So I’m posting what should have been January’s column today on April 5th. What else did you expect, folks? This has been par for the TBL course for years now. The fact of the matter is that at the ripe old age of 25, it gets harder and harder to find the free time necessary to contribute to my own website! I’ve all but stopped writing RAW Wishes, which sucks because I really enjoyed writing that back in the day. And it’s rare that I pop out a Balrog Babblings these days because of the hectic schedule.
I will say that the addition of my blog to the site has given me a place to write about more contemporary issues instead of just all-wrestling, all-the-time. That’s been a relief since I really don’t want to ever stop being involved in one way or another with TBL.com, especially since we’re setting records as far as longevity.
Of the columns that I’ve written so far, a lot of you seemed to like the original one best. I thought that I would take that cue and write a bit more about some of the issues I talked about in that original article.
I don’t believe that I ever gave the explanation of why I chose the name “The Balrog’s Lair” in the previous columns. Well here’s an uber-nerd moment for you. Have you ever seen the Lord of the Rings movies? You know the guy that’s made of fire and whips Gandalf’s leg on the Bridge at Khazad-Dum? Yeah…that’s a balrog. And since the movies weren’t out ten years ago, I got that name from reading the original trilogy. The truth is that I was and still am a huge Lord of the Rings fan and I guess that I chose that name because I never expected my website to turn into a wrestling website. It’s kind of a weird name for a wrestling website, don’t you think? At some point in the last few years I actually purchased two old domain names from old wrestling websites – infernowrestling.com and wpcnewsboard.com – with the express purpose of transferring the wrestling content at TBL over to one of those domains. I’d be lying right now if I didn’t say that a similar situation has gone through my mind lately and may take place at some point in the distant future.
I’d also be lying if I didn’t tell you that such a transfer is a huge pain in the ass and not something very high on my “To Do” list!
I think that at times the “Balrog” name has hindered the site from getting the hits that it should, but there have definitely been times in our site’s history where the name didn’t matter because we were raking in tens of thousands of unique visitors each day. Eddie and I both agree that such a goal is no longer the intended purpose of this website. We both do work on TBL because it’s a hobby for us and it keeps what is, essentially, a great wrestling website completely functional.
Oh, and for you bastards who want to give me shit about liking the Lord of the Rings, go fuck yourselves! Half of you are probably muggle-loving Harry Potter fans and the rest are probably Neo-workshipping Matrix nerds so bite me. And for the rest of you, well, chances are that at least a few of you out there are totally way too obsessed with a particular sports team or something like that. We all have our vices – I like the Lord of the Rings, ok?!
I also wrote for a little bit about Tito Santana and his presence in my high school. Tito was a good guy and there’s nothing really more to tell about him other than what’s written in the first column. I should also mention that it was completely awesome to go to a History or a Gym class and have Tito Santana sitting there. It was also pretty cool when I lived up in my hometown to go to my former high school wrestling coach’s ice cream shop and see Tito sitting in the office of his hair salon shop right next door.
Some of you have written to me commenting on my mention of the rat article and believe me, I wish I still knew where it was. You see, part of the problem with the early days of the mass internet is that no one really saved anything. From my own personal collection, I’m missing literally dozens upon dozens of the old TBL Newsletter as well as hundreds of previous News & Rumors updates. Back then the feel was, why save it? Although now I really do wish that I had all of those previous posts, but oh well – what can you do, right?
In relation to all of the missing content, though, I suggest to stay on the lookout – you never know when I’ll be able to pull something up out of the trenches of the internet’s archives and bring something back to the website!
More to come, stay tuned!
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