Mean Gene and Me
By Jonathan Brown
Before the We Have No Life, So We Send Nasty Hate Mail to Mr. Brown Club gets started, I am fully aware that Mean Gene and Me is not grammatically appropriate, thank you.
Now that you have had your laugh for the column, let’s get to it. Mean Gene Okerlund is like family to me. I have never met the man nor have I ever seen him in person, but I would give him a kidney if he needed one. The smooth tone of his voice takes me back to a time that wrestling was forged into my personality. It was a time when I thought that the men in the ring really hated each other and that “vitamins” were the horrible flavored ones that my mom made me chew every morning. (How was I to know that was code for ‘roids?)
For you young ones, Mean Gene hosted Saturday Morning Superstars. This show rarely put two legitimate wrestlers in the ring together but was a chance for our favorite superstars to use their full arsenal against a nobody in generic tights. Those were the days. It was then that wrestling was able to hook young fans in to the magic that is pro wrestling by manipulating the susceptible mind of children into believing in their heroes. You can not talk about Superstars without mentioning the word “squash!”
Saturday Morning Superstars was able to make household names of guys like:
Brutus the Barber Beefcake
Jake “The Snake” Roberts
Demolition
Hulk Hogan
Koko B. Ware
Kamala
Undertaker
Jimmy “The Mouth of the South” Hart
The Million Dollar man and Virgil
Iron Sheik
Curt Henning
George Steele
Andre the Giant
Bobby the Brain Heenan
The Bushwakers
The Killer Bees
Can-Am Connection
Jimmy Snuka
Ultimate Warrior
British Bulldogs
Rowdy Roddy Piper
Jessie “The Body” Ventura
Macho Man and Ms. Elizabeth
and King Kong Bundy
Man, all of those wrestlers are special to any fan of the era and many of them were not that great. The early Saturday show allowed these athletes to connect to the fans in ways the Raw and Smackdown! do not allow.
If the WWE is serious about maintaining its strangle hold on the industry, then it is vital to its long term success that the WWE make a real effort to connect to the most loyal fans of all; children.
Something that the Saturday morning show offered to the masses that no longer exists is purity. No chair-shots, no cheating, and most importantly, no “divas.” While all of these things are common in the primetime shows, they are not really acceptable for the 8 year old that may want to tune in. It was the pure competition and the rainbow of characters that most of us fell in love with. While many of us do enjoy the WWE product, we must admit that character development is not a priority of the writers. For example, the Hurricane is a superhero that kids absolutely love. Instead of appearing exclusively on Heat (which is bath and bed time for most of his fans) why not put him on Saturday where his character go grow?
The WWE has a chance to expand its empire. A Saturday morning wrestling program would do for wrestling what candy cigarettes did for the tobacco industry. Could the McMahons really pass up a chance at an infinite grip on the business?
Mean Gene is like family. I can still hear him calling matches while the boorish Bobby the Brain antagonized him. Okerlund was, is and will always be “the voice of wrestling” bar none. Everyone that got their first taste of wrestling on Saturday mornings will agree.
Wrestlemania
Thanks to all of the fans that responded to “Wrestlemania Sucks.” Some of you have a lot to learn about formulating an opinion but you’ll get there. Just calling me an idiot does not make your opinion valid. Also, many of you that responded were prepubescent when Wrestlemania 18 occurred. Sorry, but it is hard to accept what you have to say about Hulkamania if you were not alive to see it.
So many of you have written asking me for predictions, so I will break from the norm and give you a quick rundown of what I expect to happen.
Eddie defeats Rey
Taker defeats Orton – brutally
Hemme defeats Trish
Angle defeats HBK
Big Show defeats Akebono
HHH defeats Batista
JBL defeats Cena
Edge wins the Ladder Match
Only 8 matches and only 3 titles are being defended. Not tag titles, no US title, no Intercontinental defense either (and you scoffed at me when I called it the championship of crap.)
Enjoy spending your $50. Be sure to write me and tell me whether or not it was money well spent.
JB
