TNA UK

I have a sore throat and I've lost my voice. As a fan of professional wrestling, that can only mean one thing - I went to see a wrestling show last night.

As I'm sure you're aware, TNA are in the UK for the first time in the company's history. There weren't too many huge names but the fact that TNA was in town was enough to draw a near enough sell out audience of around 2,000 people to Coventry's Skydome.

My friend Rossa and I got there early in the day for the Fanzone event. A great opportunity to meet the very wrestlers we'd see in action later that night.

Petey Williams seemed very miserable and as if he didn't want to be there at all. He must have been extremely tired from the day's workout. Because there's no way you look like him without working out loads.

Sonjay Dutt seemed just as miserable. Though it was probably because the queue for evil Earl Hebner was longer than his. I'm not sure why though. He came across as a weird, creepy uncle. In fact, it looks as if I'm sat on his knee in the picture I had taken of me with him.

Our seats from the fifth row were superb. The only downside was that I was squashed over onto Rossa's lap by the fat, Canadian mark sat next to me.

The atmosphere last night was incredible. I'm used to crowds being up for it who usually go nuts at the sound of the bell, calm down a bit, then pop for spots. But last night, there was noise from start to finish. It was absolutely electric. Because I'd gone with three other stand-up comedians, it was only natural that the highlights of the evening would be us dicking around.

Some mark sat near me started his own "You screwed Bret" chant at Earl Hebner when he came out. If he was older than 4 or 5 when the Screwjob happened, then whatever, he's just holding a grudge. But this kid was mark to the max. When he relented at chanting "You screwed Bret!" all on his own, I turned to the people I was with and very loudly began my own onanistic chanting.

"SUPER DRAGON!"

I'm so funny it's untrue sometimes.

The best bit may have been during a match between LAX and Petey Williams and Sonjay Dutt. Somebody sitting directly behind me yelled "MIDGET STEINER!".

I don't know who it was, but I'm ever so thankful. They gave me the ball, and I ran with it. "MIDGET STEINER! CLAP CLAP CLAP-CLAP CLAP..." I'm sure half the arena was chanting it at one point. Hernandez was laughing it up and even Sonjay was finding it hard not to laugh at his own tag partner.

For posterity's sake, I'll mention that Kurt Angle didn't wrestle. This isn't at all surprising considering how painfully he hobbled by at the Fanzone event earlier in the day. He came out to cut a promo and introduced Jeff Jarrett to the fans. A nice little surprise considering he's not even been on TV for about a year.

The main event happened shortly after Jeremy "Hollywood" Borash (the guy's a dick, seriously) announced that TNA would be back in the UK in January. HOORAY. The main event was essentially Samoa Joe beating the crap out of Booker T to the delight of the fans. Not a classic, but a definite crowd-pleaser.

If I remember correctly, the faces went over cleanly in almost every match. Exactly what you want if you want to please the fans as much as possible. All in all, TNA definitely have their spot in the UK market and, with the best promotion, could take on WWE here.

UPDATE: In fact, it looks as though TNA are taking on WWE here. The venues for their return tour in January are huge.

Full listings here.

You'll also notice on the latest edition of TNA Today that you can hear Rossa, Brooker, Jim and myself clearly and loudly chanting "WE SOLD OUT!". Click here to watch.

The Wrestling Boot Band

Before I start writing this, it seems that nobody clicks on the links I put in these posts. You really should, you know. Because if you click, you get rewarded with a joke. Anyway.

I returned home from work one day to find a package waiting for me. With my Welsh address untidily scribbled onto the package by a confused American, I knew it could only be one thing...



As I ripped the cellophane off the CD, I couldn't do anything to stop myself from drawing parallels to The Orange One ripping his own shirt off.

When you listen to this album, it's unbelievable to think that it was released in 1995. That's not to say it was decades ahead of it's time. It's clearly influenced by generic music from the 1980s.

The music was written by Jimmy Hart along with The Hulkster.

The lyrics are a thing of beauty.

"I was walking down the beach, looking for some action/Had my radio set on a rap rap station/Saw a girl in trouble, a sticky situation/She wanted me to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation"

Then, in a talking-over-the-solo type move á la Shawn Michaels' "Hands off the merchandise", the Immortal Hulk Hogan utters the immortal line...

"Ooh, I found a new vein in my tricep"

This album, and the liner notes, completely epitomise why Hulk's heel turn was such a huge thing. The non-stop mention of Hulkamaniacs and the fact that Hulk is the most requested human being in the Make-a-wish foundation's history are why Hulk's association with the nWo made them the biggest heat magnets in wrestling for decades (and decades to come I'd imagine).

