For those of you have(n't) been wondering...

So We Were Told - Wrestling Radio is not dead. My co-host went out of town to Alabama, where there is no Internet or telephones. So we had to take a brief hiatus. We'll be recording the next episode tomorrow afternoon and it will be available at the official site shortly after. I hope we didn't stall out our no momentum!

Chucked

I am buying Megan's Nintendo Wii entertainment gaming console from her. I had toyed with the idea of purchasing a Roku, which retail for $59.99 and are really remarkable little streaming media devices. Megan mentioned that she was thinking of trading her Wii to Gamestop. We talked price, settled on $75 bucks and I figured that for just a few dollars more than I was planning to play, I was not only getting a Netflix streamer but also a full fledged console and an opportunity catch up on all of the big first party Nintendo releases of the past five years. A very easy decision to make.

I've yet to pay her, but Megan showed a lot of confidence in me by bringing me the console all the same. I now have it set up in my bedroom and actually, as I type this, I'm watching an episode of one-season sitcom Out of Practice. It's pleasant and features The Fonz in a supporting role. He's incredibly short.

Anyway, I was out at Gamestop this afternoon and for pretty much the first time ever, in the Wii section. This was quite an experience. First off, every game is about ten dollars cheaper than comparable 360 and PS3 titles. Also, it had been so long since I actually got to consider buying a game starring Mario that I had forgotten how much I love him. I added a lot of Mario games to my mental checklist but actually went with No More Heroes for $12.99. I remembered reading and hearing just loads of good things about this game several years back and now I finally had the opportunity to play it for myself. I got it home, popped in the disc... ejected the disc and turned it around the correct way, popped it in again, and prepared myself for a swashbuckling good time.

CONNECT NUNCHUK CONTROLLER.

Yes. Something that I had overlooked/forgotten existed when setting up my little white box, is that many games require the Nunchuk gimmick.



I, in fact, do not have one. Round one to you, Wii.

Sporcle Returns to the Blog! Get Ready, Amanda!

http://www.sporcle.com/games/RoaringElbow/100WWEchamps

I used to post Sporcle quizzes fairly often, and just had to bring it back for the bragging purposes. 103 of 103! HELLS TO THE YEAH!

The Cult of Madness (If you can get through this, God bless you)

When I was six years old, I hated Randy Savage.

I didn't know what wrestling was until that year, and most of what I knew was from the covers of VHS boxes labeled Hulkamania at my local grocery store down in lovely Thurston, Ohio. I didn't know about the Wrestlemania IV championship tournament that Randy had won, or the Mega Powers tag team, or even how much he adored the lovely Miss Elizabeth. I knew that there was this guy, who had crazy eyes and a gravelly voice, who did not like my hero, Hulk Hogan. UNACCEPTABLE.



Looking back, at that age, I'm not sure if I would have been comfortable with Randy Savage even if he had been a babyface at the time. Hulk Hogan was/is a cartoon character, but he can speak like a human being when he wants to, and can choose to not have his eyes bugged out of his skull like he's on Stupid Human Tricks.

Add to that, after the Mega Powers exploded and the Hulkster vanquished the Macho Man at Wrestlemania V, he started wearing a crown and hooked up with the scariest rebound girl imaginable in Sensational Queen Sherri. A power couple to be sure, but one that I was very wary of.



We never had the option of cable living out in the country, so when my family moved to Columbus in the summer of 1990, my wrestling fandom was really able to flourish. No longer forced to wait for and rely on videotapes for my fix, I was now tuning into the USA Network each and every week to watch WWF Superstars of Wrestling. And every now and then, when I could sneak past my bedtime, Monday night's flagship, Primetime Wrestling. Most of my VHS rentals had been very Hogan-centric, so while I saw other wrestlers and characters, they were generally on the periphery. And if they were featured, it meant they were Hogan opponents who were quickly dispatched of. My exposure to Randy Savage had largely fallen into that latter category.

So here I was, seeing all of these new wrestlers I'd never seen before, realizing that I'd really been missing out. I still loved the Hulkster, but there was so much more. The Hart Foundation, The Rockers, The Texas Tornado, The Ultimate Warrior, Jake "the Snake" Roberts, pretty much anybody who was a good guy. I began to love them all, began buying their action figures, and Wrestling Buddies, and begging my parents to let me watch them on these mysterious "pay per view" events that Gene Okerlund was always telling me about.


