Better late than never….WRESTLEMANIA REVIEW!!!!

Wrestlemania struggled from the start as the show had a distinct lack of all things Snitsky…

I had a conundrum. I planned to write this column as part of my onslaught on the decline of pro-wrestling. Regarding how the WWE is no longer like days of yore. However, after watching Wrestlemania, I actually quite enjoyed it. I’ve not been able to say that about a wrestling PPV in a very long time. Wrestlemania can be a mirage. The more somebody follows wrestling, the more you realise a pattern. Vince Mcmahon builds up your expectations only to knock them down completely. As soon as you believe there is an upswing on the horizon, that’s when he throws in his most tasteless, boring, immature angles that dominate the programming.

I will allow myself to see the wood despite the trees of Vince Mcmahons insane management of storylines obscuring its view. Wrestlemania was good. It wasn’t the best PPV ever but it was certainly a romp. This does not mean that a lot of it is ridiculous. If people want to read about the quality of the matches , they can go to Dave Meltzer, but I’d like to corner the market in highlighting the absurdity of much of the proceedings.

Before the match, me and some buddies of mine got ready for the match. I’d love to paint a picture of “the lads” sat around, drinking beers, relaxing , getting ready to ridicule the proceedings. But no, as Lance Storm might say, wrestling is a serious business. Energy drinks and Green tea were the order of the day so we could be at our best to dissect the event. In order to justify watching the silliness of wrestling, once you get past a certain age, you have to watch it very seriously. Pointing out every nuance regarding whether a moment is a) The epitome of why you love wrestling or b) The epitome of why you hate it and how wrestling has changed. This is merely a thinly veiled attempt to inject some sort of integrity in such a clearly ridiculous life that keeps you up till 4.00 am on a Sunday morning watching some of the most farcical TV available.

To get us in the mood, we watched the hall of fame ceremony. It’s always nice to see the Rock come out but it’s hard to enjoy him as he only serves as a reminder of how bad wrestling is at the moment. Promos at the moment sound less like they are plucked from Hollywood, as they do when the Rock waxes lyrically. They now sound like they are plucked from an Vodaphone call centre. So to get Rock back for leaving, it is only fair to point out his faults: Despite inducting his father and grandfather, he practically ignored them, his dad looked like the most roided wrestler of all time and Rock appears to now have spray on hair.

On to the event. Wrestling looks really weird when it’s outside in the day time. Wrestling should only be a dark, seedy, secret and for over 70,000 people to be openly watching a midget being hit with a trash can, must play havoc with their integrity. The opening match was a Belfast Brawl. You could tell it originated in Belfast because the main weapon of choice, were Kendo sticks, Kendo sticks of course being the native weapon of Northern Ireland.

The best thing about this match is surprisingly, the midget Hornswoggle. Hornswoggle is Vince Mcmahon’s illegitimate son…or he might be Finlay’s illegitimate son. JBL has taken exception to this. A very complicated story which serves as a cover for the real motive: Vince Mcmahon thinks midgets getting beaten up is really funny. Therefore, every time Hornswoggle appears on screen, he is routinely destroyed by JBL. At first it feels tasteless, then this feeling of disgust only gets worse and worse. Then you reach a point where you can’t feel any more disgusted, so it becomes funny. Not that a midget is being beaten beaten up, but instead, the resilience of Vince Mcmahon. If a midget getting killed isn’t funny the first time, you can count on it being funny the 457^th time. That’s a rule. Write it down.

Next came the Money in the Bank match. This is a car crash. A briefcase filled with rights to an automatic title match is hanging above the ring. 7 competitors have to fight to climb the ladders to retrieve the briefcase. This is a dangerous match, not just because of the ladders, but it involves 7 guys who are either on the cusp of making it big (CM Punk, Y2J, MVP) or on the cusp of getting completely lost in the shuffle (Ken Kennedy, Shelton Benjamin, John Morrison and Carlito). This means they all feel the need to “protect their spot” in the company. Therefore, they all annihilate each other to put on a spectacle that lies somewhere in between “wow that was awesome” and “Ewww, how did he do that”. The funniest to watch is Shelton Benjamin. Benjamin is the most natural athlete in the WWE, a former collegiate wrestler. He is amazing athletically but he has the personality of a sock. This means WWE has made so many attempts to give him a personality (BLONDE HAIR! AN OVERBEARING MOTHER! A HAWAIAN SHIRT!!!!!!!!!). All have failed. So he has fallen into his role, he rises to prominence once a year when he qualifies for the Money in the Bank match. Anybody sitting at home watching probably have at least the same odds of winning as he does. So everybody, including him knows the only reason he is there, is to take a completely sick bump off a ladder and try not to die. Overall though, the MITB match may be formulaic, and extremely gimmick reliant. But it is bloody brilliant to watch. This might be one of the least shame ridden matches at Mania as almost anybody could get enjoyment out of watching it.