Maybe poor sales of this album are the reason WCW turned Hulk heel. Maybe Eric Bischoff thought that Hulk had made as much money as possible as a face and that the only way to milk the cash cow further was to turn him heel.

Interestingly, the liner notes give "Special Thanx" to Eric Bischoff and a convicted criminal.

What is ugly to the power of ugly?

An interesting question no?

The answer can probably be answered by clicking here.

Anyone who's ever seen Trey Parker and Matt Stone's early masterpiece, Cannibal the Musical, will most certainly be thinking that a Union Army soldier did it to him in the big one ("YOU LOOKIN' AT MY EYE BOY?!").

Apparently he did it in some PPV that nobody watched. Randy Orton broke his shoulder though, which is good news for fans of anything that isn't a headlock, but not for creative as they have to give a number one contender push to somebody. I mean just who can they give that push to? Who has enough popularity to chase the gold?

In other news (and in a way to get more traffic here from Google), John Cena and Mickie James are apparently a couple. So I'm sure he's finding new ways of making members of the Raw roster STFU.

Drug Abuse

I've just had the most relaxing of bank holiday weekends. However I'm black and blue because of it.

On Saturday, during some improv with ComedySportz in Manchester's Comedy Store, I jumped from the stage and misjudged the placement of my feet. In turn, my shin scraped along the edge of a step. "Oooh that smarts" I thought. Though it wasn't until I went to bed that night that I realised that my shin had actually swollen and that my leg was lumpy. A fine purple, black and blue specimen of a bruise followed and I was off to continue my weekend of relaxing, tidying the house and playing with the cat.

Until yesterday that was, when during a fit of child-like insanity I was running through the house and managed to ignore the fact that door frames are hard. More pain to me and you'd think that would be my lot for one weekend. However it was not to be when I was walking in through the back door and managed to twat my kneecap against the frame (again! The frame!) with enough force to make pictures fall off the wall. The pain was intense. I felt my body going into shock as the colour left my face and I was taken over by an overwhelmingly intense feeling of nausea.

In bed last night, trying to get to sleep, ignoring the pain, it made me think of when I separated my shoulder at the end of 2005. I had recently been dumped by my girlfriend of two years, was alienated from my friends and had a lonely Christmas to look forward to. Lonely that is, apart from the company of lots of very strong prescription painkillers.

Which is a rather nice segue into pro wrestling. Prescription drug abuse has been a problem in professional wrestling since the existence of prescription drugs. Wrestlers on the road taking bumps night after night, miles away from their families must be at very low points in the morale stakes. The security of my depression within the walls of a middle class household seems positively desirable compared to the situation countless wrestlers have, do and will, find themselves in.

This is possibly explaining how easy it is to become entrapped by "personal demons" (as the industry seems to put it), rather than excusing it or even justifying it. I'm put off taking over the counter painkillers even when I have a headache because of my past with painkillers in general. So why do countless wrestlers continue to abuse drugs of all descriptions despite the endless list of deaths from drugs in the industry? In particular, people like DH Smith, who will have seen his own father die young because of years of drug abuse.

Any thoughts as to why drug abuse is so abundant? Put your thoughts as a comment if you're lovely.

Demographics

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that the main readership of this blog is the same as TNA's main demographic of viewers.

I wish it was because I was innovative (6 sided ring? OH MY!) or that I had catchphrases (it's not about weight limits... EURGHH). But it's not. I get hits to this blog the same way TNA gets viewers.

It's been no secret that the main draw of TNA in recent times has been its' women's division. And it's no secret that most people visiting this blog are looking for Candice Michelle's skanky feet. TNA's best rated demographic is men over 50. I would guess that my demographic's the same. So if you do by some miracle happen to be reading this blog and not scanning it for pictures, get your hands out of your pants and go outside.

In other news, Test coherently shared his thoughts on the return of The Ultimate Warrior in a recent MySpace blog post...

I'm not going to br sing this as a wrestling formum nyore but I will say this,,,thrE Ultimate Warirr is coming bacj, I;m 33 and barely remember who he as and thry expect the average san of to dat to remember wg..ho he is. I rememer Warior as the guy who ran to the ring he was so bown up he couln;t do anyhing in the ring,I remembr when Warrior opened up warrior university and at the ime I actually thought it was way to ake it nto pro westling yhat was until I met my idol zzzzzzzzzzzzzzbret hart and I'll never forget as long a I live brets exact words"warrior coulnn't even put youin a headlock, let alone teachyou how to put u in one. Brets gret guy who always hs a funny stry to tell. Now this story Bret told me about the Warrrior I have ahd no chuckle just disgust and wouldn't mind putting an old washedup ma i his place. as the story goes to Bret the hild who was brouht in the back because his dream was to see th Ultimate Warriop buy of course Warrior had no time for him not vrn a pvture ur an autraph and thr kids dream ws to met this piese uf shit and he went out in the crowd without a care in the worl, excuse my language but you are a 1st class piece of shit. and you think you are goinh to draw peole yu couldn't draw flys when Hogan graciouly hande you yh brlt. Younever loved wrestlinh like all of uds you wre there for thr payday and that's wy Hogan had to come baxk and yuwere wearing a singlet wit muscles painted om lke we couldnt tell u werent on the juice, there ar thoseho need juice and those that don't. You neded an iv hooked up to you. Im my mind you wanted toplay the sould00000000000000000000000000000000 you loved likemfootballand so on. You must have realized prtty quick you suckd but you could have gotten beter 000000000000000000000000000it bestwhen he tld me how was Igoimgto learn anything at wrrioys"

