The Seventh Dimension 09.15.07: Reading Too Much Into Things

Duh-nuh-nuh duh-nuh-nuh duh-nuh-nuh-naaah!

My first job on this website was to vote Jay Lethal as the wrestler of the week, for his triumph over Kurt Angle for the TNA X-Division championship. Of course, new ECW champion CM Punk won by two points (~!), which was admittedly a lot closer than I anticipated as I thought he’d walk it, so I can feel pleased in that respect. However, I stand by my decision to pick Jay Lethal and I believe he should have won, and would have won if the X-division championship was still the centrepiece of TNA.

I chose him over CM Punk for two reasons. The first was that Punk had actually won his belt, and seen his win recognised, the previous week. It was old news, girlfriend, get with the program. The second was in the first line of the previous paragraph – because JAY LETHAL, the guy who dresses as Randy Savage and impersonates him, defeated KURT ANGLE for a title. Cleanly, as well.

If I need to elaborate further, I guess my shrewdness fails.

I truly think that many here in the IWC have become so cynical, so accustomed to disapproval and so desperate for a motive to complain if they can make it exist, that they’re failing to see what’s actually happening in front of them. As soon as Lethal became Black Machismo, everyone moaned that he was a comedy act. He promptly arose to the status of pretty much the face of the X-Division and eventually won the title from Chris Sabin. Bare that name in mind. The next night, he defended against Sabin and Samoa Joe in a triple-threat match, where the winner would team with Angle. We knew Joe was winning, but they made it a triple threat so Lethal wouldn’t have to take the pin. Still, this wasn’t good enough in the eyes of many of us, and Lethal was immediately deemed a jobber for losing his title to a man who everyone agrees shouldn’t be losing and gets annoyed when he does. I’m seeing a misstep in logic here. Finally, it culminates with Lethal beating Daniels for the X-title contendership – which I do take issue with since it deemed the enormous Ultimate X match an unmitigated waste of time – and taking the title from Kurt Angle, one of the industry‘s all-time greats already, on pay-per-view.

No matter which way you slice it, Lethal defeated Angle for a major title. There is absolutely nothing to complain about here, yet all I hear is that he shouldn’t have lost it in the first place. You’re clutching at straws if that’s what you believe. Seriously, the memory and the record of “Jay Lethal defeated Kurt Angle via pinfall” is monumental for him. The fact he won clean means that those of us lucky enough to witness it saw him win with no schmozz, no shenanigans, no complaints from Angle, nothing. He simply beat him. And not only that, but it was a paid broadcast. A pay-per-view match is, or at least should be, considered a ‘final’ of sorts. It’s the one you make a conscious effort to watch. It’s the one you were apparently willing to disburse money for. Of course television gets a bigger audience than pay-per-view, that’s normal. Because not everyone can or indeed wants to watch a show that costs a substantial amount of money and is often dissatisfying. But, for the 20,000 (roughly, I’m guessing) ardent fans that bought the event? They got Kurt Angle jobbing clean as a whistle to a deserving party.

Now, even if Lethal had once again lost the title on Impact! (and, admittedly, he did lose a non-title match to Christopher Daniels, but that was far more about getting Daniels‘s heat back which we‘ve all been yearning for in the last few months), those people who didn’t watch No Surrender but were concentrating on what was going on – i.e. that Lethal was challenging Angle – would put two-and-two together and realise “hey, Lethal beat Kurt Angle!” Even if they didn’t come to that conclusion, that they didn’t believe having not seen the show or heard what happened that Machismo beat Angle? Even if some people, mainly ‘marks’ I guess, came to the conclusion that “Lethal must have cheated or Angle made a mistake, KURT ANGLE OWNZ U”? Perception is irrelevant here, because the fact is that Lethal pinned Angle. Etched in stone. [biblical] Aah-aaah! [/biblical]

But, that brings me to another point, one that may not have been considered thus far because we all see things from the stance of the wrestling fan. Looking at things as both an objective body as well as from my own point of view as someone watching, I REALLY think too much was made of Lethal’s loss to Joe back in the day. For this next part, I am working under the assumption that non-fans occasionally hear results of matches, presumably from friends who are fans or by accident. I just thought I’d add that, so you don’t think I’m deluded into believing that wrestling matches are covered by the mainstream media in western society. I do, after all, own a television so I think I’d notice. ;o)

Let’s move on, then. When lay people hear or even talk about the results of matches, be they wrestling or otherwise, they don’t think about chokes and disqualifications. They just see the result. More importantly, very few people even notice these results unless it was a big match – the best example being a pay-per-view match, or a ‘final’. Here’s an example from a legitimate sport, in this case tennis. Anyone that didn’t see Gaston Gaudio of Argentina win the French Open three years ago may assume he simply won it and that was that. They might hear how he was unseeded for the tournament as well, and defeated his highly-favoured compatriot Guillermo Coria, the #3 seed and probably the best player on clay that season up until that point, in the final. This will, and does, lead the core belief for this match to be “the plucky underdog fights his way to the top”. This is even how it’s referred to by professional commentators citing it today – people who watched the damn match themselves.

