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 Happy Independence Day. Because of the events of the last few months I'm going to rescind the regular suggestion to celebrate by rolling a joint in the American flag. However, the "killing an Arab" recommendation is encouraged more heartily than ever. The banner today comes from JIM, who we all know and love with almost "deity" status. Thank you SO much, homey... that is so cool Im tempted to yank to it. I promise to personally beat the shit out of every single reader who doesn't follow the link to PHANTASMO out of gratitude. Ginger is BACK at THE RING POST, and there's still a new LOW BLOW (available at WRESTLING OUTLAWS as well) I haven't had a chance to shill yet (since I took last week off from recapping to celebrate Brazil's brilliant World Cup victory). Also, there's a VERY good Birthday tribute to Bret Hart from Annie and unless he's on vacation this week there should also be a new Jonny X RAW recap. And if you haven't read the new TOM ZENK yet, good God you're missing out. Speaking of BACK... LETHAL INJECTION has finally solved their server problems, and that means TOTAL REQUEST LETHAL lives again. If you STILL don't understand the difference between these two sites, hopefully a cursory tour of LI will put it all in perspective. Hella great to see them back, and EVERYONE happy with where they are now. And in case you thought we've been pulling your leg for months, "IT" finally happens this week... and you are absolutely guaranteed to be entertained at levels usually reserved for NormanB posts. Having a sister who is a pro in web design is pretty cool. Having a sister who’s a pro in web design and JUST CREATED THE NEW HIGH TIMES WEBSITE outdistances that like by ten bazillion. Folks, this site isn’t even “officially” online for a few hours… send me a quarter bag for giving you the inside dope. Oh yeah, way to go Sherlock. Why? For taking me up on the long sentence dare, of course. Let the fireworks begin... time to talk wrestling. "I look around the crowd tonight and see we have America at its finest. I've never seen so much red, white and blue. That's RED necks, WHITE trash, and BLUE collar scum." -"Sinister Minister" Jim Mitchell (in his early Darryl Van Horne days) Since tomorrow is the big "America Day" celebration… and since we've never been more cognizant of the fact there are lots of people outside this country who can't fucking stand us… I figured now was as good a time as any to give a cursory history of some of the "Anti-American" angles that have been run throughout the years. As with any "Barbed History" piece, the standard "did lots of drugs and memory is fuzzy" disclaimer again applies. Also, I'm not going any further back in history than Fritz Von Erich. Oh, and if anyone is offended by anything in here, go cry to the ACLU... and suck my flagpole. Why do we, a country that "prides" itself on being so compassionate and politically correct, buy tickets by the truckload for feuds with an international flavor? In part, it may be simply because IT'S HUMAN NATURE TO PRACTICE NATIONALISM (and not just humans... EVEN OTTERS get into the fray). Other than color or gender, location is the easiest way to single out someone and hate them without having to go to the hassle of speaking to them and finding a legitimate reason to. Sometimes it reflects “real world” views, and at others times countries who are our allies become bitter rivals in the ring. It's an oversimplified way of dealing with issues in a way that sells tickets, and on a level that almost anyone can relate to (anyone remember the "Two Tribes" video where Reagan and Gorbachev have what basically amounts to a hardcore match for control of the planet? "Frankie say to take dick up the ass"). Fuck diplomacy... nothing settles world problems like going through a table. Let's begin with a group of people that know just a thing or two about "international heel heat". ZE GERMANS You may have heard... we had a little "unpleasantness" with these guys a few years ago. I forget the details, something about Adolph Rupp if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, ever since then one of the easiest ways to get heel heat is to declare yourself a German and goose step a lot. Fritz and Waldo Von Erich, Baron Von Rashke (the "Von" in your name was a must if you wanted people to think you were really a kraut). Once a wrestler was labeled a German he didn't even need to expand his character. No one had to spray Zylon B in the Jewish commentator's face or make "shower" jokes…. they were Nazis and that was all it took to be despised. Today, Germans are stereotypically looked at less as Nazis and more as snooty European half-fags (kind of like the French, but a little more hetero and with a much cooler accent). In this age of "Deiter", the heel heat is directed that way. In fact, one of my favorite WCW performers was the prototype of this: Alex Wright. "You Americans are so stupid, and cannot dance good like me". That reminds me, whatever happened to "Wunderkind"? He was the bomb. OTHER EUROPEANS "Bloody yanks" is William Regal's way of describing us from the British point of view. Fit Finley did pretty much the same thing for Ireland. The only French guy I can think of was Edward Carpentier (who may have been French Canadian… which is the answer to the question "what's more gay than being French?") who got lots of heat for his “exposé” of the business years before the NBC special. But honestly, the list of reasons of why frogs are heels is about twice as long as the latest "History of Civilazation" series, and most are too easy even for the wrestling industry to exploit. Sadly, Poles are rarely heels, because promoters fear their star will take all the taunting personally and play a game of "Polish Roulette" (you know the rules, right? You use six bullets). But let's face it, it's been a long time since we've had any serious hostilities with Europe (beyond their bathing habits). This next country was TAILOR MADE for feudin', and produced a long line of quite memorable villians: RUSSIA Yeah, yeah yeah... they're the "former Soviet Republic" now, but until that happened going commie was guaranteed heel success. My God, even