I still have this figure. The good guys had to have somebody to vanquish, after all.


So I still hated Randy Savage. I may have been subconsciously entertained by him, because I do remember being much more interested in his feud with The Ultimate Warrior than I was with Hulk Hogan's feud against Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter at Wrestlemania VII. I recall being desperate to learn the results of the show the next day at school (lol pre-web) and being blatantly LIED TO. I spent almost a week believing that somebody named Ric Flair had shown up and beat Hulk Hogan for the WWF title after he had wrested it from Slaughter. So while this person was a liar, they did in fact predict both Ric Flair's coming to the WWF later on in the year, and the Wrestlemania IX finish with Yokozuna in the Ric Flair role. Regardless, the career match between Warrior and Savage was what I cared about most, and this person had been honest about that one. I don't remember my initial reaction to hearing that Randy Savage was forced to retire, but it was probably, "GOOD. I HATE HIM." What I didn't hear about, and wouldn't see for a few weeks on TV (WWF notoriously gave almost nothing away after pay per views until they had drained the well on pay per view replay buys) was that after Savage lost, his Queen attacked him brutally with shoes and he was rescued by his former paramour, Miss Elizabeth.



This was, by far, the most exciting thing that had ever happened in wrestling as far as I was concerned. I immediately loved Randy Savage, and was heartbroken that he would NEVER WRESTLE AGAIN. He took his place as a talking head on the aforementioned Primetime Wrestling and was a tremendous foil for Bobby Heenan, but he never stopped seeming like a wrestler. So I suppose in retrospect, it was not at all surprising when he came back from retirement after his wedding reception was CRASHED by Jake Roberts and The Undertaker, the scariest man ever on earth. I don't want to do play by play on the man's career, but the point is, I was thrilled to finally see him in action as a good guy and someone I felt comfortable rooting for.

Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage left the WWF in 1993 and 1994 respectively, and so did I. I don't think it ever occurred to me to follow them to WCW and watch their exploits there. I wasn't comfortable with the idea of WCW. It seemed subversive somehow. Like any wrestling that happened outside of the WWF was illegitimate. So I just stopped watching wrestling after Wrestlemania X, and didn't really give it any thought until August of 1997, when my cousin Lee asked if he and his roommate, Franz, could watch Monday Night RAW at my house. This moment is pretty much responsible for my personality as it is today. Thanks, Lee!

Anyway, the Monday Night Wars thing between WWF and WCW was going on, so we would flip to WCW Monday Nitro on the commercial breaks of RAW. And lo and behold, all of these guys I remembered from a few years ago were now over THERE. Hulk Hogan, Mr. Perfect, Ric Flair, Razor Ramon, Roddy Piper, and yes, Randy "Macho Man" Savage. I don't know exactly what it was that happened at this point, but I was riveted by him. I was doing all of my wrestling watching with a couple of sarcastic malcontents in their early 20s, so the heel/face divide no longer existed. It was okay to cheer for bad guys and I LOVED Randy Savage. It was around this time that I began really seriously studying the history of wrestling and ordering videotapes. All Japan Pro Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and yes, a lot of older World Wrestling Federation content. I was inundated with and intoxicated by pro wrestling, and the more I reached back to the past, the more I fell in love with Randy Savage.

I've not seen much of Savage pre-WWF, but apparently he was hell on wheels and I'm really going to work on seeing more of that period soon. But if you watch Randy Savage, especially from about 1985-1991, and you also watch the matches that surround his matches, you really start to see how special he was.This guy was literally years ahead of his time in terms of high flying and the pacing of his matches. He never stopped moving, and it stands out in such stark contrast from the rest of the largely lumbering WWF style of the era. Not to mention his promo work, which I was pretty much aware of just from seeing his stuff in 1997 and also remembering from when I was younger. It's still worth noting, because you cant watch a bunch of Randy Savage promos from 1986 and then a bunch of CM Punk promos from 2011 and not feel like you're getting a greatly inferior product today. Nothing against the guy, he's just in a bad environment for fostering creativity, and even if he wasn't, he's no Randy Savage.