The fact is, nothing could be further from the truth. Add another element to that, the scoreline. Gaudio won in five sets, in three-and-three-quarter hours, and the final score was this: 0-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, 8-6. This leads the same impartial observers to assume he made a brilliant recovery in the final from two sets down. In fact, his opponent Coria simply got nervous and made himself look like a hack. He lost the third set when the crowd got behind Gaudio and cheered him on to keep the match going. From then, he literally threw it away. He even had a 4-1 lead in the fifth set with two breaks. Yet, through his own lack of mental strength, Coria lost that match, and he’s never recovered from missing two match points on serve. That’s the crux of it, there. Gaudio didn’t win, Coria lost. But, the two go hand in hand and nobody asks any questions. Probably because nobody gives a crap about either of them anymore and Coria’s not even playing anymore. It’s all about that Jimmy Federer these days. Sorry, Roger.

The point is this – Jay Lethal didn’t lose to Samoa Joe, Samoa Joe won the match. That was the intention, the suberobjective to quote Stanislavski, of the match. It wasn’t to make Lethal look like a fool, it was simply a means to get Joe into the main event. For all their faults, TNA aren’t intentionally trying to make their champions look worthless. They just have a very different, perchance jaded, take on what is ‘innovative’, maybe partially due to the anticipation of a two-hour Impact! show. Sometimes they fail, like their constant jobbing of the Motor City Machine Guns which, given their popularity, is ludicrous no matter how much Ryan Byers defends it. But, in the case of Jay Lethal, he didn’t look like a fool. He did look like a pawn in the almighty Angle/Joe saga, but he was not disgraced. He was just overlooked, and at the time they had to overlook him and pretty much everyone else because they were so intent on their Match of Champions. Whether or not they should have booked that match in the first place is another matter, but they did and Lethal wasn’t a part of their plans at that time.

It’s not exclusive to wrestling, in all fairness. Anything can be under the automatic assumption of failure if the audience is pessimistic enough. Just look at all the occasions the England international football team (soccer~! ROTFLOL David Beckham) have had disheartening early exits from the World cup, or lost in qualifying matches. They could have had every man injured at the same time, four crooked referees, facing a team with fifty extra players and a water-jet stopping any of them from reaching the other end of the pitch. It wouldn’t matter, because so many would read the result and think “overpaid. Wankers. Always lose.” Even against Brazil, we would do this because it’s our way of getting noticed. I do think a lot of it is a slight ego-trip as well. It’s similar to when someone backs the most likely candidate because they can act smug when they’re correct. Many people moan in order to seem superior to those in charge, and make those who enjoyed the thing in question feel inferior. It’s the nature of the beast, and it’s sad to say that I am also guilty of this at times, as is everyone I know.

Anyway, back to wrestling. So, Jay Lethal has just pinned Kurt Angle, seven-time World Heavyweight Champion and also holder of the unofficial IWGP title, on the same night Angle later destroyed Abyss to retain his TNA World Title. I can see that there are many people saying “about time he got it back”, while some (few) have even had the audacity to claim rather that “Abyss has been buried” for losing to someone who’d already be pinned earlier that night. Well, I say bullshit to all of that because Jay Lethal won the motherfucking X-division Championship for the second time, he pinned Kurt Angle cleanly and there is no disputing the result. That’s currently all that matters in regards to him.

Need I remind you that Chris Sabin, the man Machismo first defeated for the X-title, was himself the victim of a loss the day after he’d won the belt at Bound for Glory? And he ate the pin as well, to AJ Styles. It’s easy to forget that because, in hindsight, Chris Sabin was a success when he got the belt back. I believe Jay Lethal will be the same, and his ‘loss’ (i.e. un-win) to Joe will soon be ancient history.

Compare that to CM Punk’s big win on free TV against an opponent he’d lost to four times, which we as fans also know he only won as the result of Morrison‘s suspension (albeit in a terrific match), and I‘m disappointed that anyone saw fit to give CM Punk the win this week. Because what Jay Lethal earned, or hopefully earned, was so much greater than simply winning a championship.

