Posts Tagged ‘Vince McMahon’

James Harrison is many things.  Loudmouth, All-Pro, Egomaniac, Super Bowl Hero, Steeler.  The one thing that Harrison should not be called is a cheap shot artist.  Shame on the NFL for making Harrison the reason for hiked up fines and suspensions for supposed “cheap shots”. 

The NFL is messing up here.  I have heard all of the arguments in the past six days.  The athletes are so much better these days (so is the equipment).  If an NFL player is so much faster than 40 years ago when a helmet looked like a deflated ball, then it would be more difficult to deliver a cheap shot intentionally.  Granted, there have been blatent cheap shots over the years, but how far is the league going to go to protect players and take the barbaric rawness that fans have come to love?

In fairness to Harrison, if he were trying to permanently injure Josh Cribbs, he must be faster than he showed returning a fumble in a Super Bowl a couple of years ago.  Cribbs is hard to just tackle.  How many times have you seen the Browns best weapon juke and make a defender dive and look stupid.  For Harrison to be able to pinpoint Cribbs’ earhole, and deliver a perfect shot with malice is too hard to do.  Who makes the decision on what is malicious and what is clean? 

I’m upset with the new mindset.  I joked a few years back about how the quarterbacks of the NFL would soon be wearing white pinneys and flags.  If you accidentally hit one of them, you will be ejected from the NFL and forced to play arena football in Canada.  Ah, if only Vince McMahon would reactivate the XFL and encourage good hitting… 

George “The Animal” Steele was recently at a Mahoning Valley Scrappers game.  There was a laser hair removal promotion on the same night in which Steele picked the fan with the hairiest back to receive a free treatment.  For years, Steele was the ultimate WWF (WWE) heel.  He struck fear into some fans and amused others with his antics.  Eating corner turnbuckles, flashing his green tongue, losing focus during matches, and being the uncontrollable x-factor with the white-taped foreign object,  made Steele so much fun to watch.  I was lucky enough to have a few minutes with The Animal.

Paneech:  I want to get your views on today’s professional wrestling as compared to 40 years ago.  What difference have you noticed and do you still watch?

Steele:  It has changed drastically and is a totally different business now.  I don’t watch wrestling anymore.  I got my faith in 2002, I was very, very sick and was given only six months to live.  When I made it through that, Vince [McMahon] wanted me to sign a Legends contract, but I chose not to sign as a tribute to my new-found faith.  At that time they were using angles involving fornication in a coffin, gay marriage, and all kinds of stuff that didn’t cater to my new lifestyle.  So I chose not to get involved and if I watched, I felt as though I was condoning it.

Paneech:  Do you keep in touch with any other pro wrestlers or have you eliminated all contact?

Steele:  I am on the board of the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.  The web address is PWHF.org  and it is not just an internet site, we have a building that is three stories.  The guys that are in wrestling today will sometime be going into that Hall of Fame.

Paneech:  How did the whole “Animal” persona evolve?

Steele:  I got that name, George Steele, when I was wrestling out of the Pittsburgh promotion.  I was a school teacher making $4300.00 a year.  I started wrestling in the Detroit area as a masked man called, “The Student”.  Bruno [Sammartino] came to Detroit with an entourage and they spotted me.  I took my cap, gown, and mask to Pittsburgh, but they decided that they did not want a masked man, they wanted me.  I knew I couldn’t use my real name, Jim Myers, because of teaching and coaching.  Johnny DeFazio said this is Pittsburgh, the steel city, but I didn’t like Jim Steele, so we went with George.  They wanted me to quit teaching and coaching to wrestle full time, but I loved what I did, so the wrestling stayed a part time venture for me.

Paneech:  For years, you didn’t speak, then Capain Lou Albano takes you to Dr. Rodney Papoofnick’s office to get you some electric treatments that will miraculously have you articulating.

Steele:  How Now Brown Cow.