Umaga v. Batista. The build up for this storyline in production meetings, went something like this.

Vince Mcmahon : “Oh crap, who is Batista fighting at Mania”

Stephanie Mcmahon : “Oh nobody he must have slipped our minds”

VM: “Who else isn’t fighting anybody”

SM: “Umaga”

VM: “Done”

The match psychology hinged on this nugget of gold: I CAN’T BELIEVE BATISTA WAS ABLE TO LIFT UP UMAGA…WHAT STRENGTH. I wonder what it will take for the WWE to finally be able to come to terms with Batista’s strength. That’s about four years now he has been shakily lifting up people who are bigger than him and landing as semi-botched powerbomb. There has to come a point where it becomes normality.

It was called a “Battle of Brand Supremacy” , it was really “A battle of two big lumps with no real place on the card battling it out over their fading legitimacy”. Batista won. Umaga now has to carry on his gimmick of being an unstoppable monster despite never actually winning.

Speaking of unstoppable monsters who never actually win, Kane is out next. To fight the worlds most bland wrestler, OOOOOOW CHAVO. Chavo Guerrero. He’s meant to be the closest thing to Eddie Guerrero left in the WWE, but it’s just a shame that I reckon even now Eddie Guerrero still has more charisma than him despite being dead. Kane won in 8 seconds, it says a lot about your place in the company if you can lose to Kane in 8 seconds. Chavo Guerrero , Eddie Guerrero’s cousin, is the type of guy who would make the Baldwin brothers look at the Guerrero’s and shock them at the massive divide in talent in the Guerrero family. The millions of wrestling fans who are bored stiff of Kane let out a sigh of relief, as Kane began the long walk to the slow back door for exiting wrestlers: The ECW title.

The next match was an odd one. Carlito was at dinner before a run in by a seagull occurred. The seagull and Carlito fought to a no contest. It was a longer match than Kane v. Chavo.

The Raven came out. Raven proved to everybody that TNA’s lighter schedule does wonders to the body of a professional wrestler. When Raven left the WWE he looked like a dishevelled pasty drug addict, now look at him.

A video of Ric Flair’s career is shown, despite it being an amazing video showing all the highlights of the greatest wrestling career ever, there is one image I can’t get over. The image of Ric Flair kissing Maria. Imagine if you were Maria, you show up to work “Hey , what am I doing today” . “Oh well you’re kissing Ric Flair”. Those are the type of things you have employment law for.

Ric Flair comes out, looking like an advertisement against a career in wrestling, but who can help but feel a tingle down their spine as the greatest professional wrestler ever ambles down the 3000 ft walkway to the ring one last time. It might not be his last match though, Mick Foley and Chavo Guerrero’s lawyers should be able to help him find a loophole in this whole “retirement match” thing.

When Ric Flair takes off his robe, it is clear that instead of trunks, he is wearing woman’s support pants in an attempt to suck in some of his repulsive 60 year old body. It doesn’t work and he still has a repulsive 60 year old body.

When HBK comes out it is clear that he has been fighting a battle of his own. HBK’s eyes fought each other in a retirement match and one has had to retire, while his hair appears to be one day away from retirement aswell. Fortunately enough, the showstoppas body is still alive and kicking, even when his face isn’t. I have to give credit to the WWE, this is a great last match for The Nature Boy to have. HBK is a safe pair of hands, even if they are covered in his shedding hair.

