Hey everyone! I’m back again! If you’ve been following this site for any prolonged amount of time in the past 8 years, then you know that I kick it up into high gear for the summer and then fade away into the background again during the winter months. Well, with Eddie taking charge of the TBL Express as our official Webmaster, I think that I’ll have some time during those long winter months to do some more work for my beloved Lair.
I’ve actually touched on the first point that I’d like to make in this return article – Eddie has done a great job since his re-joining TBL. If you don’t think so, then you’re out of your mind. All you have to do is look around to see the immediate changes that he put into place. And if you’re not enticed to believe he’s a man of action by those changes, then you only need to look towards the new TBL Soundoff section to see that Eddie is a forward-thinker, and a damn fine one at that.
Next, I just wanted you all to know that I have a blog on TBL that is fully functioning. You can access it by clicking here! It’s also accessible on the left-hand sidebar under “Extras & Fun” for your convenience.
Before I begin my latest offering – please bear with me! I’m getting the writing rust off for the first time in a while, so this column might float a bit.
I’d like to focus this article towards my current view on some wrestling events and happenings – a view that I see as being from the outside looking in. What do I mean by outside? Well, as many of you who have gone through the internet wrestling cycle of your lives know, you reach a point where you stop going to the copious news and rumors sites and settle on one or two that you check-up with whenever you get a chance. For me, those sites are TBL (now that Eddie has breathed a new life into it) and an occasional visit to WWE.com. So with respect to the daily grind of the internet wrestling world, I am on the outside looking in – and let me tell you, it’s different out here.
It’s nice not to know what is going to happen before it happens on Monday or Thursday. Granted, most of what I’ve caught on Smackdown! absolutely sucks lately, it’s been nice to see it happen without reading the spoilers. And as for this guy JBL who is the head man over at Smackdown! – let’s put it this way, on the outside looking in you really don’t see the sheer hate that many of the internet fans have for JBL. At the urging of some online friends, I was asked to go float around a few sites and get a feel for what the internet crew thinks about JBL – oh boy! The internet scene HATES this guy! That’s not an impression that you get when you’re not entrenched in the internet – or at least that hasn’t been what I’ve seen. From the outside, all you see is a man who was given a different-than-normal gimmick. It’s actually a bit refreshing, to be honest.
With JBL, I’ve basically seen a guy with a pompous ass attitude come along, get his ass whooped by Eddie Guerrero, and then win the championship on a technicality. I think it’s obvious that he’s going to lose the title to Guerrero at SummerSlam or even before that. It’s like WWE Booking 101, really.
I’ve also seen this Eugene character take off. Wow – what a great character! Now of course there have to be those who are mad at the fact that he is depicted as a mentally challenged person – I’ve got members like that in my family and I’m not offended by it. That’s another part of being on the outside that has a distinct difference than those on the inside – out here there was not a huge, prolonged outcry against Eugene’s character. Sure, there was shock and an initial, “What the hell is this?” But after a week or two, when Eugene started showing up all of the men he was in the ring with, he actually became a good part of the show.
I know that my roommates (who are not full-time wrestling fans by any means) gather around the TV when Eugene is on, so someone in the WWE’s Brain Trust must be doing something right. Oh, do they still have the Brain Trust? I mean you look at the writing on Smackdown! and you want to vomit most of the time.
Another thing that I’ve observed is the rise of the Dudley Boyz to a pseudo-main event style match with the Undertaker at the last PPV. What the hell was that all about? And when did they win the tag titles on Smackdown!? Isn’t that really a waste of the titles since there aren’t any other teams on Smackdown!? Hmmm, if anyone has any answers – please let me know!
I caught part of the WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on PPV last week – that was great. If you want to see a man in his element, watch Bobby Heenan telling jokes left and right and “giving it” to everyone as he gave his acceptance speech. However, on the converse, Jesse Ventura sounded like he was telling a story to a bunch of grade school kids. I also thought that my man – Tito Santana – had some nice words to say. And those kids he’s talking about at Princeton and Rutgers? I taught one of them how to be an effective lineman many years ago! (Shut up, it’s my claim to fame, alright?)
I’ve noticed that this installment of my Babblings has truly become a bunch of babble, so I think it’s time to end this mess. Be sure to check out my blog at TBL by clicking here! The blog is updated a lot more than my column and normally doesn’t deal with wrestling.
That’s it. I promise that next time I’ll have a more well-rounded column for you fine folks to read. Thanks for bearing with me as I kick off some of the writing rust!
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