Paneech:  Exactly, that is what you said.  Then Albano tried to convince the doctor to give you more juice to say more and it was too much and you relapsed. 

Steele:  Before that era, I actually did all of my own interviews.  When I was assigned a manager, I would not talk.  Because I was not there very long due to teaching and coaching, the manager would fill spots talking about me, but that whole thing with How Now Brown Cow was my own adaptation of what Vince originally wanted.  Vince gave me a poem to memorize, it was about a page-and-a-half, and I’m dyslexic, so c’mon give me a break.  When the time came to recite this poem verbatim, I said “screw him” and just said How Now Brown Cow.  I always did everything my own way.  If you watch Vince’s reaction during that segment, he was wondering what I was doing.  If I would have read that long poem, no one would have remembered and it would have been garbage.  I still have people come up to me randomly and say How Now Brown Cow.

Paneech:  You went from a notorious heel for years to this endearing lovestruck being with the whole Macho Man / Miss Elizabeth angle in which you were drawn in to Savage’s valet.  How did that angle work?

Steele:  I didn’t become a face, I became a cartoon character.  I went from being one of the most viscious heels in the industry to a cartoon character.  Me, Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo were involved in a match at Madison Square Garden during my cartoon character era.  We were fighting Big John Studd, Bobby Heenan, and I think Mr. Wonderful [Paul Orndorff] and nobody knew how to get out of the match to end it because nobody wanted to lose.  so I said “I’ll get us out of it”.  I cleared the ring with a steel chair and ended up hitting the ref with the chair and getting disqualified, so nobody lost anything.   

Paneech:  Who was a wrestler you really liked to work with, and conversely who did you not like working with?

Steele:  I really enjoyed my matches with Bruno Sammartino, they were bigtime hardcore.  Later on, I had my feud with Randy Savage, which was very lucrative.  That feud lasted three years and had a long run, he was very jealous.  People would ask me if I was in love with Miss Elizabeth, and I would just laugh and say no, I have been married to my wife for 55 years, and she [Elizabeth]  doesn’t do windows.  I never had anyone I didn’t like to work with until they started throwing people who didn’t belong in the sport into matches with me.  At a television taping, I faced one such opponent and over the span of four minutes, I threw him out of the ring 17 times.  He couldn’t lace his boots and did not belong in a ring, so I got my point across.

Paneech:  Today’s wrestlers sometimes whine about working 320 days a year.  Is this a realistic number?

Steele:  No, absolutely not, they work about 150-200 days a year.  Two days out of the week, they do television shows, one live and one taped.  I was an agent with WWE for ten years after I retired, so i was pretty familiar with the schedule.  I once wrestled 97 straight days.  Many days in a row, I bounced back and forth between the East Coast and the West Coast, just back and forth every day, that was a tough span. 

Paneech:  There was a rock band called Kiss that was huge in the seventies.  The deal with them was that you could not see them without their makeup.  When you were in public, did you stay in character, or were you a free talking person?

Steele:  I was 6’2″ and weighd 290 pounds, pretty imposing.  People would come up to me and I would just look at them (pauses) and they would leave.

Paneech:  Do you resent Vince McMahon for the direction he has taken the sport? 

Steele:  No, I don’t.  Vince did what he had to do.  Verne Gagne’s AWA promotion in Minnesota and Canada was moving Southeast fast.  The NWA was gaining major television exposure on TBS and moving North, everything was moving toward Vince.  He came up with Wrestlemania as a way to prove he was smarter than the rest of these guys and it caught.  I was closer with his father, Vince McMahon Sr., than I was with Vince, although I did watch Vince grow up and aided in his nurturing.  I don’t agree with everything he does, but he is definitely very good with business and marketing, and has succeeded.