After Ric Flair loses, to take up some of the time of his 7 hour trek to the titantron, we are forced to listen to the Wrestlemania theme song. Nothing gets me more hyped for Wrestlemania than Snow (Hey Oh) by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Yes the garbage nu-metal they normally show is hardly brilliant, but at least it won’t send you drooling to sleep with a confused look on your face. Thank god this song is a grower as they play it 93 times throughout the evening.

Ok, Snoop Dogg comes out. He has 2 introductions to make to fulfil his role as the MC of the evening. He reads these introductions off a card and then sits on a grand chair to watch the Diva’s. To be fair to him, there was some gold written on the card , if he had commited his lines to memory he might have forgotten his key line “Fo shizzle ro shizzle dizzle”.

The Diva’s come out for yet another pointless match. It’s so hard to care about the diva’s after the age of 13 when you genuinely believe that this is one of your best chances to see a nipple. They need to make people care about them. My friend Nic has maintained for years that the only thing that could fix the womans division is just having two fat chicks come out and pound every diva into submission. At least some empathy would arise, the interest isn’t sustainable at the moment for the diva’s because it’s hard to feel empathy for a bunch of complete slags. The most enjoyable part of this match is not the “T + A” on display, but instead Jerry “The King” Lawler’s commentary. Maria, one of the diva’s has just appeared in Playboy. The King then asks J.R. excitedly, whether J.R. has read this months issue of Playboy. This made me think.

Is there any funnier image than J.R. masturbating? I know it’s crass but picture it in your head and try not to laugh.

GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY I WANT TO WHIP YOU LIKE A GOVERNMENT MULE YOU JEZEBEL. MY GAWD THIS HAS BEEN A SLOBBERKNOCKER.

Diva’s matches are a pain as each diva is given one move-usually a head scissors, to sprinkle an ounce of integrity into their match. We are meant to be impressed every time we see them do a head scissors. It’s not actually that impressive.

Oh and there was a power cut. This terrified me as my thirteen year old self appeared and became convinced that this was the exact time we’d get to see a nipple…and there wasn’t even any light. There may have been a nipple, but we’ll never know and that’s the tragedy.

JKL got involved against Santino Marella in this match. Nothing is more pathetic than JKL getting involved in matches to defend the honour of the diva’s. He blatantly commits about ten counts of sexual harrassement, per diva, per day. To have him protect the diva’s rights on camera is a bit rich. JKL and Santino is clearly the feud that keeps on giving.

Snoop Dogg then kisses Maria. I can’t decide if that’s an upgrade on Ric Flair or not.

AT&T then do a poll concerning the winner of the WWE spinny title belt. Somewhere in heartland America, a father, already distraught at shelling out $40 for Wrestlemania, takes little Jimmy to the orphanage as he has phoned to cast a vote for a John Cena title win 50 times.

Now it’s everybodies favourite part of Wrestlemania…..

JOHN CENA’S PRICKISH ENTRANCE!

I have a theory that HHH writes John Cena’s Wrestlemania entrance every year, just so he can make sabotage Cena in order to make himself look cool. Cena came out to a marching band, kissing his dog tags and doing a Marine salute. I wonder why he’s not popular?

The psychology of the title match is clear. It is like a really long car ride. Mum and Dad are giving their son (Randy Orton) a big row for spilling his Fanta all over the backseat, but the more the argue, the more Mum and Dad start annoying each other. Mum and Dad then turn towards each other leaving their son completely out the firing line.

An all-time low was used in this match as the dreaded crossface (Chris Benoit’s finisher) was pulled out as a submission. It’s hard to add anything here except for a) it’s incredibly tasteless and b) how disappointed I was that J.R. didn’t get lost in the moment and scream “SHADES OF CHRIS BENOIT”.

The crossface was done as a response to the STFU, the whole match was built around the power of the STFU. Which is annoying considering it’s the second worst submission of all time after the Master Lock. In the end Randy Orton wins, rendering the whole bloody affair pointless. 92% of the AT&T customers who voted in were wrong. Perfect analogy for WWE year, charge fans for their opinion, then give them the least possible favoured outcome. It’s becoming annoying when HHH doesn’t win as it is clear that he will use a Mania loss as bargaining chips to ensure his stupid line ridden face can be constantly dominating the camera time for the rest of the year. Until his annual muscle tear at least.