I don't really know what I wanted this entry to be when I started it. It's feeling very fractured, and I think that's because I'm still processing Randy's death. He was absolutely my favorite wrestler in the world for a while there in 1997 and 1998, well past his prime but still captivating to watch. He's gone and it really sucks. I knew that he was a famous guy, and one of the bigger stars ever in wrestling, but until the news stories started trickling in, I didn't realize just how big a deal he was. The place I noticed it the most was actually from the Twitter feeds of UFC fighters, many mourning his passing. You had a few, like Tito Ortiz and Quinton Jackson, who are both essentially pro wrestling characters anyway, that you would expect to be saddened by his passing. But then BJ Penn of all people completely blew my mind when he wrote that Savage was his inspiration to become a fighter.

As of this writing, a story on his death, by Bill Simmons, is the front page featured article on ESPN.com. Four days after his death. He was a cultural icon, and I think that most of us had kind of forgotten about him until he was gone.

I think I'm going to pop in the Savage DVD set that WWE released a couple of years ago later tonight and enjoy the master at work.



I'll be back, probably tomorrow afternoon, with a recap of the Science Fiction Marathon. There are definitely some choice films in that mix that I want to write about.

Until then, keep living life on the edge of a lightning bolt! DIG IT!

Rapture Averted

Thanks to our inside man.



Dig it, brother.

More to come, both on the marathon and on my love of Randy "Macho Man" Savage.

One Step Beyond

I can't wrap my head around the Randy Savage thing yet. I tried to write about it yesterday afternoon and no words came out. There WILL be talk of this, just not today.

In fact, I probably won't get to do much reflecting at all until Sunday, as I'm heading out in less than half an hour with Jason (Sharp, not Dull, er, Spencer), for the 28th Annual Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon! I used to say that aside from e-fedding, the Marathon was the geekiest thing I did. I don't e-fed anymore, so... WE HAVE A WINNER!



Maybe Buckaroo Banzai will win me over on the glorious big screen, Lucas. I hope so.

I'm also going to try to stop thinking about how Megan has L.A. Noire and it's apparently amazing. Don't need to spend sixty bucks on a game right now, or ever, really. But SO TEMPTED.

What else? Jenny got her CPA certification notice! Very big news for her as she's worked her tail off over the past nine months for it.

Rock on the Range is happening in my backyard this weekend, which I wasn't aware of until they started doing sound checks yesterday. Never a better time to be across town in Bexley!

Okay, now I really have to run. I wish I could bow out of this more gracefully, but I'm just crunched for time. OH! Here's a cartoon!

House Business!

As you've probably noticed if you're reading this, there are a couple of new features here on the ol' Blog That Wouldn't Die.... For one, I added a gadget to let you follow me via e-mail. Hopefully people will use this because I know that a lot of former readers/commenters have gotten out of the habit of checking this space on a regular basis. I'm hoping that it sparks comments, which are truly the ego boosts that fuel the fire of this here blog.

Also new is a feature called "Popular Posts". I think it's based on page views, but regardless, a neat window to the past seven years of blogging.

I had thought about going with a completely different template and color scheme but I actually still quite like the look of things.

I also found out that I've had more page views from iOS than Linux. Ha! Suck it, Linux!

What do you think?

Alienating my readership, such as it is

I watched Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's DDT4 2011 tonight. IT WAS AWESOME. Steen and Tozawa 4-EVA. They totes rocked this tournament. They have to be the greatest Canadian and Japanese combination of all time. I can't even think of any others. Wait. Maybe I can. Wolverine and Mariko Yoshida. Lance Storm and Yuji Yasuraoka? Whatever. Dudes were robbed by the hated Young Bucks/Generation Me. My absolute favorite act in pro wrestling right now has to be The Kings of Wrestling, though. If WWE had a clue about anything here in May of 2011, Hero and Castagnoli would be on RAW with a major push. That disappointment aside, I highly recommend this show! Briscoes are also in it! THE BRISCOES!