Steele came off as very articulate and cordial.  He took pictures with anyone who asked, but the highlight of the night came between the fifth and sixth innings of the Scrappers game.  Steele was on field with Heather Sahli’s hard working promotional team and he clotheslined Scrappy, the oversized mascot.  He then encouraged one of the kids on the field to pin the mascot (and hook the leg), and in typical George Steele fashion, started to walk back to the exit, turned and looked at the laid out mascot and ran back to deliver a patended George Steele kick to the head.  The audience loved it and he really seemed to enjoy himself.  Very classy individual, but obviously, a great performer who had so many people fooled about who he really was all those years.

The cleverly written storylines hardly ever indicate the reality in a wrestler’s life.  However, Jeff Hardy is living a storyline of excess.  The WWE storyline over the past few months saw CM Punk turn heel and emphasize his ‘straight edge’ lifestyle.  Within that storyline, Punk’s favorite target was Hardy.  Hardy bragged on a recent Smackdown telecast that he had been clean for a year. 

If sobriety was indeed the case, maybe he can use it as a defense in court as to why he was convicted on September 11 on charges of trafficking in controlled perscription pills and possession of anabolic steroids.  A search of Hardy’s house found 262 Vicodin prescription pills, 180 Soma prescription pills, 555 milliliters (that’s alot) of anabolic steroids, a residual amount of cocaine, and drug paraphernalia.  Hardy spent a night in jail before posting the $125,000 bond to be released.  He will have an upcoming court date which should net him at least the minimum of three years in prison unless he can somehow justify the junk in his closet.

Drugs and pro wrestling have churned out some serious tragedies over the past ten years.  Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrerro both passed away under the influence of some foreign substance abuse.  The list is numerous and sadly is always linked to steroids, painkillers, or recreational drugs – all of which were in Hardy’s home.

The CM Punk angle seems so surreal in hindsight.  For weeks, Punk has been attacking the character of Hardy as a guy who “just can’t say no”.   Punk even mentioned Hardy on Smackdown the day after the arrest in a negative light.  I guess it gives the storyline an ending to really sell it, but geez, have mercy on the guy.

The original intent of the storyline was for Punk to win back the title to allow Hardy some time to rest his severely aching neck.  Hardy’s contract expired in June, but he agreed to an extension which ran through Summer Slam and one episode of Smackdown beyond the pay-per-view.

As expected, Vince McMahon has refused comment on the matter and has cancelled a Jeff Hardy DVD which was scheduled for Winter release.

Bret Hart is what theatrical professional wrestling is all about in real life.  He has seen triumph and tragedy, has been screwed by the boss, has overcome a life-threatening scare, and he has still preserved a legacy during the boom years of the WWE.  He remains one of the biggest sports icons in Canadian sports history, and earned the right to be called “the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be“.

Hart was born in Calgary, Alberta on July 2, 1957.  Hart was born into wrestling, as his father, the legendary Stu Hart, was very active in the early Canadian promotions.  Hart was one of seven brothers, all who were involved in one way or another with pro wrestling.  Hart grew up with a wrestling training facility right in the basement of his home, commonly called “The Dungeon”.  Stu Hart worked with stars such as Superstar Billy Graham, as young Bret observed and took in what he could.  Hart was an accomplished amateur wrestler winning the 1973 Calgary City Championship. 

At the age of 19, Bret began working for Stampede Wrestling, which was his father’s Canadian promotion in Calgary.  Bret broke in as a referee, but was asked to step in when a wrestler was unable to perform.  Eventually, Bret became a full-time wrestler in the promotion and won the tag-team titles with his brother, Keith Hart, four times.  Hart stayed with Stampede, riding his father’s wave of success, and eventually broke out as one of the top guys and a title-holder within the promotion.  He stayed with Stampede until 1984, when he chose to sign with Vince McMahon’s WWF promotion.

