, WWE plans to continue having them appear on “Raw” at least through the end of the year, and possibly up to WrestleMania 26 next March.

But after thinking about it a little more, it seems like only a short-term strategy.

Sounds like Raw ratings are up, but the problem is the product they are putting on is crap, mostly due to how they’ve been tailoring the program to the guest.

They are getting more people tuning in than they normally would (ratings up 10% at the time of the article), and some of those people would not normally watch wrestling, but they are tuning in to watch a turd sandwich.

“Hey, thanks for tuning in. This programming will be worse than what we would show on a “normal” week, but we hope you still like it and will continue to tune in after we abandon this ratings stunt.”

Raw is supposed to be their flagship show, but their ECW and Smackdown programs have better content. What’s their strategy for keeping an audience after the guest host thing ends? They run the risk of losing nearly all of the new viewers and some of their old fan base.

A while back I gave a little background on how I started using the proctologist gimmick (Birth of the Doctor). I said that it started out as just a one-time thing, but then I ended up doing it for the rest of my time as an active wrestler. Well, that’s sort of true. The exception I can think of is one time at a county fair out near Litchfield, MN (I think).

The promoter was the “Iron Duke” Jim Mitchell. He had come down to the Sharkey/Fox wrestling camp a week or so earlier to scout out some talent for some of his upcoming bookings. I believe I wrestled Mitch Paradise in a match in camp while Mitchell was there, but that wasn’t who I ended up booked against.

At the event, the ring was set up in the grandstand of the fair. High fences around it prevented people from seeing in without paying. I don’t know what the charge was, but it was something above whatever it cost to get into the general fairgrounds. There was a decent crowd, and many of them were kids.

There were a few motor homes set up for us to use. One of them was a place for the boys to change, and the other was the “front office”, where the promoter could do his business, and maybe feel a little more like Vinnie Mac.

Mitchell was in the RV, and would send for the workers one at a time to talk to them. I think we might have gotten our payoff then also. It was at a fair, so it was a guaranteed show. That meant there was a guarantee of how much money he would get from the fair’s event coordinator. It didn’t matter if two or two hundred people showed up, the pay was the same. The more people the more likely you’ll be able to come back, of course.

“I’m putting you against Judge Jesse. You’re on third“, Mitchell said.

Judge Jesse was from Wisconsin. I had heard of him, but hadn’t met him or seen him wrestle. I was pretty sure he was a cruiserweight, so the gears started turning. Mitchell was probably still talking, but I was already tuning it out while thinking about the upcoming match.

Let’s see… if he’s a cruiserweight, then he’s probably smaller than me. That means I should be able to do some different suplexes tonight since I’ll be able to power him up without killing myself. And I’ve got a few counters in mind that maybe he can pull off…

“…Oh, and you can’t do the doctor thing tonight“, Mitchell said.

I snapped back into consciousness.

“What?..“, I said.

“You can’t do the procto thing“, Mitchell said.

“Why am I just hearing this now? Why not?“, I said.

“This is a family show“, Mitchell said.

“But I don’t actually do it”, I said, “I just take the glove out and go toward the guy. The crowd fills in the rest in their heads.”

“I don’t care. There are kids here“, Mitchell said.

“The kids won’t know what I’m doing unless they already know what I’m doing“, I said.

Yes, the old debate about what is and is not appropriate for children. My argument was that if it’s over their heads, then it’s okay. I haven’t taught them anything new because they don’t understand what just happened. They only way they would get it is if they already knew it, and again I’m not teaching them anything new. The counter argument is usually that if they don’t know it they will end up going to ask their parents about it, who will then be in the uncomfortable position to explain what happens when Daddy goes to the doctor’s office.

“You’re not doing it. That’s final“, Mitchell said.

Knowing that I was on the losing side, I gave in.

“What about the rest of my gimmick? I don’t really have anything else with me.“, I said.

“Tonight you’re a dentist. If you want to pull out a glove and stick your fingers down Jesse’s throat, that’s alright with me“, Mitchell said.

“A dentist?“, I said.

“A dentist“, Mitchell said.

We went out and started the match, with me as the face. Toward the end of the match I put on the glove, got Jesse in the corner, climbed to the second rope, and stuck two fingers into his mouth. A few seconds later the ref came over and started giving me a five count to break the “hold”.

I don’t remember if it was before or after Mick Foley started doing the “Mandible Claw” in the WWE, but people didn’t seem to know how to react. They probably never announced me as a destist on the way to the ring. You see a guy in hospital scrubs and you figure he’s a doctor. Or maybe a male nurse?

A special mention should go to Jesse, who had to have a glove that had been used in probably half a dozen matches (and stuffed down the front of my tights) shoved into his mouth for the better part of ten seconds.

When the match was over, one of the kids in the crowd asked me why I stuck my fingers down his throat. I think I ended up saying something like, “I was grabbing for his tonsils“, but I really wanted to say, “I don’t know kid. It didn’t make sense to me either.”

Gee, I hope the kid didn’t go home and ask his folks about it.