When Worlds Collude

In 1994, World Championship Wrestling was a big name in pro-wrestling, if still looking up at the then-WWF. In fact, by late 1994 Ted Turner's baby was picking up steam, and a few big names from Connecticut as well, as the stage was set for what became the vaunted Monday Night Wars. It was the calm before the storm, as the wrestling business was struggling to find an identity in a changing marketscape.

And so it was that both the WWF and WCW were trying numerous things to stay ahead of the curve and the competition, having finally given up the ghost of the 'Rock 'n Wrestling' era about 3 years too late. Rising star Eric Bischoff (as opposed to 'I created the NWO and won't let go of it' Eric Bischoff) decided to go the cross-promotional route, and established a working relationship with upstart Mexican promotion AAA (possibly the dumbest acronym ever associated with wrestling). This resulted in the co-promotion and broadcasting of AAA's pay-per-view event, When Worlds Collide, on November 6, 1994. Not the legendary event it could have been, perhaps, but it was a big deal, and emblematic of the potential of Eric Bischoff. It wouldn't be long before WCW pulled ahead in the ratings, and for the first time in their history WWF was forced to acknowledge their competition, even going so far as to establish 'talent exchange' programs that brought in performers from ECW and Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountian Wrestling. AAA enjoyed a brief surge in success, but a variety of factors in its native Mexico forced them to give up a good number of talented performers… many of whom headed back over the border to work for Bischoff and Paul Heyman, comprising a large portion of WCW's great cruiserweight division, and bringing authentic lucha libre action to the varied and chaotic ECW product.

20 years later, the landscape of professional wrestling is much different. WCW is long gone, having collapsed under its own weight in 2000, its legacy owned, and distorted, by WWE, it's imprint on the business fading fast. While WCW was the #2 company in 1994, and a strong #2 at that, that honor now belongs to Antonio Inoki's New Japan Pro Wrestling. On January 4, 2015 at the Tokyo Dome, NJPW will present Wrestle Kingdom, Japan's Wrestlemania, and for the first time a Japanese PPV will be brought to fans in States, thanks to the globetrotting exploits of second generation performer and promoter Jeff Jarrett. Double J's Global Force Wrestling is presenting the broadcast, and to sweeten the deal they've brought in the greatest living wrestling announcer, and in the minds of many, many fans the greatest ever, good old JR, Jim Ross.

So what does this mean? What does this say about the state of the industry now versus back in 1994?

Well… not a whole lot, really. But it's been so long since we had a foreign PPV event brought to the US like this, the differences are really what makes the comparison worthwhile. When Worlds Collide was something of a shot in the dark for WCW, while being a no-brainer for AAA. Jeff Jarrett has already tried going up against WWE; the saga of TNA/Impact Wrestling continues, stumblingly, without him. GFW is a new idea, or perhaps an old idea reworked for today's market. Cross-promotional supercards were a a rare but guaranteed draw back in the territory days; rivalries and backbiting in the seedy world of promoters made the logistics impossible most of the time, but the fans would turn up if they could get the damn shows together. As the business expanded into the 80's, a corporate structure replaced the territory system and WWF began swallowing up the competition, and the NWA was forced to band together to keep alive, leading to the formation of WCW. Currently, the big-business model of promotion has left things stale, and it's impossible to expect anybody to rival WWE, or even come close, by mimicing that business model.

So Jarrett and the GWF have gone back to the territories, so to speak. Today the whole world is fair game, and Jarrett is establishing relationships with promotions in every wrestling hotspot in the world. NJPW is the big one, of course, but if this all goes well we cold be seeing something unfold that combines the NWA-style confederation of promoters with a singular brand delivering their content.

Who wouldn't want to see, just for the sake of argument, the top guys in South Africa, Australia, Germany, Ireland, and Japan face off in an international tournament? Globespanning tag teams? Or maybe just the best matches from all the worldwide partners? A chance for U.S. wrestling fans, who have been stuck with only one style of wrestling for a decade and a half, to see how it's done the world over?

Sounds good to me. Now if only the PPV wasn't at 2 a.m. Ahahaha!

Hurtsville Hall of Fame Hullabaloo... and things without the letter H

Again the cognitive limitations of mortal Man are again dragged, mewling and bloody, into the violet dawn of Hurtsvillian scrutiny. You see, the ballot for the 2015 Hall of Fame has been released, and my preternatural skills of pattern recognition reveal to me that, as is typical, it will be grossly mishandled. Breaking character somewhat, I, The Foiler (ahaha and all that) will expend just the tiniest effort as a gift to you unfortunate, contemptible vermin, in the interests of seeing something done right. Here’s the straight dope on all the new names on the ballot, and a few opinions (or as we call them in Hurtsville, undeniable cosmic truths). The following contest will be scheduled for one fall!

The New Hotness:

Pedro Martinez- One of the few so good he only has to have a first name, Pedro at his best is arguably the most unhittable (the least hittable? Doesn’t sound as good) righty in the last 40 years. He was historically dominant during his peak years, and those just happened to coincide with the biggest offensive seasons in baseball history, giving him a case for some of the best individual seasons ever, era-adjusted or no. Doesn’t have a gaudy win total, but Wins are a misleading stat and Pedro is the man, end of story.