Originally, the WWF wanted Bret Hart to be a cowboy character, but the idea was scrapped.  He ended up teaming with a brother-in-law, The Dynamite Kid, in his first WWF television taping in August of 1984.  In 1985, McMahon used Hart to team with a different brother-in-law, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, forming the legendary Hart Foundation team, managed by who else, but Jimmy Hart (no relation).  The Hart Foundation won the WWF Tag Team Titles twice by beating The British Bulldogs to start their first reign.  The second reign began when The Hart Foundation beat Demolition members Crush and Smash in a two-out-of-three falls epic contest.

Hart focused more on his singles competition when he and Neidhart split in 1991.  Hart won the Intercontinental Championship by getting Mr. Perfect to tap to his ‘Sharpshooter’ at Summer Slam 1991.  He then became involved in a feud with The Mountie after being shocked with a cattle prod.  Hart eventually lost that title to The Mountie.  Roddy Piper beat The Mountie at the Royal Rumble, only to lose the title back to Hart at Wrestlemania VIII.  “The excellence of execution”, as Hart was referred to by WWF Commentator Gorilla Monsoon, fought in the first ever ‘ladder match’ against Shawn Michaels in July of 1992.  Hart won the inaugural ladder match, which ironically would become a Michaels trademark, but it was Hart who originally introduced the concept to the wrestling world.

On October 12, 1992, Hart defeated Ric Flair at Saskatchewan Palace in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in an untelevised match to capture his first ever WWF Championship.  Hart held the title for a few months before losing to Yokozuna (with interference from Mr. Fuji) at Wrestlemania IX.  At the 1993 King of The Ring, the first ever King of The Ring PPV, Hart defeated Razor Ramon, Shawn Michaels and Bam Bam Bigelow.  After the victory, Hart was attacked by Jerry “The King” Lawler, who claimed he was wrestling’s only true king.  Hart and Lawler faced off at 1993 Summer Slam where Hart won the match with his Sharpshooter, but was disqualified for not releasing the hold.

Later in 1993, Hart entered into a feud with his youngest brother, Owen Hart.  The feud started when Bret and Owen teamed with two other Hart brothers to face Shawn Michaels and his knights.  Owen was the only Hart eliminated and blamed Bret for ‘holding back his career’.  At the Royal Rumble (1994), Bret and Owen were teamed up to face the Quebecers for the WWf Tag Team Titles in which Bret suffered a staged knee injury.  Owen attacked Bret saying that he cost him a chance to be a champion.  At Wrestlemania X, Bret lost to Owen, but went on to later beat Yokozuna to reclaim the WWF Championship.

Owen and Bret would again feud.  Jim Neidhart returned and was seemingly saving Bret match after match.  However, it was later unveiled that Neidhart was only keeping the strap around Bret’s waist to aid Owen in winning the championship.  Bret defeated Owen in an epic steel cage match at the 1994 Summer Slam event.  Hart lost the title to Bob Backlund when Owen convinced Hart’s mother Helen, to throw in the towel as Backlund had Hart trapped in his ‘chicken wing’.  Bret recaptured the title by beating Backlund in a submission match at Wrestlemania XI.

At Wrestlemania XII, the historic 60-minute iron man match with Shawn Michaels took place.  The wrestler with the most victories in 60 minutes would be declared the winner.  With nobody having a pinfall, Gorilla Monsoon, the acting president of the WWF, declared the match will continue in sudden death.  Michaels won with a super kick.

Bret took an eight month break and weighed his options to re-sign with the WWF or to latch on to fast-rising rival promotion WCW.  He eventually decided to sign with WWF.  He would feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin for almost a year.  As Austin went from heel to face, and Hart went from face to heel, the title was passed around.  Hart would berate American fans and reunited with Owen, Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith forming a heel Hart Foundation stable which feuded with The Nation of Domination for a few months.  Hart caught plenty of legit heat when he referred to Michaels and Triple H as ‘homos’.