Floyd Money Mayweather next. He is dressed like an ill advised little boy going as a pimp to Halloween and is drinking out of a goblet. As Big Show put him out into a chokeslam it looked like they were posing for a picture and Mayweather was part of the Make a Wish foundation. Mayweather showed how quickly he had learned wrestling as he put on the most electrifying move in sports entertainment-the sleeper hold- to the Big Show. It’s a move so lethal that just by doing it in the ring, it can kill a crowd of 70,000 people dead. All in all, Mayweather got more involved than I imagined.

At one point Tazz appears on camera, and I realised the best idea ever if you are ever fortunate enough to go to a wrestling event. Wear a black suit, orange Oakleys, orange shirt and an orange hankerchief. Then sit behind tazz and mimmick him all night.

Tazz may provide comedy, but if you like your commentators with a little less comedy. Perhaps a little less personality. Perhaps even no personality. Then you want Michael Cole and the Coach, who manage , no matter how long they commentate for , to sound like they are straight out of a video game. J.R. may be going senile, but at least he makes matches feel special. Michael Cole says about 3 things. For Undertaker’s matches you could get away with playing the commentary of the last undertaker match over the match and nobody would know the difference as all Michael Cole says is “Undertaker is the best pure striker in the business”, “He’s going old school” and “such athleticism from such a big man”.

Michael Cole may be boring, Jonothan Coachman is clueless. I’d like to end this column with a word of wisdom from The Coach, Jonothan Coachman regarding the main event loser, Edge.

“Everything Edge is doing, he’s doing for a reason”.

Brilliant.

(Shout out to my chums Ross, Grant and Paul for not only spouting out some inspiring witty comments during the marathon of viewing this show, but also making me feel like less of a secial leper while watching wrestling aged 22.)

End of an era…

Wrestlemania tonight, the big one. Stay tuned to www.ihos.wordpress.com for a post Wrestlemania blog.

The Wrestlemania preview podcast is available, simply by going to www.subcity.org –> click listen again –> find “Sports Entertainment” on the Sunday listing and listen to the latest show –> Have a schnarf.

It’s a biggie, forget the Mayweather rubbish, it’s all about the end of an era, the Nature Boy Ric Flair prematurely calling an end to his glorious career at the age of 97. Tune into watch him go out in a blaze of glory (or knowing the WWE, tune into watching him being superkicked with a trashcan over his head, get dry-humped by Mae Young and then be forced by Cade and Murdoch to kiss Vince Mcmahon’s ass) .

Some may be asking, after seeing this picture, whether the Nature Boy still has it:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fJF-s944WV4 This should answer any questions.

But we all must lament that Ric Flair’s last match will not come against, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ozY0SqriQnE

One ….Last…..WOOOOOOOO….

Floyd Mayweather cares too much.

After respected boxer, Floyd Mayweather, blatantly sold his soul to pro-wrestling it is time once again to review his progress.

Floyd opened RAW via video link in a promo with the Big Show. Big Show squashed a floyd-a-like and then Floyd appeared on the Titantron. The Big Show and Floyd Mayweather then embarked on one of the worst segments in pro-wrestling history. Mayweather obviously couldn’t even be bothered to read from a TelePrompter. He and Big Show engaged in some of the slowest verbal sparring of all time, Floyd would just repeat phrases such as “I’m the money” ad nauseum. Everything he said, he repeated four or five times. This made the Big Show look more confused than when he once came out at Wrestlemania dressed as a Sumo Wrestler.

The most interesting repeated catchphrase that Mayweather awkwardly spouted was undoubtedly “I am willing to die at Wrestlemania (I am willing to die at Wrestlemania,I am willing to die at Wrestlemania,I am willing to die at Wrestlemania,I am willing to die at Wrestlemania,I am willing to die at Wrestlemania,I am willing to die at Wrestlemania,I am willing to die at Wrestlemania,I am willing to die at Wrestlemania). I’m glad he repeated it one thousand times so I could really grasp how ridiculous the statement was.

If Floyd Mayweather is willing to die for Wrestlemania, here are some other things he may be willing to die for:

Paintballing

Mime

6 Flags

Fiji

Foosball

Cadbury’s cream eggs

Sunny D

Donkey Kong

Steve Guttenberg

Tamagochi

Dance

Oragami

The Suite Life with zach and cody

Power walking

Melissa Joan Hart

Nickleback

Ross Perot

Jazzy Jeff

Gardening

John O’Shea

Anything else?