On a sadder note, my awesome phone is broken. I loved it so much. Not as much as I loved my Dreamcast, but probably more than Zack loved Tori the biker chick. So I had to switch service to my first cell phone. The one without a keyboard. I actually really liked this phone when I had it initially. It took crappy pictures and I had a bunch of ringtones on it, from Shaq to Europe. But after nearly seventeen months of the awesome Samsung Intensity, it's been hard going back. No wonder I had texting turned off for years. It's so difficult! My upgrade isn't due until September, and I don't know if I can handle this for another four months. I'm going to walk into my nearest Verizon store on Thursday before work and see if there's anything that can be done. Long story short, if you text me and I either don't reply or do so tersely, don't take it personally. I'm just at war with 2006 Andy.

The Six Pack

I tried to blog yesterday. I was going to blog you SO HARD. But Blogger was down, in "read only" mode. So I'm here now, a day late and a dollar short, blogging you with far less gusto.

I didn't know that Columbus had become a sweltering jungle when I left my house yesterday. I headed off to work in a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. Should have turned back the second I walked out the door, lateness be damned. I think I sweat my body weight while sitting at work. Just a miserable shift, praying for a new Ice Age. That's actually when I discovered the Blogger outage. I had all kind of piping hot vitriol to spew and no forum. I even briefly considered venting my spleen on Google Buzz (lol) but quickly came to my senses. When I finally got out of there, I stopped by Habib's for a sixer of Bud Light and a bag of chips. The next part of my plan would require as much satly, drunken distraction as humanly possible.

You see, I'd resolved to watch TNA Impact on Spike TV. Somehow, on the newest episode of So We Were Told - Wrestling Radio I had gotten it into my head that I was going to give TNA a shot this week. I'm still not 100% certain as to why I came to this conclusion, but if I had to venture a guess, it would be because TNA has a habit of building to big shows every now and then. And not just big shows. GAME CHANGING SHOWS. It's not quite as hyperbolic as when Tony Schiavone used to declare every Nitro main event to be "the biggest main event in the history of wrestling!" but what can be? It's just that sometimes, the President of TNA, a lovely young woman named Dixie Carter (not that Dixie Carter, RIP) goes on Twitter and talks up an upcoming show as being something that will change TNA forever. Maybe I have an unresolved crush on Mrs. Carter. Maybe hope springs eternal. Maybe a third thing. I don't know, but it seems like I always get sucked into watching that week's Impact, and then despising myself afterwards. It's like a walk of shame from my TV room to my bedroom where I pray for the company's swift demise.

I've done this dance many times. And as I mentioned earlier, with chips and beer at the ready, I was prepared.

One hour and thirty-five minutes later (thanks a million, DVR!) and I had only killed two beers. If ever there is a barometer for how much a particular television program sucks, it's dead soldiers with their caps strewn all about the room. Two is pretty much right around where you'd expect for a ninety minute block of viewing, really. And for an episode of Impact, shockingly low. What had happened? Was the show... good?

LOL, no. It wasn't.

But it wasn't bad either. Impact managed to slide into that area of "good enough for government work" that often seems far too lofty a goal for them to reach or even aspire to. Will I watch again next week? Will I bother to illegally stream their pay per view on Sunday? So many questions. But the fact that I'm even asking them can only be taken as a positive for TNA as a whole.

In other news...

I drank the rest of my six pack watching no less than eight sitcoms. Hear, hear, Beer, beer.

Why? WHY NOT!?

Outage? More like OUTRAGE

Hi! As many of you are probably well aware, the Playstation Network has been pwn3d by 1337 haxorz. And then as Sony fumbled around trying to stop screwing the pooch, their website got hacked! Upshot? I haven't been able to watch Hulu Plus via the convenience of television for about two weeks! Nor download any demos, peruse the Playstation Store, play anything online, etc. The most recent news I'm reading is indicating that we may not have full service restored until the last of May. There is a limit to my sympathy for an entertainment giant whose products I support. Unless the Playstation 4 has a time machine packed in, I'm going elsewhere next generation.

EDIT: Also, on the newest episode (12) of So We Were Told, after a little current WWE talk, I take over the show and talk for about 90 minutes about the history of wrestling video games. If that sounds like something you'd like to hear, check it out!