The infamous “Montreal Screw Job” took place with Bret thinking he would beat Shawn Michaels and retire the title the next night on Raw.  McMahon, who signed Hart to a 20-year contract just one year earlier, asked Hart to renegotiate with WCW because the WWF could not afford to honor the big dollar contract Hart had signed.  Michaels put Hart in a Sharpshooter and Earl Hebner, the ref, immediately called for the bell, saying that Hart submitted.  Hebner later revealed that McMahon instructed him to handle the match that way.  Hart went nuts as he spit in McMahon’s face, destroyed television equipment, and punched McMahon backstage.  Michaels, when confronted, told Bret he knew nothing about it, but later revealed that he knew a whole day before what was going to happen that night in Montreal.

Hart went to WCW in 1997.  He strated out a hot commodity there, but would fade into mediocrity.  In my opinion, Hart was never promoted the way he should have been with the exception of his WCW arrival.  There were just too many big names with bigger egos in WCW, the eventual demise of that promotion.

In 1999, Owen Hart tragically died when he fell practicing a descent to the ring via cables and harnesses.  Bret took some time off from wrestling to be with his family during the tough and tragic time.  He held a few championships while in WCW, but eventually tired of the travel and wear of his body.  Hart retired from pro wrestling in 2000.

Hart was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006.  He thanked everyone, even McMahon, but later said he was uncomfortable in the company of his former employer.

Hart suffered a stroke in 2002 when he hit a pothole while riding his bike and landed on his head.  He has since recovered and only suffers from occasional emotional trauma, common in stroke victims.  He is currently inactive with wrestling and says his life is ‘in a good place’.

Professional Wrestling is fixed.  95% of the people that go see the stuff live have accepted that fact.  So if it has predetermined outcomes, why do people cheer and boo for the participants?  A “Bad Guy” aka a heel, and a “Good Guy” aka a babyface act very differently to get crowd reaction.

The Good Guy

The good guys are usually wholesome looking athletes who speak well and smile too much.  The prototype “good guy” is smart enough when using a microphone, to include the fans as some sort of special unit that is paramount to their success.  They either downplay a bad guy or credit the fans for support to get a response.

Sgt. Slaughter (above) used the patriotic angle to ride the “good guy” wave for years.  By carrying an American flag into the ring while your Iranian opponent waits for you, a cheer or two should be heard.  The chants of “USA, USA, USA”, usually start a few times during the match to support the face.

Hulk Hogan used his great physique and some line about taking your vitamins and saying your prayers to seem wholesome.  His allegiance of fans were even called “Hulkamaniacs“.  This was really the first time that merchandising and storylines became more important than the action to take place in the ring.  Hogan was the master at working a crowd during a match.  After the match, he would crank his wrist clockwise a few times and put it up to his ear for more approval.

Today’s wrestlers are different “good guys”.  The storylines, not the personalities, more dictate who should be cheered and who should be booed.  As Randy Orton was climbing the rungs on his last championship run, he gave a woman the RKO and kicked Vince McMahon seemingly unconscious.  This would thrust Triple H into instant hero status.

The Bad Guy

Wrestlers are categorized as bad guys for several reasons.  Anti-patriotic usually is the easiest angle to sell.  The Iron Shiek was never a good guy for a reason.  His accent was not an act, he was actually an Iranian amateur wrestler.  What put Shiek over the top was his ability to criticize America and say that his country was #1.

A good heel knows how to piss the audience off.  Whether it be by cheating to win, insulting audience members every week, or just acting real dark, bad guys have the harder challenge in my opinion. 

A good heel was someone like George “The Animal” Steele.  Steele’s character was dark and mysterious.  No one could seem to control or communicate with him.  He always had a foreign object in his trunks and was a master at acting challenged.  The green tongue, the abundant body hair, and the look in his eyes elicited fear from some.  Steele would later magically learn a few words from the teaching of Dr. Papoofnick and fall in love with Miss Elizabeth, but for most of his career, he was Uber villain.

