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 Pretty sure I’ve done one of these before, but couldn’t find it and this is current so fuck it. Just read the post, you damn fudge-packer. Thanks to EVERYONE for getting the word out. The NASH’S SACRIFICE video has now been shilled on ONLINE ONSLAUGHT, (possibly) FIGURE FOUR WEEKLY, SCOTSMANALITY, WRESTLECRAP, and will get the treatment from TOM ZENK this weekend. If you’ve been under a rock for the last week and haven’t checked it out yet, do so right now and then read the rest of this and the other much better posts below (Tommy, Swandive, TUS, Norm, Jim… FUCK that’s an all-star line-up), and then come back here. And if you’re new to Lethal, we welcome you to join us in our forum or in #lethalwrestling on Starchat in IRC during the prime-time shows to let us know what you think. And the Zenk column will of course be at THE RING POST, along with the rest of the phenomenal staff I kiss the ass of in all of these. And HOPEFULLY tomorrow you will also be able to check out the new LOW BLOW there as well (also at WRESTLING OUTLAWS). And on a personal note… WELCOME BACK, YEAHGR!! Buttloads (it’s a theme today) of thanks to my boy Berty (Triple B) for the banner. So everyone is clear, we’re NOT being sued by Nash. Too bad… MAN we could use the exposure. Somehow I predict LOTS of mileage forthcoming from that particular pic. Strap on, you strap-ons… let’s talk wrestling. Last night WWE joined the Disney Corporation in making public acceptance of same sex “life partnerships". Whether this means that they'll continue to pay Billy's benefits when they finally wise up and send him to hang with X-Pac but keep Palumbo is anyone's guess. Either way, once again the business has made every one of it's fans re-explore if not their own sexuality, certainly that of the guys sitting to right and left of them at their next house show. With the “marriage proposal” as the “back drop" (oh man, I apologize now for the multitude of puns coming up... almost all of which are unintentional), I began to ponder some of the “alternate lifestyle" moments both in and out of the ring. If it makes this easier for your sensitive PC ass to read by this being prefaced by “not that there's anything wrong with being gay", pretend I just said it... beats the fuck out of having to defend myself from you fruit booties later. Let's take a look, on and off screen, at the pink side of wrestling (and it's not like we're immune... after all, MMN works here). Homoeroticism in wrestling goes back as far as the sport itself. If you've ever watched a Greco-Roman match then you know the safe money says that wrestling was invented accidentally by two guys trying to ass-fuck. In fact, just being named after Greeks and Romans should suggest the high level of dick-poking associated with it (fruity Mediterranean Euro-bitches. The only reason it’s not called “Greco-Roman-Canadian” is that announcers get tongue-tied trying to say all that). Plus pro wrestling was born in carnies and you know all those gypsies can’t keep things out of their poop chutes. Publicly however it’s supposed to be a sport for “men’s men” (like William Regal, who once declined to wrestle Godfather after being offered the alternative: “I may be English, but I’m no Elton John. I’ll take the birds”), and as such little girly-men are an affront to our hillbilline… er… fandom. And as you’re about to see, as long as there’s been a market for gay bashing, wrestling has unabashedly jumped at the chance… DESPITE the apparent contradictions. Gorgeous George The modern era of gay heat in wrestling pretty much began right when the “characters" did (with the advent of television), and the first true “gimmick" to get over universally played this to the hilt. Gorgeous George wasn't QUITE gay or QUITE a cross-dresser, but close enough to both to make a lot of people very uncomfortable or angry in a “homophobe" sort of way (don't get me started on that term or we'll never get back to the real point of the post. The topic of homosexuality brings out a lot of emotions in me, but “fear" isn't one of them... unless they're bleeding around me). Tommy Rich If the story ISN'T true, it's without any doubt the most famous “unfounded rumor" out there, and certainly makes more sense than any other possible scenario that could've resulted in Tommy becoming the NWA World Champion. Story goes that the promoter (whose name I could tell you if I wasn’t trying to remember it) made a simple offer to the pretty boy babyface: “You want gold, then get your knees dirty.” And you can check the history books, Tommy Rich had a VERY short and otherwise unmemorable run with what at the time was arguably the most respected belt on the planet. ECW fans certainly knew, giving him a much more personalized version of the “you suck dick” chant: “YOU SUCKED A DICK!” And my homey Jeff Bailey recently revived it to the nth degree after Tommy no-showed a Wildside show where he was supposed to put a new slant on the infamous “Burning of Atlanta” match (any old PWI readers remember the pictures of him and Buzz Sawyer bloodied beyond recognition) with New Jack. I can tell you that almost EVERYONE “in the biz” has no doubt the tale is true. Cruisin' Ah, the one cop movie you have to figure that Pacino wishes he could have back. The scene where the hustler explains to him what a hankercheif in a pocket represents depending on which pocket it is cracks me the hell up to this very day. The movie is a “straight"forward serial killer flick with the hook being the antagonist was finding his victims in bars with names like “The End Zone" and “Chocolate Highway" (examples, not real bars in the movie). “So that's great if you want to watch homo movies, Barbed One... but please tell me what the hell this has to do with wrestling?" Very simple... when they identify the serial killer and go to search the