August 27, 1994:
Shane Douglas throws down the
NWA title and makes history
Is there any better wrestling blog/column these days than Paul Heyman's "The Heyman Hustle"?  I really don't think so.  And is it really that big of a surprise that Heyman is so insightful?  Nah.  I mean, the guy changed the face of the pro wrestling industry almost a decade and a half ago and quite a bit of what wrestling fans see these days – good and bad – bears the unmistakable imprint of Heyman's creative genius. He doesn't have the golden touch every time, he's not always right, and sometimes he's downright unbearable...but when he is on the mark, nobody can touch him.  His recent column on Ric Flair and the NWA Hall of Fame was both poignant and hilarious at the same time.  And how great is it that Heyman can still get a rise out of the NWA's top brass almost a decade and a half after he almost single-handedly buried the entire promotion by having Shane "The Franchise" Douglas throw down the NWA title (watch the video here).  Hell, the NWA was so pissed at Heyman after his last column that they even issued a press in an effort to refute his piece, but in the end they just ended up looking as ridiculous as they did when he screwed them in 1994.  The man knows how to play ball.  Too bad Paul E. probably doesn't read greeklish.org, because I totally think he is the man.

I am currently reading Hardcore History - The Extremely Unauthorized Story of ECW by Scott E. Williams and I have to say it is pretty good.  In some places, it kind of reads like a synopsis of the The Rise and Fall of ECW and Forever Hardcore DVDs, but I like revisiting a lot of these old stories anyway and there are some good, relatively obscure nuggets in the book that make it a worthwhile read if you're interested in wrestling.

And speaking of ECW, over at 411mania.com, there's a new series underway called "The History of the (WWE) ECW Title."  I just read part one today and found that it's not so much "history" as it is one person's opinion wrapped in contempt and elitism.  Here's the first couple sentences:

At One Night Stand in 2006 Rob Van Dam cashed in his Money in the Bank title opportunity against WWE Champion John Cena. Thanks to the assistance of a Paul Heyman, Edge, and a table, RVD defeated Cena for the title much to the delight of classless, intolerant ECW fans worldwide.

Ummm...what?  Wow, you jerk.  Way to alienate a whole bunch of your readers right of the bat.  Seriously, even though most people are less than excited about WWE version of ECW these days, I think most ECW and WWE fans still acknowledge that RVD beating Cena at ONS 2006 was entertaining, shocking and incredibly exciting.  That is, unless you're a Cena fan...I guess.  Kudos to the guy who posted a comment to the article in which he quoted the "classless and intolerant" quip and then called the article's author "pathetic."  

logoPhillyburbs.com, another good online wrestling news source, gets it.  They just posted a "Top 5" ONS moments column in which the RVD/Cena match comes in as the best ONS moment of all time.  But the column's author Eric Gargiulo doesn't stop there, saying "This is one of the greatest main-events in all of WWE pay-per-view history."  No kidding.  It is still a really great match to watch even today, but some of the drama is probably lost on folks who aren't familiar with all of the plot and drama leading up to the event and the controversial finish.

By sheer coincidence (I hadn't seen either of the above-mentioned columns until yesterday), this weekend I added a clip of RVD winning the title at ONS to my "What I'm Watching on YouTube" on the left of the main page of our site.  And not only that – just yesterday, I got one of my most recent eBay purchases in the mail:  an authentic "take home" folding chair from the actual ONS show on June 11, 2006.  Nothing says "I am obsessed with wrestling" like a limited edition folding chair!

Oh yeah...I saw Jericho's heel turn on Raw last night.  I thought it was pretty impressive.



Here's my new chair.