Imagine if he actually dies, and an ambiguous moment occurs where people think it may have been intentional…..that’s how I want to go,  as the subject of wrestling message board conspiracy theories for the next 5 decades.

Will Mayweather save the WWE?

 

World Wrestling Entertainment is making it’s eleven billionth attempt to shoehorn itself into mainstream psyche, after its last jaunt in the late 90’s. Instead of building their stars correctly, they are throwing a fortune behind a individual famous outside of the arena of Sports Entertainment. They tried it with K-Fed, they tried it with Donald Trump but now they are trying it with Floyd “Money” Mayweather.

The buzz appeared first with “Hulkamania” and then the New “Attitude” era in WWE. Both of these era’s were inherently original. Nobody had seen a concept as unique as “Sports Entertainment” in the 80’s. However, it did not age well so slowly regressed into a goofy state in the early 90’s. Come the mid-90’s with the New World Order and the Attitude Era, wrestling was original again. The “attitude” which they were selling could not be seen anywhere else on television and it fitted with the tone of society at the time. Wrestling is cyclical and it is due another buzz period.

These days however, society is cynical. Everybody has so much choice that people get very bored easily. That is why people do not take well to the WWE showing them exactly the same thing every week. As UFC shows WWE how exciting surprises can be, the WWE continues to have the same untouchables on top of the show. Randy Orton, Batista and John Cena are company made guys whose rise to fame was far from organic but was instead forced down the viewers throat.. HHH is the ultimate second banana. Great as a villain/auxiliary character,  but when the faith in wrestling is put on his shoulder it’s the WWE’s answer to “Joey”.  Edge is the perfect replacement for HHH in the lead villain role but they don’t have a Rock or an Austin who can bring out the best in him. Undertaker is a bit like an Aerosmith concert. You and your friends would discuss going to see the gig for ages because it has tremendous novelty value, but if you went you would just end up feeling disappointed if that was in 2008, the best that rock music had to offer.

Mayweather will bring obvious comparisons of Mike Tyson’s appearance in wrestling. It is however completely different because Mike Tyson was “giving the rub” to Stone Cold Steve Austin by eventually siding with him. They therefore took somebody who was on the cusp of superstardom and put him over the edge. Tyson was also a far more notorious, infamous and indeed, famous figure than Mayweather.

With Mayweather, instead of bringing him in to feud with somebody on the cusp of stardom and therefore, giving him “the rub” ie. M.V.P. or Jeff Hardy , they are instead giving it to somebody, The Big Show,  who a) only recently came back from injury induced retirement, b) His freakish size means his sell by date is growing ever closer. c) Has attempted to be pushed as a top dog for years and years but has only really looked at home as somebody who is a middle of the road bad guy who can be called upon when needed to go on a hot streak. He is not the future of the company. Nobody will see the Big Show fighting Mayweather and think “HEY….WAIT A MINUTE…A 7 FOOT TALL GUY…WRESTLING’S AWESOME”.

Mayweather will appeal to some of the much talked about 18-30 demographic,  who will see some novelty and nostalgia in ordering a P.P.V. They will not be sucked in however due to the fact that increasingly WWE is built for children, not even very clever children. Recently the WWE ran a competition to its fans for a new slogan and I’m surprised they didn’t go with “WWE: Written by immature adults for idiot children”. It would then do exactly as advertised for once instead of sucking the fan in as it constantly does only to slap them in the face with a series of tasteless storylines which are completely insulting to the intelligence of even the most simple minded.

My wrestling interest/depressing obsession has dwindled recently, but they still have some odd psychological hold over me. Despite the fact when I watch it I feel as if I’m being punched in the face, I still defend it to outsiders. I would however, never urge anybody to watch it who hasn’t before. I would feel embarrassed.

I watched RAW in its entirety for the first time in about 6 months on Monday. I can’t believe the WWE does not feel a stinging feeling of shame about trying to get mainstream America to latch on to the WWE with the help of Floyd Mayweather and then presenting this.