In today’s wrestling, the heel is someone who is cowardly, has allies, and can just talk in a different tongue.  Chris Jericho does a good job, blaming the hypocrite fans for his recent attitude problems.  Freddie Blassie also used to do well with his “pencil-knecked geeks” references to the audience.

Baseball is trying to clean up its act.  Unfortunately, most of it’s biggest stars over the past ten years are somehow linked to steroids and HGH.  As baseball continues to try to weed out the artificial enhancements, the point is raised that there are plenty of other sports where steroid use is obviously rampant.  When will the other sports be forced to take the same stance as Major League Baseball?

Tony Mandarich can be called the Jose Canseco of the NFL.  He has not outted guys the way that Canseco has, but he has been quoted as saying that steroid abuse is very popular in the NFL.  Is John McCain a baseball purist?  He spent almost a year scolding MLB’s testing policies but said very little about football players.  Let’s face facts here.  Steroids are all about adding bulk and muscle.  NFL lineman are the bulkiest athletes in sports, yet you are not hearing about too many of them using steroids.  Football has adopted the slogan “bigger faster, stronger“, in its description of a complete player.  In a league where bulk is everything, we all know they are using.

Boxing may be the most corrupt of all sports.  For years, talk of fixed outcomes and political agendas have scarred the sweet science.  Recently, the names of “Sugar” Shane Moseley and Bernard Hopkins have come up in steroid discussions.  They are both in the “old man” bracket, but have come off of recent performances where they looked like they were 20 years old.  I wouldn’t put it past boxing to hide the drug testing results of any of its participants to keep the popularity wave on an increase.  The heavier the fighter, the more likely he is on something. 

There has also been plenty of chatter lately about the use of steroids in golf.  Maybe that is why many of us common folk can’t hit our drives 300.  Granted, I am not dropping any names in this category and the reason I chose the Tiger Woods picture is simply because of the pose.  Golf, questioned to even be a true sport by many for years can quite possibly be the next big list of names we see dropped when the muscle police get done with baseball.

Call Dana White a genius, I will continue to call him a weasel.  MMA may have the highest percentage of users.  Many MMA fighters have more muscular definition than bodybuilders and it isn’t because they can jump rope for an hour straight or learn how to pass a guard in an octagon.  I look for MMA to head down the same path as professional wrestling soon.  Not in the sense that the match outcomes will be predetermined, but rather it’s stars start dying at young ages due to all of the substances used in training.  The UFC is not a legal sport in many states.  The states that do permit MMA would be wise to start drug testing as a mandatory requirement.

Bodybuilding and pro wrestling do not need to be mentioned, I would be stating the obvious.  Batista of the WWE is way too big, too muscular and has to be on something.  He is only one example.  Vince McMahon is a weasel, moreso than Dana White, but is awfully bulky for a man at his age. 

Bottom line, any athlete who competes and brings home a check needs to be tested by an outside company before and after competing.  If this were ever going to happen, America’s new #1 sport will become archery.

 John Cena is the face of WWE Wrestling right now.  He has been put in that position because of the excitement he generates, both positive and negative.  You either love him or hate him.  I have never seen crowd reactions like his over such a long period of time.  75% cheer him, 25% boo.  It has been this way with him for a very long time.  I don’t think Cena will be around for more than a couple more years.  He is going to go in a different direction, probably acting, much like The Rock did almost ten years ago.

John Cena was born April 23, 1977 in West Newbury, Massachusetts.  He is the second oldest of five boys.  He went to college at Division III Springfield College where he earned All-American status as a center.  Pay attention, Cena wore #54 when he played football, and he wears that number in WWE alot.  He graduated with a degree in exercise physiology from Springfield in 1998.  He made money driving limousines and competed as a bodybuilder before hitting the mat.

Cena’s training took place at Ultimate Pro Wrestling, where he was used as a robot-type character named The Prototype.  While at UPW, Cena held the championship for a little over a month.  WWE signed Cena to a developmental deal in 2001 and sent him to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) to continue training.  Cena held the OVW championship twice and the tag-team championship once while wrestling at OVW.