total hacks like Boris Zuchov were able to carve out a niche for themselves with the gimmick. But fuck that loser, we've got some of the biggest names of the 70s and 80s capitalizing on the Cold War (sometimes real Russians, sometimes a guy from Charlotte): Ivan and Nikita Koloff are the immediate stand-outs for me, but you yankees probably immediately got the picture of Nikoli Volkoff singing the Russian national anthem. There's no heat like commie heat. Sadly with the end of the Soviet Union the reds are no longer Russian, most of them these days are college students and are registered in our forum. But if there was any place on earth OTHER than Russia where every person watching could grasp the "enemy" status of, it would be... THE MIDDLE EAST Oh those crazy fundamentalists, blowing up babies and going IYIYIYIYIYIYI with high-pitched voices. They SCREAM "heel", and no one knows that like wrestling promoters. I mean, read about one page of the Koran and you'll be able to see that no philosophy is too nutty to attach to a bad guy in the ring. Sure, Arabs aren't exactly known for using snakes and spikes as weapons, but do you think anyone was going to tell THE SHEIK he was committing cultural taboo? I don't really know if you can legitimately tie "paying people to eat toe-jam" to any towelhead culture either, but it worked for Tiger Ali. Hell, it doesn't even matter where you come from over there, because just like in real life all those dune coons are interchangeable. Don't believe me? Vince got LOTS of heat for his angle in the Gulf War with Sgt. Slaughter, but one thing pretty much no one bothered bitching about was that the Iron Sheik, who had been billed as an Iranian for his entire career, was suddenly an Iraqi like all it requires is getting a new camel license from the DHV (Department of Humpbacked Vehicles). While I'm mentioning this, I would be remiss not to mention one of the funniest things ever in that whole Gulf War thing. The leader was "General Adnon", the former "Adnon Al Kassie". Well dirt sheets were very new to us then, so we hadn't come to grips with Dave Meltzer's sense of humor yet. Therefore, for YEARS we believed him when he translated one of the General's Bin Laden-esque rants as "Yes, I know I suck, but at least I'm not as shitty as Skandar Akbar". Hehehehe. This is all fine and dandy, but those places are further away from America than the sun (I think, geography was never my strong suit). Let's talk about the evil foreign menace a lot closer to home: BORDER FEUDS Before the obvious one, let's get the Mexicans out of the way. For the most part Mexicans don’t get to play ethnic heels (riiiiiiiiight, the lWo… “Dungeon of Doom” was a stronger heel contingency). It’s much more a matter of humiliating them and make them take their masks off. However, there was one classic exception where the hatred of the wrestlers actually crossed over into “Mexican Pride” heat. LOS GRINGOS! Eddie Guerrero and Art Barr (wasn’t Konnan a member too?) made one of the all-time great heel teams in wrestling history by being big cocky loudmouth Americans in the cruiserweight-dominated lucha libre (honestly, if Art hadn’t died that is probably the one team in wrestling that could’ve single-handedly changed the future of the biz all by their lonesome. They were THAT ahead of their time). But no one cares about Mexicans unless they’re stealing our jobs (Neo excluded, naturally), so that’s not really what this section is about… STAND ON GUARD FOR DEEZ NUTS, CANADA!! It’s time to talk about the only “politically correct” feud we can get away with without ANY faggot humanitarian groups bitching about it. Why? Because even they know that if we could just figure out a way to push it about 500 miles from our northern border there would not be a single valid argument against nuking that fucking country/hockey rink. BUT AS IT REGARDS TO WRESTLING: I’m sure this feud is probably as old as the business itself, but the first anti-American stuff I remember from Canadians were the Rougeau Brothers. And MAN they were good at it. They weren’t so much “bad ass” as being able to exude enough goofy cockiness that you couldn’t help but love ‘em (much like the aforementioned Alex Wright). Jacques even continued it later on with the “Mountie” character which was probably one of the best things going on in the WWF at the time. I also think Dino Bravo flirted with “Pro Canada Heat” for awhile as well… But everyone knows where this feud REALLY began, and was taken to levels unheard of in the annals of sport ever: THE HART FOUNDATION!! (So everyone knows, my hatred of Canadians has very little to do with wrestling. I can’t remember feeling any ill will for you guys in the Great White North UNTIL I MOVED TO A STATE WHERE YOU COCKSUCKERS INFEST THE ROADWAYS!! WAY TO MAKE OLD WOMEN AND CHINESE LOOK CAPABLE BY COMPARISON!! “THEY THOUGHT I WAS SLOW BECAUSE I’M FROM CANADA, EH!!”) AARRRGH!! Where were we? Oh yeah, Harts. Bret says it himself in his movie, it had never been done before: Being a heel in one country and a face in the other. I’ve written so many times about the Stampede show you know how magic it is by now, but it bears repeating… five guys who were getting hatred at levels I’m not sure a single wrestler in this business is capable of getting in today’s world, getting nWo levels of trash hurled at them week after week, were suddenly on PPV getting cheered with a beautiful level of markdom that hadn’t been exhibited like that ANYWHERE for years. Even the American and the British guy in the group were Canadian heroes; and Bret, Owen and Pillman… they were GODS in that ring that night. Vince and Bret may never speak again, but together they created all the “us vs. them” between the nations in that squared circle. EVERYTHING, from Lance’s “Calgary… Aberta CANADA” ECW gloat to Team Canada to today’s up and coming angle… begins there. So what’s the point of this? Eh, I don’t know… probably has something to do with you sucking if you ain’t from America, and for one day out of every 365 that’s not being “xenophobic”, just “patriotic”… so I may as well cash in. GOD BLESS AMERICA!! And fuck you. Barbwire Mike Happy Birthday Lady Liberty… you fucking crack whore |