If I could sum the WWE up in one sequence from Monday’s broadcast it would be this: Maria, who is posing for Playboy in the WWE’s annual “Diva” shoot in Playboy, came out accompanying the often hilarious Santino Marella to the ring. Santino Marella was teaming with Carlito to fight the tag team champions. Hardcore “I can’t believe he’s not still jobbing” Holly and Cody “I can’t believe Dusty Rhodes’ son has so little charisma” Rhodes. The senile Jerry “The King” Lawler spent the entire match where he is meant to be doing colour commentary, literally begging Maria to come to sit beside him. In his high pitch squeal he asked Maria to come and sit beside him not once, but fourteen times, literally. The funniest thing about this is that Vince Mcmahon is clearly in the headset telling him that this is what the fans want.

WWE: Come for the boxer from the heart of pop-culture, stay for the senile old man creepily verbally abusing a young woman over and over again.

The WWE then presented the entirely original storyline of whether John Cena and HHH could co-exist as a tag team. I wonder if prior to Lidell v. Rampage, they had to team up and fight Rashad Evans and Matt Hammill about eleven times before they fight, and then they repeated this for every main event for the next year, if anybody would care about the UFC. I doubt it.

WWE also presented Paul Burchill in his new gimmick. Paul Burchill is an incredibly talented British Wrestler who has been off television for about two years because Vince Mcmahon didn’t understand his previous gimmick of a Johnny Depp style pirate. But after two years of deliberation, the WWE caught lightning in a bottle and went for the always classic, ambiguous incest storyline between Burchill and his sister. You can’t put a price on creativity.

New fans would also be enticed by the Vince Mcmahon storyline. Yes Vince Mcmahon is still on TV. Only this time he’s updated it. After about 100 attempts to redo his feud with Stone Cold, v. Cena, v. HHH, v. HBK, v. Bobby Lashley, etc, or one of his many sexual deviancy storylines with Candice Michelle, with Trish Stratus, with Melina etc. Vince has moved with the times and created a storyline where he gets to abuse a midget who he claims is his son and the midget acts like a child. Either because the WWE thinks so little of its fans that they believe they couldn’t comprehend a small person being an adult, or that Vince just saw Austin Powers 2 for the first time. If you think this is awful, at least be thankful Vince hasn’t made an attempt to begin one of his incest storylines, but it shouldn’t be long before the next time you are channel hopping and Vince is pounding away on Hornswoggle. There was already a hint of sexual tension in their “Kiss My ass” segment a few weeks ago (don’t ask)

Vince Mcmahon’s recent bout of promotion with the help of Mayweather is a lot like getting Mayweather to promote a sports drink. But when you buy it, it’s not a drink that helps you with sports performance. It’s urine. But you just paid 40 dollars for it. So you drink it, and it’s disgusting. But you still have an inherent need to defend why you spent all that money on it. If a lot of people buy this ppv because of Mayweather. it’s opening up the dirty little secret of wrestling fans to the masses so there is literally no way to defend how awful it is. Mayweather could be the final nail in the coffin of WWE, as loads of borderline fans tune in and are reminded why they stopped watching.

Team of the Week

The Mentally Ill 11

1. Chris Benoit

At goalie we need a safe pair of hands, somebody who is definitely mental. It doesn’t get much more mental than a double homicide of members of your family.

2. Ryan Tucker

A right tackle in the NFL, so will fit in well as right back in our team. Took a break from the NFL last season for undisclosed mental issues, sounds pretty mental to me.

3. Ricky Williams

The Bi-polar pot addict and former Toronto Running Back will fit in well as a surging left back.

4. Frank Bruno

Will provide physical presence in defence at centre half. Mental because he ran for Tory office (OOOOOWWW POLITICAL) and also because he was sectioned under the mental health act.

5. Erik Brown

Erik will provide some aerial prowess in defence. Former basketball star at the University of Louisville, deluded by the lack of fame after college claimed he was making a movie with Spike Lee and signing a contract with the Detroit Pistons. He wasn’t, but he did try to set fire to himself when he was inside his apartment.

6. Brett Favre

The lynchpin of the midfield famed for his ball delivery, but qualifies for the mentally ill team due to his addiction to pain pills.

