Welcome to the once and a while Thursday edition of the Phat Daily Column. Tonight, we'll see if any of the unanswered questions from RAW will get solved, and then some, for the upcoming King of the Ring. I hope at least.
I don't know about you, but I think the NBA is as fake as pro-wrestling, if not worse. Watching the Lakers versus the Sixers last night made me totally agree with what the Bucks were implying. The NBA was calling fouls on the Lakers as they were catching up to the Sixers and even when they were ahead to keep the game close. Commissioner Stern knows that the Lakers could just walk over the Sixers, as does the rest of the fanbase that actually knows or watches basketball. Stern is booking the NBA, whether anyone likes it or not, or believes it or not.
I think all pro sports have a little involvement like that. I'm sure the referee unions have tough contracts to NEVER tell anybody what actually goes on in the games. At least in professional wrestling, everyone and their mother knows it's fake, while the NBA claims to be real. Well, the players think it's for real, but the commissioners know better.
The real question is this: if a professional sport admitted to being fake, would it still have viewers? Vince McMahon tells the media that what he does is fake, but he still has a large fanbase. If Stern came out and told everyone that he tells the referees to control the game, would people still watch?
I probably just opened up a whole can of worms for the opening intro, but I've done worse. On to the PDC.
-Uh oh. Grandmaster Crackhead..... oops! I mean Grandmaster Sex-ay, Brian Christopher Lawler or Jerry's Kid, will be making a statement on the King's website sometime next week. Now that's something you don't want to miss. However, I have the belief that the WWF and the King may come to an agreement in the future, since the WWF could be in panic mode from lower ratings and so that they don't burn Paul Heyman out doing double duty as a creative assistant and an announcer. So maybe, Brian Christopher could just fess up and apologize for what he did. Even Jerry Lawler could understand why he was fired, since Cocaine and other mind altering drugs were found on him. If I had a son getting busted for drugs and then getting fired from his job for it, I'd say "tough shit" to him. But who knows if Lawler is upset at the WWF for firing him, as many other WWF wrestlers were given many chances to recover from their drug problems.
If that's the case, the Brian Christopher commentary could get ugly. The WWF should keep an eye on their current roster of wrestlers for any drug problems whatsoever, or do more tests. Say they let another wrestler use drugs without having him fired, the Lawlers could strike with a tough lawsuit. A big problem with Christopher's case, however, was that he was busted by border patrol. At least with many other wrestlers, like the Road Dogg to name a few, they were never arrested for their abuse. I'm wondering if Brian Lawler will tattle on any of the current wrestlers for drug use? If so, it's going to get really ugly.
-I'm really glad to see Diamond Dallas Page talking to the WWF now about joining them for the WCW project. If you'll recall a while back, DDP met the Rock backstage at a certain event, and I believe in a DDP commentary, he said he'd like to someday wrestle him, if I'm not mistaken. Just from reading his book, which is truly excellent by the way, and from just observing him from WCW shows, I'd say that DDP still has the competitive drive to make one last run in professional wrestling. He'd make a great crossover star for the WWF to use on their shows, and he could wrestle some excellent matches with the top WWF stars and some of the former, recent WCW stars as well. DDP fought some tough matches against both Raven and Chris Benoit, and both of them together for a 3 way dance, so that should speak for itself in terms of how good DDP truly is.
-A question always comes up when Jim Ross does his Ross Report about hyping the Ohio Valley Wrestling guys: If the OVW guys are soooo good, then why aren't they debuting on WWF television? Well, I think it's just a matter of the WWF's farm system approach to professional wrestling. Like any pro club, the WWF has stockpiled all of the best talent they could find. However, the problem is that they have a bunch of big money wrestlers on the roster now, with many WCW wrestlers on top of that. I think the current WWF roster is pretty loaded, despite the WWF already exhausting almost all possible matches due to two 2-hour shows per week, which burns out the possible matches. Just from a general observation of the reports we get from OVW, the federation seems to be pretty top notch right now.
I think it's just very safe to say that the future of the WWF looks pretty bright right now. Especially for the fact that the WWF faces no real competition. A great chunk of the independent talent is under WWF contract, which is going to make for a very talented WWF future. It's just a waiting game for many of the wrestlers, however, like many of the baseball players in minor leagues have to wait for years before they make it big in the Major Leagues.
What the hell is this today? I keep making references to pro sports for some reason or another. Besides being hooked on wrestling, I'm a pretty big sports nut, especially with NFL football and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Lately, I've been hooked on baseball, thanks to Anglefan's Fantasy Baseball League. Fantasy Leagues always make the sport that much addicting. Speaking of Fantasy Leagues, some of you have asked me to join your wrestling leagues. I don't know, it just seems rather strange to have a team of wrestlers gaining a certain amount of points for winning or losing a match on RAW, Smackdown, or a Pay Per View, even if they were screwed in the match. Maybe if Yahoo! made a Fantasy League for pro wrestling, then maybe I'd join, since they are the best in terms of stat keeping and loading times. The Wrestling Fantasy leagues I've seen or have been offered to join have been totally ridiculous on page loading.
Smackdown Hype: I'll tell you what, from reading the Smackdown spoilers, which I just did, there are some interesting developments for tonight's show. I see where they are taking a certain big man's career, creating at least a new feud for the future. It's who Kane could be facing, if you've read the spoilers already. Just from looking at the show, it seems like the WWF turned the notch up a little bit after sort of a pale or weaker RAW this past Monday. There is one title match I'm really looking foward to, which I'll discuss in tomorrow's column.
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@That's all for today Titoholics, or anyone just reading for the heck of it. I'll be back tomorrow with a Smackdown review and whatever else comes to mind. See you tomorrow!
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