house, the floor is COMPLETELY littered with wrestling magazines. “The Wrestler", “Inside Wrestling", “The Ring". Despite being the only member of my family who didn’t consider wrestling the lowest form of entertainment this side of tossing cow patties, and having to get whole new friends since none of my old ones could stomach my obsession… watching that scene was the first time I EVER questioned why the fuck I was a fan of this stuff. Adrian Adonis Adrian Adonis was a bad mofo. Him and Jesse were a feared heel contingency, and as an agile big man Adrain was loved by promoters who knew he'd put on a good show. This wasn't just with his ring-work, but with his character. Adrian would really throw himself into the role, and always was animated beyond what was asked for. This was never more true than when Vince asked him to take the ultimate heel role, a flaming fairy. Adrain added a lisp, feather boas and scarves, and some mock ballerina mannerisms and next thing anyone knew he was getting heat like nobody's business. MAN it pissed the gay groups off, but since they weren't really a political force at the time (this was before the whole world went queer) that just sort of added to the comedy. However, what happened next definitely did NOT tickle Vince's funny bone… Pat Patterson/Terry Garvin/Barry O. How this didn't wind up burying the WWF remains one of the great mysteries of the business. Charges flew from every direction, from 15 year-old ring boys to wrestlers not getting the push they felt they deserved to even Bruno Sammartino (who claimed to witness acts first-hand, he never said he sucked a pole to get a push) that the quickest road to success was the Hershey Highway. What gave “meat" to the charges was at least two of the road agents, Pat Patterson and Terry Garvin, were openly gay (within the industry, no one outside of wrestlers or dirt sheet readers were aware until the talk show circuit exploded the story upon America). Basically it went away when it was noticed that no one who was actually successful was complaining about anything. The FUNNIEST part of the whole sordid mess was Vince McMahon, who was so afraid of being branded a butt-pirate because of all this that he got one of his lady referees that no one had ever heard of to say that he had sexually harrassed HER! In a totally non-gay way, I LOVE that man. Goldust We had a liberal in the White House, political correctness was reaching insane levels, and Vince KNEW there was a burgeoning backlash against it. At the same time, Dustin Runnels was in dire need of a gimmick. And from there came the character specifically created to incur “faggot” chants at shows worldwide. GD wasn’t just gay, he was a sexual freak. There’s all kinds of stories about Scott Hall being so creeped out by it that it set the wheels in motion for the exodus that led to the nWo and the great wrestling war that resulted. No one would’ve EVER guessed Goldust could be reborn, but thanks to Booker T’s “tension” he’s currently riding a wave of popularity like he’s never known. Johnny B. Bad/Maestro/others WCW tried their own versions of GD through the years. The two mentioned above certainly tried to get that heat, and I’d probably have spent this whole post going off on Norman Smiley if this had happened in June, but since he won me over for life at the GATHERING he now gets a free pass. So for years the company tried to really play on the redneck desire of wrestling fans to gay bash. FINALLY they got it right, with… Lenny and Lodi And MAN did they get it right. Before they could blink the big Gay (and Lesbian) Al(liance) was all over them like on a group of firemen in suspenders dosed up on GHB. While Vince would’ve told them to go fuck themselves (and not enjoy it), WCW was part of the mainstream AOL/Time Warner Umbrella who among other things made movies so they had to keep the limp wrists happy. The team’s gimmick was played down and eventually dropped completely, and the fags went after other “dangerous” forms of entertainment like Kevin Smith movies. For a few years homophobic (ug!) angles were relegated to the indys (Hardcore Homosexual for instance, and Lenny and Lodi were still doing the fag gimmick as recently as a month ago). It began to look like the days of the gay heel had gone the way of other “political hot buttons”… until Vince figured out there was really only thing they could possibly do with Billy Gunn and justify him being on television, which leads us to…. Chuck and Billy We ALL knew what they were supposed to be from day one, from the Boy Band theme music to Rico to the scores of “did he just say that?” comments from both. Last night’s announcement was a logical progression of where they’ve going from the start, and I got a feeling that the Gay and Lesbian Alliance is once again going to be on the warpath after next week’s payoff (although by BRILLIANTLY only having them on shows that are taped, you won’t hear the ROARING “faaaaaaggot” chants until PPV). Geez, you’d think with the creativity they get stereotypically credited with having, they’d learn to laugh at themselves… but apparently the humor node is in the rectum and they’ve long since crushed theirs with dick and whatever other long objects they can shove up there. Granted, no one really paid attention to the fact this has happened before in the WWE, but since they’ve never come out and admitted to Chyna’s manhood Triple H will never get the credit he so richly deserves for paving the way for this one (except by Rock, who repeatedly refers to him as “half a queer” throughout his first home video). So to you newer fans who saw the proposal last night and thought new ground was being broken, now you know the truth. And if you haven’t figured out yet why you’re a wrestling fan, it’s quite simple… you’re a latent homo. Fag! Barbwire Mike No I’m not politically incorrect… I’m fucking SOUTHERN! |