Jay Lethal earned vindication.

– So apparently wrestlers, or ‘sports entertainers’, are on steroids. That came out of nowhere, didn’t it? Almost like finding out Father Christmas hates you all over again. I plan on submitting a blog explaining my thoughts on it all in much more depth, kind of like the column that never was, but here’s a brief run-down of what it says in case I don’t get round to it or you can’t be bothered to read it – TV production is going to take a bigger hit than backstage ethics, Chavo Guerrero and Ken Kennedy are a waste of my precious oxygen, John Cena is tremendous and Vince is a mug. Which is fitting, since Batista probably had to drink from him in order to keep his j…are his lawyers present?

– Perhaps as a direct consequence to all this, it looks like Booker’s quit the WWE, and it‘s a shame. It sounds stupid, but I feel it’s compounded by the fact he was champion this time last year. If he had left when he was plain old Booker T, five-time WCW Champion, it would have been bad enough and many would have been disappointed that he never got his shot with a WWE World Title, me included. However, just last year (and how amazing is it to think this all happened in just a few short months?), Booker was transformed into KING Booker and became awesome again. He won that World Title, held it a lot longer than some of us dared to believe he might, and probably would have got it again this July due to Edge’s injury had he not just been drafted to Raw. It seems a lot harder knowing now what we’ll all be missing. I’m guessing Sharmelle will be off now as well. Good luck to them both.

– As of last week, Ric Flair wants to quit and I couldn’t care less. His stock is worthless now, he and Foley both suffer from the same disease where a win over them is supposed to be important based on their former glories. The problem with that is that neither Foley or Flair have beaten anyone lately apart from Carlito, against whom they’re both undefeated. Oh yes, and Flair beat Kenny Dykstra once as well. Whoop-de-do. Oh, and of course Flair beat Foley in a match that both men wanted to lose. Sorry guys, but you’ve both only got yourselves to blame for being insignificant in today‘s industry. The WWE and Ric Flair will each be better off without one another.

– Many people criticise TNA for making their match stipulations too complicated (Fight For Your Right tournament), that they have too many multi-man matches that even may hinder a feud as opposed to helping it (Doomsday Chamber of Blood), and that even if it’s a one-on-one environment it may be simply a new execution of an already terrible idea (Elevation X), or even worse a pointless way of furthering the animosity (Four-Corners Weapons or Escape Match).
– Well, decide for yourself. Kurt Angle and Abyss did have a regularly one-on-one match at No Surrender, in the main event no less. Angle won this match clean, which somehow led to a rematch on Impact!, which doesn’t make sense. Why doesn’t Abyss have to earn another one? The rematch clause is just lazy. But at least it was only on Impact!, so that’s acceptable I suppose. Anyway, they pretty much have a thrown-together rematch on free TV, and what type of match was it? Another one-fall-to-a-finish match? No DQ? 2/3 falls? No. It was a ‘Six Sides of Steel Retirement Submission Match’ which ended in a No-Contest, nullifying the qualification entirely. Can’t say fairer than that.

– Just to prove/imply that I’m not a hypocrite, I’ll give a mention to WWE’s crazy match booking as well. Triple H vs. Carlito in a ‘One Man Street Fight’, where only Carlito can use weapons. In terms of generating heat, I’m sure it made a lot of sense to whoever came up with it, and I know those World Title matches where the champion can lose the belt on a DQ often work well. But, from a purely literal standpoint, this is stupid beyond words. I’m hoping that they will work around it, have a referee bump or something that allows Triple H in (and really, when you’re hoping for a referee bump, it can’t be that strong an idea). Otherwise, we’re looking at a match where Triple H isn’t even allowed to counter a weapon shot in case it obstructs Carlito. He’ll simply need to evade the attacks. In most conceivable ways that I can think of, this proviso sucks a fat one and no mistake. But, we’ll see how the match itself goes.

