Just S’pose 10.18.06 – Warrior

Football-wise, it was a banner week for me. Brooke beat Weir, 21-0. Not only was it a win over a rival school, and not only is Weir the defending West Virginia Class AA champion, but they held Weir to 33 yards total offense. Now, Weir is 2-6 this year after the loss, but it is still a rivalry, and it guarantees Brooke’s first winning season since 1999, I do believe. But, bigger than all that, six wins has been the bar for making the playoffs since expanding from eight to 16 teams. Brooke is off this week, and the old cheer is still true today: I’d Rather Be Dead Than a Rider in Red.

The alternate cheer, I’d Rather Be Queer Than a Rider from Weir, also works.

Pitt, meanwhile, stomped Central Florida, 52-7. The game was on ESPN Friday night, but I was otherwise occupied, as I’ll explain momentarily. This week is, believe it or not, a Big East showdown against Rutgers that has actual BCS implications. Look for the game on ESPN2 Saturday. I can’t watch, because I want Pitt to win.

To complete the route-filled weekend, Da Stillers got off the schneid (I think that’s how you spell it) in a huge way over Kansas City, 45-7. Big Ben threw for two touchdowns, Fast Willie ran for two touchdowns, and Troy Polamalu was tackled by his hair. Da Stillers had 17 first downs in the first half. This Sunday, look for Pittsburgh to storm Atlanta like Sherman in the Civil War, baby!

As for me, I couldn’t watch Pitt destroy Central Florida because I was watching Brooke destroy Weir. It was Homecoming Weekend at the ol’ alma mater, and I was invited back to take part in the alumni band. As I explained last week, when I was a senior in high school, I played the trips (three tenor drums), and with all modesty, I rocked. The person handling the reunion told the current band director what I did back then (I should mention that Brooke goes through band directors like Spinal Tap goes through drummers), and she said, “We don’t have trips anymore, so he could handle the quints instead!” “Quints,” in case you can’t tell by the name, is five drums.

Playing wise, I had no problems. My arms could still go. It took me a little time to play things backwards from what I was used to, but when the drumline instructor told me to just play lower, which would allow me to use the hand/arm/eye coordination I was used to, I was fine. What threw me for a loop was carrying the drums themselves.

I prepared myself for the marching part by walking a little more during the past few weeks. But, to totally prepare for marching with the drums, I needed to walk while carrying a bag of cement in front of me.

I used to play them, so I knew I could carry them, but that was over 20 years ago. On Friday, I carried the drums for about twenty minutes before I had to put them down. I managed to march the tenth of a mile or so from the bandroom to the football stadium, but could not march to the opposite sideline. After I made it onto the field, we played one song, and I ran off to the sideline to join the choir in the National Anthem and Alma Mater, then carried the drums to the bandstand with all the excitement of a man helping his wife buy a dress during the Super Bowl.

I did manage to put them back on now and then to play some more, but not nearly as much as I wanted to. The moral of this story is, 40 pounds of drums weighs a lot more on a 39-year-old with a heart condition than a 17-year-old who carries them around every day for six months.

Let’s go to more make believe, shall we?

CALIFORNIA MAN

Jim Hellwig was a little sad, but at the same time, he was excited. He was sad because he had just wrestled his last match in the Uiversal Wrestling Federation under the name Blade Runner Rock. He was excited because his partner, Steve Borden, was headed to one of the hottest territories in wrestling today, World Class Championship Wrestling, in Texas. They had left the NWA earlier that year, and Fritz Von Erich promised they would use Borden as one of their top heels.

Sure, he wouldn’t be “Blade Runner Rock,” but as soon as Borden was established in Texas, he would tell Fritz about his friend and former partner, and Helliwg would be hitting the big time, too, right? Right?

In the reality we know, Blade Runner Rock went to WCCW, changed his name to Dingo Warrior, and eventually went to the WWF, where he would change his name to Ultimate Warrior, and beat Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VI to win the World Championship. But, Just S’pose Ultimate Warrior stayed in the UWF. What might have happened?

After his partner left, Hellwig was given a week off, so he could start over brand new. The next week, on UWF television, he joined General Scandor Akbar’s stable and had what was to be a long-time feud with Ted DiBiase. Unfortunately, Vince McMahon and the WWF called DiBiase, and before The Rock (Helliwg’s new ring name) had the chance to get his hands on the future Million Dollar Man, he was gone.

The Rock continued to act as Akbar’s hired muscle, beating on the odd wrestler in singles matches while interfering in matches involving Akbar’s other men when they wrestled top babyfaces such as Jim Duggan, Steve Williams, and Chris Adams. When he wrestled against them in singles action, other men interfered, and just about every match ended in a double disqualification.

Then, in early 1988, Bill Watts had an announcement. The UWF, for various reasons, was bankrupt and forced to merge with Jim Crockett’s World Championship Wrestling. Crockett ran shows mainly in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia, and had the highest rated wrestling show in the country, every Saturday night on WTBS. The UWF was also on WTBS when they were known as Mid-South Championship Wrestling, and the wrestlers who were still around from those days told the younger guys about the exposure and money they had gained from being on a national cable network. Hellwig looked forward to bigger payoffs.

The Rock gained quick fame from his exposure on Clash of the Champions II, live on WTBS, when he ran in on a match between Ric Flair (NWA World champion) and Steve Williams (UWF champion) to unite the two titles. While the referee was down, The Rock entered the ring and hit Flair, knocking him out. While Rock went to help the referee recover, Williams looked to the crowd for direction. When the referee was in position, Williams covered his unconscious opponent and became the new NWA World champion.