7. Paul Merson

The incredibly gifted former Arsenal great struggled with alcoholism throughout his career.

8. Paul Gascoigne (c)

The man who inspired this list. Caught last week naked and drunk in a hotel, with two plastic parrots eating raw liver. This qualifies him to be the team captain.

9.Terry Bradshaw

Proven points scorer at number 9. Not only did quarterback legend Terry Bradshaw become a religious freak, not only did he star in “Failure to Launch” but he also claimed in his book that he cried for hours after every game.

10. Stan Collymore

Although Stan is now fairly successfully reinventing himself as an analyst, he was forced to go down that route thanks to a career plagued by mental illness.

11. Terrell Owens

Speed on the wing from the Cowboys Wide receiver who, despite having “25 millions reasons to be alive” allegedly attempted suicide via an overdose of prescription pain pills.

Super Sub: New mentalist, William Gallas.

“Come on guys, let’s think inside the box here.”

 

Sulaiman, 76, the president of the WBC added arguments to the MMA v. Boxing argument which are as old and tired as he is. He joined the long line of people sitting precariously on an ivory tower attempting to stifle the growth of mixed martial arts.

“It’s like two animals trying to kill each other. In Mexico it has not happened and I’m fighting for that not to happen. But with the public in the United States, I don’t know. They like it very much but I criticise it. It’s not human.”

But boxing is human? How is punching somebody in the face and the ribs humane ? It would be like two cell mates in prison, one convicted for assault, and the other convicted with assault with a weapon and the one convicted with plain old assault looking down his nose at the brutality of using a weapon.

If somebody wants to inject a criticism of MMA, I would like it to be somewhat fresh. This argument is beginning to sound as mundane as “American football? It’s so slow and why do they need helmets” v. “Nothing ever happens in Soccer, who would want to watch people run about and hardly ever score”. It’s ignorant and clearly bypasses any understanding of the basic intricacies of each sport. To say UFC is like two animals killing each other would perhaps be more apt in the early development of the sport when guys like Tank Abbott were acting as if it was a bar fight not a sport. However, the sport has clearly evolved.

If MMA v. Boxing was a fight; Boxing has been world champion for years, while MMA has been fighting in dingy underground venues, but suddenly MMA has grown into a more complex and dynamic fighter ready to challenge the stalwart of combat sports. Boxing is a once great fighter, who has fallen to the demons of fame. MMA is the new dynamic fresh face on the market.

Sport stars often talk about leaving the sport in a better place than when they entered it. I am no expert on boxing but I can guarantee that those currently involved in the organisation of boxing have not left the sport in a better place since they inherited it. The people involved with boxing should start trying to fix their own sport’s problems rather than worrying about MMA. The rise in UFC can be seen as parallel with the rise of the Ultimate Fighter reality show, the reason for this is because people do not want to see a blood bath, they want to follow fighters that they have seen evolve, fighters that they understand the strengths and weaknesses of and fighters that they feel they know personally. This means that UFC has been able to create cards full of stars who interest the fans rather than just a main event.

Somebody needs to send all people involved in boxing a tape of the most recent G.S.P. v. Matt Hughes fight. If they take the time to watch it they will see an intricate game plan executed perfectly, not a thug exhibit brutality. Or watch as Mir a technician tapped out the brute power of Brock Lesnar. A fighter cannot just be heavy handed and be a success, they need to be a student of the sport who excels in a number of disciplines. They should also look at the rules of MMA and see how closely the sport is governed and the ref’s ability to stop the fight once a fighter stops defending himself.

Of course discussing silly statements like this only adds to the problem and legitimises people’s ignorance of MMA, but really, statements like this need to stop being news. Bitter legends of boxing, lend me an ear, (Evander Holyfield’s will do) and take some time to understand UFC, or at least accept it. The argument is going to blow up if Mayweather does come to MMA so it would be simply lovely if some boxing people could try and sound intelligent with some basic understanding, rather than sound like a jilted ex-boyfriend as the fans continue to support the overwhelming growth of MMA into a major sport.

Or we should all just accept that pro wrestling is too fake, MMA is too real and boxing is this happy little middle ground where nobody gets hurt, providing a perfect but yet civilised output for everybody’s brutality needs. Thanks boxing, we salute you, keep up the good work.