– And finally, Vince McMahon’s illegitimate child was revealed on Raw this week. The program that was supposed to lead to Ken Kennedy becoming a major player had to find a new candidate. They provided us with a clue last week, as the inept actor playing the lawyer told ‘Mr McCaan’ that “Things are looking up”. This led to many theories about what this could mean. Some suggested it would be somebody tall like Khali, as you have to look up to him, or perhaps the opposite – a small guy who is the ‘things’ that are (is?) looking up. Others, and this is a recurring theme here, read too much into it. Me included, on that one. One theory suggested it would be a persistent loser, constantly “looking up” at the lights while on his back on the mat. Another, significantly more distasteful idea was that it was the new Hart Foundation – as many would have been “looking up” at Owen as he fell to his death in 1999 (which wasn’t the case, anyway). Meehan’s theory was airtight, though. He predicted Triple H as the family was “looking up” at the screen moments earlier while Triple H was on it. I must say, this was what convinced me.
– In the end, it was Hornswoggle because he was short. Oh, and he used to be called the ‘Little Bastard’. Well, the simplest notion is often the most likely. He’s now known as Dylan McMahon, and I’m pleased. I’m pleased that we’re not going to get an accidental incest storyline-ark between Triple H and Stephanie, I’m glad someone other than Trips is getting ‘the rub’, and I’m pleased that they haven’t inadvertently destroyed a serious career by giving it the eternal stigma of being Vince’s fake offspring. Dylan McMahon was already a comedy act, so he won’t be damaged from this. Far from it. Well done to him.

The Matter: My friend has been in a state of disarray for the last several years, but his melancholy ascended to new heights this week as one of his chickens was killed. A few days ago, he suddenly texted me on MSN to say “Damn it, we just lost Snowy.” I replied “What the fuck are you talking about?” You see, he never actually told me he had chickens before this happened, just as he didn’t tell me he was moving/on the brink of death/about to become a brother until after the events had taken place (or, in the case of being on the brink of death, he recovered). I’m kind of his back-up buddy for when he needs somewhere to stay, or someone to buy him food. But anyway, there’s still some ambiguity over how the chicken died, with speculation arising that perhaps his younger brother was responsible, or maybe a fox. All I can say is, as ingenuously as possible, that Snowy was the epicentre of all that is good and true with the world. He was a fowl like no other – classy, meticulous, understanding, and very sexually attractive. Not since the assassination of Ghandi has an entire people been so united. JFK, MLK, Diana, Mother Teresa…none of them compare. They are emotional excrement compared to the demise of this one, splendid capon. They are paltry to Snowy’s poultry. I would go as far as to say (more horrendous puns are on the horizon) that Snowy the chicken, a devout Roamin’ Cockalic, was the second-coming of Jeseggs Christ himself. No, no…
The Link: Snowy was a chicken who died in mysterious circumstances. The Benoit family was found dead in mysterious circumstances, later ruled as a double-murder/suicide, for which Chris Benoit was labelled a chicken who couldn’t face the music by some people. My friend is a musician. Also, Chris Benoit was Canadian. In the winter, and in fact all year long in some parts, Canada is really snowy. My friend’s chicken was called…SNOWY!!!1 It’s the resurrection of the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Close Encounters, Tales of the Unexpected, and Sid Eudy’s career all rolled into one! I’m a genius! Science! (That was a reference only a few readers would get, I feel. Probably only British ones, too.)

What was that? Did somebody say ‘Youtube’?!? **Pin drops on a cricket riding a tumbleweed**

Since this is my first column, I obviously don’t have any reader feedback. Therefore, I shall pad this out with a fun one-off, or what I assume to be a one-off. At least, doing a top five shall be. Perhaps I’ll include just the best one I see each week, but that’s if I even find enough time to visit Youtube when college starts and I finally get a job (telemarketing on the horizon? BOOK IT!). Some people I’ve asked don’t even think I should have applied for this column. But, to be honest, I’ve needed a reason for a good few months not to sleep for ten hours at a time. Last night I got about five hours sleep and actually feel pretty refreshed. At least I would have done, if I didn’t have a cold. But then, without the cold I wouldn’t be up all night struggling to breathe, so it’s swings and roundabouts.

Anyway…

Have you ever literally shaken your head at some of the fools who leave comments on Youtube videos? Seriously, they often ‘range’ from “LOL”, to “(whatever the name of the video is, and only that)”, to “(exactly what happened on the video)”, to “(a replica of the previous comment)”. And those are often the better ones. Sometimes, if it‘s a first comment, the poster will mix things up by writing “first comment”, not realising a ‘comment’ requires you to actually COMMENT. The ‘best’ observation I’ve seen on there was for a video of Sonic the Hedgehog. The comment read, and I shit you not, “Sonic”. That was it. It’s hard to argue with it, I guess. I won’t be including those, though. I will reserve this section only for comments that actually attempt to enlighten, or at the very least share an opinion. The reason I share most of these is because I disagree strongly with the opinion in question. Some of them are, to put it bluntly, ridiculous.