Erm... The only thing worth picking out of that is Test saying that there are those who need steroids, and those who don't. Considering he was fired from WWE, and then even TNA for taking steroids (seriously, how much did he have to take to get fired from TNA?!), I'm not quite sure what point he's trying to make other than he's drunk and unemployed.

The Hulkster apparently told his son Nick recently to "man up". Or as Macho Man may have put it, to "Be a Man". OOOHHHH YEAHHHHH.

Speaking of which, Jay Lethal proposed to SoCal Val recently. Not content with stealing gimmicks, TNA seem happy enough to steal entire angles. Not even low profile ones. MASSIVE angles that people won't ever forget. Vince Russo amazes me in the way that Piers Morgan does - both are completely unemployable, yet employed. Bizarre.

To finish, I'd like to tell you that I wore my Hotrod t-shirt to work one day this week. My boss was having a meeting with a bank manager. During which, as head of accounts, I was asked to bring some files and spreadsheets through. After I left, the bank manager apparently asked "Was THAT your accountant? Don't they usually wear suits?".

Ithangyew.

Stop the press: Regal suspended!

GAH.

I sit here astounded. William Regal's been suspended for 60 days because of his second violation of WWE's wellness policy. (Link here)

I'm absolutely shocked. Since when did part-timers need to be jacked up?

Is Regal, whose name has been thrown about in rumours of a full time return to the ring, finding it tough to get back into shape?

Lance Storm puts it absolutely superbly in one of his recent blogs where he tells of how hard he trained just for his one match with Bryan Danielson.

"Being inactive for as long as I had I knew I was going to have to really push myself in order to be able to hang with the work rate standards of ROH."

Jeff Hardy's latest suspension was certainly "RVD-esque" in terms of stupid timing. I might have to say that Regal's suspension today is "Hardy-esque" in its' timing. What an absolute moron.

In other news, Brooke Hogan's apparently losing her sanity and is cracking up.

She's been officially mental according to Hollywood reports since her brother was thrown in the slammer. But the roots lie in the affair that The Hulkster had with one of her close friends, Christiane Plant. Apparently Brooke's really hurt by the affair because of how close she was with her father.

I wasn't really convinced through watching Hogan Knows Best, but the following picture reassured me of their deep bond.



The fact that I used the word "deep" there is disturbing. Even more so when you try to figure out what's in The Orange One's right hand, let alone what he intends to use it for.

Be a Man

OOHHH YEAHHHHHH!

I'm not sure what was going through his head when he said "yes" to it, but Macho Man Randy Savage released a rap album in 2003 called Be a Man.

Savage gets krunk non-stop for 14 tracks of sheer Macho magic.

"Oooh Yeahhhh!"'s a-plenty, I'm not quite sure what this album's for. A debut rap album is always a difficult thing to do. But when the rapper's 51 years old and making their first album, there's significantly less credibility to it than an album from someone who you suspect has the usual story of being raised in the ghetto by pimps with family values and has been to prison 8 times because of drug dealing and drive-bys and all those other non-cliche things rap-folk do.

You would've thought that Savage would've gone down the Kenny Rogers route with a musical career. He would still suck at being Kenny Rogers, but you'd expect that. Him pretending to be Nelly is just weird. Or should that be 'Wurrrd'?

If I had less of a life, I'd count the "Ooh Yeahhh"s for you. But I have neither the patience or ability to count that high. It's as if the man only had one catchphrase or something... oh...

The really baffling thing about it is who came up with the idea? If Savage came up with the idea, then he's obviously an idiot. If somebody else thought "Savage would make a great rapper", then they're also an idiot.

The highlight of the album is the title track - 'Be a Man'. Savage basically calls Hogan out and trash talks The Orange One. Savage mocks Hogan's acting career whilst glorifying his own minor role in Spider-Man.

I love the picture at the other end of that link. He's all beard and steroids. That was in 2002. Who saw that picture and thought "rap sensation"?

IDIOTS. THAT'S WHO.