Cena first popped up on WWE airwaves in 2002, answering an open challenge from Kurt Angle on June 27.  Cena lost a hard-fought contest, but kicked out of Angle’s Olympic Slam before losing.  WWE teamed Cena with Billy Kidman as partners in WWE’s tag-team tournament.  After losing in the first week of the Smackdown branded tournament, Cena turned on Billy Kidman blaming him for the loss and tournament elimination.

The rap image came to be on the Halloweem edition of Smackdown when Cena rapped, imitating Vanilla Ice.  From this point, Cena started cutting all his promos via freestyle rapping.  Into 2003, Cena rapped and wrestled his way to then-champion, Brock Lesnar.  It was during this storyline that Cena unveiled his finishing maneuver, the FU.  The FU has since been renamed to the Attitude Adjustment as WWE continues to strive for moral cleanliness.

Cena beat The Big Show at Wrestlemania XX to earn his first title, the US Championship.  Cena lost the belt to Carlito in an angle which Carlito’s bodyguard, Jesus, supposedly stabbed Cena at a nightclub.  This angle was used to free Cena up to film his first movie, The Marine.  When he returned, he won the belt back from Carlito, and debuted the new “spinning” WWE Championship belt.

During a 2007 match with Mr. Kennedy, Cena suffered a legitimate torn pectoral muscle injury which shelved him for seven months, forcing Vince McMahon to strip him of his title ending what was the longest WWE Championship reign in over 19 years.

Cena is currently involved in an angle with The Big Show.  Cena has beaten Show at Judgement Day and Extreme Rules PPV’s but the feud is still moving forward. 

Cena, with his array of throwback jerseys and incredibly glib microphone skills is in the prime of his professional wrestling career.  Overexposure has to be a concern for WWE, as it seems when healthy, Cena is involved in a major storyline.  Injuries have sort of kept Cena away for periods, but he gets airtime, and ratings.  His Boston loyalty and his name are real.  Look for John Cena to be around as long as he wants to be, and look for a heel turn by the end of this year.

Stallone, Hogan, and McMahon.  These three guys were the culture of the eighties.  Rocky movies were flying, Hogan was revolutionizing sports entertainment, and McMahon was and still is a genius.  Here are todays top stories:

• Detroit4lyfe blogs about being in Pittsburgh when the Pens won the cup, and having to attend games where the Pirates beat the Tigers.
• Style Points analyzes the achievements of Phil Jackson and notes that Michael Jackson could have coached Jordan, Shaq, and Kobe to those championships.
• Josh Q. Public takes a look at the Mets great closer, K-Rod.
• Major League Jerk talks about Met losses, and how they really get their moneys worth when they lose.
• No Guts No Glory has video of a fan at the Penguins parade throwing a football an amazing distance through a window.  Dave Wannstedt, sign him to play at Pitt.
• Bootlegger Sports updates the Donte Stallworth DUI plea bargain and what it does to his career.
• My Sports Rumors talks about the possibility of the often-injured Tracy McGrady becoming a Knick.
• The Fifth Corner discusses players pulling themselves out of the NBA Draft using the ACC as an example where 6 players remain in the draft, but 4 have changed their minds.
• Sharapova’s Thigh breaks down a team (Angels) and analyzes their payroll, biggest earners, and worst acquisitions. Very good reading.

Having seen The Big Show last weekend at close distance I still cannot fathom how someone that big can handle the physicality of pro wrestling.  I know it is staged and the outcomes are worked in advance.  What I can’t get a grip on is how these guys travel over 300 days a year and perform night in and night out.  The Big Show is a marvel to me.