Also, on any future occasions I include this piece of the puzzle, I shall reference the user who wrote the comment and perhaps the video it was written for, but for this week I’m running on memory alone. Also, in future I will copy and paste the comment as it was written, but this week I shall be fair and type them up in standardised form as, once again, I’m running on the simple memory of having read these.

So, without further ado, I bring you…the Five stupidest Youtube comments I have ever seen thus far in the field of wrestling!

In ascending order…

5) “Scott Steiner is an embarrassment to TNA. He should have retired when he’d finished in WWE, at least then his career would have finished on a high. He’s ruining his legacy in TNA.”

So having one of his best singles matches ever with Samoa Joe, busting out Frankensteiners every which-way, generating the most entertaining and effective promos on a weekly basis, and becoming a hero almost due to having nearly been killed in Puerta Rico…is damaging the stellar reputation he earned stinking up the joint with Triple H on his debut and wrestling Test for no apparent reason. Well, it’s your acumen I guess. But it’s so very, very wrong.

4) “Shawn Michaels should have won (at Wrestlemania) because John Cena sucks.”

Not good enough, I’m afraid. If you’re unable to analyse why he sucks, then it’s a matter of “I don’t like Cena”, not “Cena sucks”. Cena isn’t the one with the problem in that situation. It was made even worse by the literally horrendous spelling and grammar he used throughout this single-sentence ‘contribution‘ (“should of”, “sux”, what age are we living in for crying out loud?). Even for a 13 year-old, it was atrocious. He was British as well, which I took so much pride in. Good grief.

3) “Christian, how could you do this? You had Sting‘s trust, you and Sting could have been a team, but you hit him with a chair didn‘t you? I hope you can sleep at night.”

This was for the Hard Justice 2006 main-event between Sting and Jarrett. I’ll look over the fact that, along with being lazily written, he actually wrote ‘hitted’ instead of ‘hit’, because literary skills aren’t necessarily indicative of somebody’s intelligence. What IS indicative of this person’s intelligence, or lack thereof, is the fact he’s taking it so seriously. Not only does he – like an astonishing amount of adult Youtube users – seemingly believe wrestling isn’t scripted, but he also seems to be under the impression that he’s part of it all. In his mind, he’s actually talking straight to Christian Cage, the dastardly felon who’s watching his evil plan come together once more, revelling in the pain suffered by all who witnessed it. I’d have loved for Cage to actually read the comment and play along, ask to do an angle where he was distressed at how he’d upset his fan, and claim to be a changed man…only to turn heel once again at the end of the night and send a hearty “Fuck you” to him. That would have reeked of awesomeness.

2) “Apparently Benoit held Nancy in the Crossface until she died, then put Daniel in the Crossface until he died, and then killed himself.”

Wow. Just, wow. You know, I’m not offended because you desecrated an entire family when they couldn’t respond, because I’ve made jokes about Benoit and all manner of fatalities. What really annoys me is the absence of any effort being put into this. Couldn’t you at the very least have come up with two different manners of death? You know, one for each of the persons that lost their life in that incident? For instance, that Chris Benoit gave Nancy a German Suplex through Daniel’s bedroom wall, crushing him to death under his mother’s cold, dead tits? If you’re going to be disrespectful, go the whole hog. No half-measures.

1) “Giant Gonzalez sucks because he is Khali.”

No, I’m not winding you up. Even worse was that he was not the only person to think that. But then, there are also those that believe Fake Kane was the Undertaker, and of course those who honestly thought Vince had died. On top of that, and I’m not even sure why I’m bothering to analyse this rubbish further other than to share my views on Khali, but here goes…say what you like about Khali’s limited talent, but he’s already head and shoulders above what Gonzalez was capable of. He’s got loads to learn, but he is learning, and more importantly I care about the guy. I know it’s not really fair for me to compare my attitude towards Khali with my attitude with Gonzalez, because I wasn’t watching when Gonzalez was wrestling, but it still means something to me.

And that concludes the first instalment of the Seventh Dimension. Thanks to Mr. Csonka for making all of this possible (though please, never call me ‘TJ Corke’ again. I wondered if it was a cruel way of getting me back for playfully calling you ‘Laz’ before). Now, I’m off to get hammered and contribute to my death as a means of celebrating my birth.

Next week, as long as I’m still here, I shall be discussing (groan) Chris Benoit, for the first and hopefully last time in my short career here. You might be surprised by what I have to say. Or you might not. Or you might not even read it. Pave your own pathway, junior. And don’t worry, I won’t be bringing tennis into it as far as I can see. Unless Radek Stepanek and Martina Hingis hold a suicide pact in the next few days.

Until then, adios m‘darlings!