After the match, Williams looked down at his new belt, shocked not only that he had won it, but how he won it. He took the microphone and addressed the crowd:

“Thank you very much. I don’t know what to say. I certainly did not expect to win this way, but I have to congratulate Ric Flair on being such a great champion.

“Now, as for how I won this match — Rock!” He pointed at The Rock for emphasis. “I don’t like people interfering in my matches, and I don’t like people handing me belts I don’t deserve. But, this…”

The Rock entered the ring, prepared for a fight. Suddenly, Scandor Akbar’s entire stable ran to the ring to back up their man. From the other side of the arena, other men ran down who were enemies of Akbar in the UWF. All eleven men stood in the ring, surrounding the two men in the center of the title change. Then, it happened.

Steve Williams walked over, shook Scandor Akbar’s hand, and they embraced while the others celebrated in the ring.

Williams held the microphone back up to his mouth and screamed, “YOU ALL BIT! YOU ALL BIT!” The fans realized they had been had. Most of them booed, some stood in amazement, while others cheered their heroes from the former UWF. Williams then continued.

“What, you think I’m just going to lose my title without a fight? First, the UWF goes out of business, and we all get to come, hat in hand, begging for a shot in the NWA. Well, we all got together and decided we weren’t going to take it! We weren’t going to come in here and just be happy to get a shot, we were going to take over!

“Look at this team right here, The New Zealand Sheepherders. These guys are the toughest team in the world today, and they were the UWF tag team champions. But when we came here, they weren’t even allowed a shot at the NWA tag team titles! What kind of message do you think that sent the rest of us?

“I’ll tell you exactly what kind of message it sent to us. It said that just because we weren’t originally from the NWA, we weren’t going to get squat! So instead of just being happy to have our jobs, we decided to take over the whole damn show! What do you think of that?”

The next day, Jim Crockett told all the people involved exactly what he thought of it. You see, The Rock was supposed to interfere, but Steve Williams was supposed to argue with Rock before refusing the tainted win, holding up the belt. Williams and Flair would then have a best-of-three-falls match at The Great American Bash, where Flair would win the belt. This was all explained to everyone when they came into the company, with Bill Watts himself suggesting the best-of-three match to blow off the whole NWA/UWF angle.

Now, however, they had all blown it. Instead of having a great series of matches throughout the summer, they now had something to remind them of their time in the NWA: pink slips. They were all fired immediately.

Many of the men found work in other areas, but Williams and Akbar, the ringleaders, were forced to go to Japan. The Rock, while not part of the mindtrust, was blackballed from wrestling in the US because he was the guy who interfered in the match. Truthfully, though, his role was more like Shoeless Joe Jackson in the Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 World Series. He was a guy doing his job who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Disgusted with everything, he quit wrestling altogether.

In 1989, Jim Hellwig got into bodybuilding. His timing was perfect, as the sport was changing from one filled with steroids and other illicit drugs to men who could test clean for any substances. At the same time, it went from something with annual exposure on “ABC’s Wide World of Spots” to a weekly series as the Weider family, who controlled the bodybuilding circuit, tried to make their athletes more approachable. During an appearance on the weekly ESPN show, Hellwig made an appearance. One man who just happened to watch the show saw Hellwig, with the long hair and the chiseled good looks, and thought he looked like a Bond villain. If only…

Within one week, Albert Broccoli had signed Jim Hellwig as the newest villain, Michel Duchamp, for the next 007 movie, “Before Night Rises.” Duchamp was a Swiss bodybuilder who parlayed his fame into millions of dollars, which he spent on British real estate around the world in hopes of (being a villain and all) ruining the British economy. When he was younger, the story went, Duchamp found out his mother was raped by several men during a trip to Birmingham, and she became pregnant with him. One of the men who had raped her became a member of the House of Lords, and Duchamp vowed revenge on the country that had rewarded such an evil man. Oh, yeah, and he also had three nuclear devices buried in different locations in England, Scotland, and Wales. Being so large, Duchamp became his own “hired muscle,” which made him Goldfinger and Oddjob in one as foil for Timothy Dalton’s 007.

Hellwig was a sensation in the movie, and found other roles in Hollywood. Soon, people were writing roles in movies for “a Jim Hellwig type.” He quickly overtook Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzeneggar as the number one action movie hero.

In 1993, Hellwig starred in “Big Brass,” as Michael Braskovich, a bodybuilder who finds a nuclear device was accidentally mixed in with his luggage. It is his first action/comedy (emphasis on comedy), and led to other comedy roles. In 1995, his first non-action movie, “The Truth About Lies,” was a critical success, but his fans were not sure what to make of the movie. It became a cult classic after released on video.

In 1996, after his starring role in “The Arnold Schwarzeneggar Story,” Hellwig decided to travel the world. While flying over the Australian Outback, his plane crashed. There were no survivors.

In 2003, Steve “The Hammer” Borden was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. In his acceptance speech, he thanked many people, including “my old partner, Blade Runner Rock, Jim Hellwig. Back in those days when we were running the back roads of Tennessee and Louisiana, we kept saying, ‘One of these days, we’ll look back at these times and be amazed we weren’t arrested.’ Without him, I wouldn’t be here today. I really miss him, and when I look around, I wish we had kept in touch after The Blade Runners broke up.”

THAT WAS RATHER ABRUPT

Yes, it was. But, let’s face it, life is one shocking thing after another. I mean, they can’t be all peaches and sunshine, can they?

Next time, I’ll leave the Blade Runners alone and ask the musical question, “Just S’pose Terry Bollea stayed with music.” See yunz then.