Paul Wight was born February 8th, 1972 in Aiken, South Carolina.  Wight was born with acromegaly, a disease of the endocrine system which never limits growth.  Andre The Giant also had this but Wight had corrective surgery on his pituatary gland which halts progress.  By the age of 12,  Wight was 6’2″, weighed 220 and had chest hair.  He attended Wichita State and played basketball there.  In the Wichita State media guide, Wight was listed as 7’1″, with a shoe size of 22.5 E, a ring size of 22.5, and a chest 64 inches in circumference.

Wight got into pro wrestling when he signed with WCW in 1995 simply known as The Giant.  His first-ever angle was interesting as he claimed to be the son of the deceased Andre The Giant and he was coming for Hollywood Hogan who killed his “father”.  The Giant remained in WCW until 1999 when he opted to head to WWE.  Wight debuted as Vince McMahons bodyguard in “The Corporation” stable.  He was performing under the name Paul “The Great” Wight for a few weeks before being renamed The Big Show.

Big Show was sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling by management to work on his fast-rising weight and cardio.  He returned to WWE in 2001 and has been around ever since with brief abscences where weight seems to be an issue. 

Big Show is the only wrestler in history to hold WWE, WCW, and ECW championship belts during his career.

The real name of Paul Wight has seen its share of legal headaches.  In December of 1998, Wight was charged with exposing himself to a hotel clerk but not convicted due to a lack of evidence.  In March of 1999, Wight was charged with assault for breaking a man’s jaw at a hotel.  he judge found him not guilty.

Wight has a daughter with his first wife who he divorced in 2000.  He remarried just five days after his divorce was settled and has been happy since.

The Big Show has been misused in the past by WWE.  I can recall having to watch him job to people half his size (Rey Mysterio, Jeff Hardy).  I also hated that WWE scripted Floyd Mayweather to beat him at Wrestlemania 24.  If Show fought Mayweather in real life, he could squish him like a grape.  McMahon has to keep some reality in his scripts because he is such a genetic freak. 

Often compared to Andre The Giant, Big Show has never looked morbidly obese like Andre did near the end.  He is a much better athlete and used to be able to moonsault off of the top rope. 

Was a bad night…  The Cavs got beat at home, Adam Lambert got screwed on American Idol, the Red Sox beat Toronto and the Yankees won.  Here is hoping that the Pittsburgh Penguins can deliver tonight and make things better.

Kansas City Royals Fans Brawl In Kids Play Area * Sports Rubbish
Mo Williams Hits 3/4 Court Buzzer Beater * Hoop Doctors
Interactive Nintendo Punch-Out * NESW Sports
Citifield Toilets Are No Place For A Womans Arm * Total Pro Sports
Dwight Howard Tears Down The Shot Clock * A Stern Warning
The Tigers Are Raburning Hot * Detroit4Lyfe
Ohio State Football Preview * College Sports Fans
Washington Nationals Elevating The Blown Save Into An Art Form * Legend of Cecilio Guante
The Return Of Michael Vick * Ed The Sports Fan
Wife of Diamondbacks Pitcher Found Dead * FOX Sports
Dont Mess With Vince McMahon * YepYep
Blast The Hell Out Of Turkeys * Hugging Harold Reynolds
The Clippers Will Take Blake Griffin * Moondog Sports
Dear Lakers, You Shouldn’t Have Won Game One * The No-Look Pass
Cavaliers- Magic Game 1 Recap * Talk Hoops
The Sixers Select Charles Barkley * Zoner Sports
2009 Conn Smythe Candidates * The Program
MMA Fighter Kevin Casey’s Rap Video * In Game Now
Skip Bayless Disses Craig Sager On Twitter * Pac Man Jonesin
Mickelson’s Wife Diagnosed With Breast Cancer * The World Of Isaac
Mark DeRosa Already On Trading Block * Waiting For Next Year
Big Ten Football Expansion? * Eleven Warriors
Jake Peavy Headed To White Sox * Deadspin
Funny ESPN Commercials * Gunaxin