Paul Bearer making a comeback?

The internet's been rife with speculation this week that Paul Bearer a.k.a. Percy Pringle is making a return to WWE television.

It was all kicked off when Kane made his anticipated heel-turn on Raw on monday night by killing everybody at ringside and repeatedly asking "Is he alive or is he dead?". Everybody on the internet seemed to know immediately that he was obviously asking about his storyline father, Paul Bearer, who was last seen being covered with cement by The Undertaker at 2004's Great American Bash (Click here to watch him die).

But because of the complaints that people made about WWE effectively showing a murder without repurcussions (The Undertaker remained a babyface!), the storyline was changed somewhat and on the following week's Smackdown the announcers had a coverup...

Cole: "We'd like to update you on the condition of Paul Bearer at this time. The Undertaker's once friend and confidant suffered severe internal injuries he also suffered injuries to the lungs, severe injuries to the lungs, and also to the trachea."

Tazz: "It is extremely doubtful that we'll ever see Paul Bearer on Smackdown ever again, due to the horrifiying injuries the man sustained. It's horrible."

So according to every wrestling fan on the internet, the ambiguity of Bearer's status is reflected with Kane's question.

PercyPringle.com, homepage of Paul Bearer, has had a HUGE amount of traffic this week. According to Pringle himself, 80,000 visitors in the four days since Raw aired and a further 1,000 emails asking him if he was coming back. Pringle posted a short blog under the title "Kayfabe is alive... But is Paul Bearer?". The guy's loving the attention. The payoff to this angle needs to be as good as Paul Bearer returning or it wouldn't be worth watching.

The fact that Paul Bearer's real name is Percy Pringle is hilarious. He looks so much like the Pringle guy that you could edit Wikipedia to say that the Pringles guy was based on Bearer and it wouldn't be deleted immediately as vandalism, it would just stay there awaiting a citation. It's also ironic that a guy named after the planet's most consumed potato product got to be more than 500lbs (almost 40st in UK currency) in his time off the road between 2002 and 2004. In fact, his return in 2004 for the angle which led to him dying was actually due to a clause in his contract with WWE that said they'd assist him in getting gastric bypass surgery. Click here to read my source.

Surely, this is the most outrageous example of Vince McMahon's willingness to exploit people for profit - preying on a fat guy's health issues.

So Paul Bearer looks to be coming back. Even if he's not, the interest drummed up by this angle is far higher than WWE have managed recently and could mean that Kane isn't jobbing to anyone for a while.

Either way, this post is littered with keywords on a relevant topic and is bound to get about a million hits from Google. Just to be sure though, Brooke Hogan does not appear nude or indeed clothed in this blog.

Let me know what you think of this Paul Bearer speculation.

One Weirdo Nation

It's official. The Ultimate Warrior is scheduled to return to the ring for a match for the first time in a decade next month. Details can be found here.

Warrior, known to his friends as "WARRIAH!" will fight in Barcelona on the 25th June for NWE. But who will his opponent be for the big return, the money-making-match, the biggest thing to happen to wrestling since that thing Chris Benoit did?

None other than The Cabinet's own Orlando Jordan. Yup, the biggest match of the year is going to be The Ultimate Warrior versus The Ultimate supporting-role.

The make-up-wearing, bigoted, right-wing Warrior keeps a blog called 'Warrior's Machete'. In which he spouts his own brand of stupidity and moral wrongness. On a post of his made last year (this one here), I have to stop reading before the end of the first paragraph:

It has to be a difficult choice: Sluts or a Saint? Use print space and TV time to cover the sick behavior of psycho, suicidal, pop-culture sluts or revere this country’s Founding Saint’s birthday? Nah, scratch that — it wasn’t a difficult choice. No need to lie to ourselves, here. This country’s Media has for a long time easily whored itself out to irreverence, indecency...

I'm not sure about you, but when somebody who's a household name all over the world for being a professional wrestler criticizes the media for it's bias towards irreverence and indecency, the phrase "Biting the hand that feeds" comes to mind.

Seeing Hulk Hogan in the ring these days causes me to shudder. It's not the same as it used to be. However The Hulkster has made sporadic appearances in the ring forever, albeit less frequently as time goes by. The thought of Warrior stepping back into the ring after a 10 year hiatus, during which he's definitely not been training is scary. He wasn't the safest of performers back in his prime. The people who compile the Botchmania videos on Youtube must be in puddles of their own making in anticipation of Warrior's return.

For the sake of getting more hits to this blog through Google, I'll mention that Torrie Wilson was released from her WWE contract this week. I'll mention that she's also been nude on at least one occasion. That ought to do it.