Nomar Garciaparra- Fondly remembered by Jimmy Fallon and Boston fans as the guy they staked all their hopes to before injuries robbed him of his swing, Nomar was the face of the Red Sox until he was traded to the Dodgers mid-2004, leading to the best 10-year run in franchise history. Not a HOFer.

John Smoltz- I wonder if/how is status as part 3 of the pitching Cerberus that was the Atlanta Braves, along with Maddux and Glavine (who were inducted last year) will impact the votes. There will be some who won’t accept 3 members of the same pitching rotation all getting elected. John Smoltz was a very good starter, excelled in the bullpen upon his return from TJ surgery (unlike the ‘you suck at pitching, now you’re a reliever’ story most guys play out), and made a successful return to the rotation, which is unprecedented in modern ball. I think Smoltzie showed not only raw ability but adaptability and dedication to his craft in a way few other pitchers have been in a position to. I also think he has an ERA+ of 125, which is just a hair behind returning (and deserving) candidate Curt Schilling’s 127. For perspective, Greg Maddux has an ERA+ of 132, while Tom Glavine has an ERA+ of 118. Hmm.

Rich Aurilia- A decent hitter for a shortstop, Rich Aurilia had a good year in 2001 at the plate and also has no chance of making the Hall of Fame.

Carlos Delgado- I’m a fan, but Delgado doesn’t have the milestone numbers to impress the old-schoolers, and an in-depth analysis doesn’t change the story much. Delgado was very good, a difference maker in the lineups of several teams, but he’d need 3-4 more big years to really be in the conversation.

Gary Sheffield- He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but he knew what he was doing on the field (even if it was playing badly to force a trade). PR issues, a big mouth, and suspicions about his off-field behavior and clubhouse presence won’t help him either, but I think he will make it in eventually. It will be a crime if he makes it in before Piazza or Bonds, though.

Troy Percival- I love this guy’s name. I also believe saves are a dumb statistic. Percival was a top-tier guy in his role, but it’s probably not enough if Lee Smith still hasn’t made it and John Franco is off the ballot already. The ERA+ of 146 is the highest among any of the other first-time candidates this year, and would be pretty high among the very few relievers to make the Hall. He could very well miss the minimum to appear again, but I’d be interested to see how he looks next year when comparisons to Trevor Hoffman begin.

Aaron Boone- Barely making the service time requirement, Boone had one big moment in an unremarkable career and is very much 2003’s Bucky Dent (or Chris Chambliss, depending on who you’d prefer to insult). If you look at Aaron Boone’s Wikipedia page, the picture they have will make you want to punch him.

Randy Johnson- Not even worth the effort to type out the numbers, the guy was just brilliant for about ¾ of an impressive and lengthy career. Without question the greatest body of work for a lefty starting pitcher. Please shut up about Sandy Koufax. Nicknamed The Big Unit because of his enormous penis, which helped him generate all that torque when he brought his back leg around.

Tony Clark- A switch-hitting first basemen with fewer than 1,000 RBI does not make the Hall of Fame. Also, it never helps to play for the Padres.

Jermaine Dye- A guy with tremendous talent, bad luck, and a streaky career. Despite a lot of missed time, Dye flashed some impressive power and a cannon arm in the outfield, playing a huge part of the White Sox’ championship run in 2005. We’d be having a different conversation if Dye had reached his potential a little bit earlier and didn’t destroy his leg in 2003 with Oakland, but it is what it is, and Dye isn’t a HOFer.

Darin Erstad- Had ‘heart’ and ‘guts’ and ‘knew how to win’, despite not doing all that much of it. Hacky sports analysts like that he was a punter in college. I do not. Darin Erstad’s greatest contribution Major League Baseball is giving the Fire Joe Morgan guys an early target (though he was surpassed in undeserved praise by FJM favorite David Eckstein in short order).

Cliff Floyd- Another guy who couldn’t stay on the field, Cliff Floyd averaged only 95 games per season. Solid at the dish and in the field, Floyd was by all accounts a welcome presence in the clubhouse, where he encouraged his teammates to play while he dealt with yet another injury. He played for the Expos, and will be one of the last former Expos to appear on the ballots (although Tim Raines is still on there). Fun fact: before they became the Washington Nationals, the Montreal Expos (located in Canada) was the only MLB club to wear red, white, and blue.

Brian Giles- Not to be confused with the other Brian Giles, more-recent Brian Giles was a good ballplayer, not great, who will not be appearing on any ballots this year, and probably none in the years to come.

Tom Gordon- They called him Flash Gordon, which is pretty cool. A young sensation for the Royals, Gordon was a lopsided pitcher, with plenty of K’s and an ERA that went from Minnie Minoso to Mo Vaughn pretty quickly. He converted to relief and had a dominant stretch as a closer, but he’s nowhere near the level needed to even get a second look. As is typical, closers are overvalued while relievers are, in broad terms, largely overlooked.

Eddie Guardado- Pitching for 6 teams, Eddie Guardado is notable for 2 things: sticking around long enough to be on this list, and being confused with tragic wrestling superstar Eddie Guerrero during barroom discussions.

Jason Schmidt- A pretty good pitcher for a little while. Honestly, I thought this guy was an infielder until I fact-checked him. That says it all.

Hurtsville Critter Spotlight vol. 2 - The Articulated Python

Welcome to Volume 2 of the Hurtsville Critter Spotlight! Continuing our educational unnature series, it's time to meet one of the premier reptiles in the greater Hurtsville area, the Articulated Python (Pythonidae Articulata).

As the name implies, the Articulated Python is very definitely a snake. A constrictor, the Articulated Python has a typical range of 10 to 16 feet in length and a weight range of 175-250 pounds, large for a snake but far from record-setting. The scale pattern generally features stripes along the back in shades of brown and green, with a lighter brown underbelly.

Unsurprisingly, Hurtsville's Articulated Python sports some characteristics uncommon to the family. The name comes from this serpent's unusual skeletal structure; unlike other snakes, the Articulated Python's spinal vertebrae are composed of a nigh-impossible series of ball-and-socket joints connected by locking hinges, allowing this highly-effective predator to bend itself into many shapes for camouflage and self-amusement purposes. Reports of these snakes posing as staircases, railings, and semi-truck chassis are common enough, and younger individuals have been known to impersonate umbrellas, ratchets, tennis racquets, street signs, and in one famous instance, an entire functioning wheelchair. Much like that Super-Poseable Spider-Man that you made finger its own butt while standing on one foot and curling his toes in the throes of ecstasy, the Hurtsvillian Articulated Python's depravity is only limited by its imagination.

Spending most of its time in the Hurtsville foothills, the Articulated Python generaly subsists on a diet of badgers, deer, tortoises, LARPers, spare tires, and people who like to debate the acuracy of the term 'hobby shop'.

Hurtsville Critter Spotlight vol. 1 - The Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear!

The Glorious Nation of Hurtsville is home to a variety of indigenous creatures, some unique, and some twisted, mutant kinfolk to creatures in the outside lands. In this series, we'll be giving you puny, worthless outsiders a glimpse into Hurtsville's preternatural ecosystem, with each installment spotlighting one of our many unusual and bloodthirsty organisms. Please note that all living things in Hurtsville are carnivorous, including the plants.

Today we take a look at... the Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear (Ursus Maleficarum)!

Visually similar to its more common and less mystical brethren, the Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear is similar in appearance to an over-sized American Black Bear, but with a distinctive purple bandanna tied around its head, Ninja Turtle-style, and the occasional bandolier of edged throwing weapons. Typically weighing between 500 and 700 pounds and averaging between 35 and 50 inches at shoulder height, the Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear is surprisingly agile for such a sizable creature. Atypical of other related species, the Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear walks bipedally, and has been known to ride unicycles unironically.

Sightings rarely leave survivors, but some recovered security footage has been pieced together showing a crack squadron of Hurtsvillian Stealth Bears executing a series of brutal maul-and-grab-and-then-maul-again robberies throughout the countryside and even within Hurtsville city limits. Unlike their cousins, Hurtsvillian Stealth Bears are primarily urban-dwelling predators, operating out of an unknown number of hidden locations which are presumably well-stocked with salmon. They are reported to excel at hiding behind shrubs, telephone poles, and other tall, narrow objects generally not suited for such purposes. 

An Introduction to Hurtsville – The Glorious Nation Welcomes* You!

If you’re reading this, congratulations! You are about to embark on a journey of wonder, discovery, and unbelievable psychological and physical trauma as you explore the unnatural beauty and primordial evil of the Glorious Nation of Hurtsville. Let’s get a few basics out of the way, so that Hurtsville might better insinuate itself into the very core of your being, using you as a host to spread its seeds into the world of Man in inefficient but deliciously subversive and violating fashion.

Well then.

Hurtsville. Where is it? What is it? The answer is, of course, convoluted. Hurtsville is a pandimensional city-state, a bustling metropolis under the tyrannical rule of The Foiler. Like your typical mystical settlement, Hurtsville is unreachable by conventional means, and the whirling mists that make up its barriers can only be traversed, or even seen, if The Foiler expressly wills it to be so.

Currently on the lam in central Indiana, the Glorious Nation of Hurtsville is quite mobile, although there are quite a lot of winches and intricate systems of pulleys involved in transporting a vaguely-sized city, its inhabitants, building, infrastructure, and the surrounding lands from one realm to the next. Hurtsville is also something of a contradiction, hosting specialized technology far advanced than that in use by lesser beings, particularly non-Hurtsvillian humans, but at the same time lacking the associated modern cancers of society like ‘democracy’, ‘equality’ and ‘human rights’.

Trade relations in Hurtsville contribute favorably to our eternal surplus of wealth; in addition to interdimensional trade of goods and services, Hurtsville has a veritable monopoly on shipping with a number of other worlds, many of which are populated by tentacled monstrosities and/or societies based around mid-20^th century character archetypes. Hurtsville is also home to the Quaker Meats Company, the universe’s unrivalled leader in questionable canned foodstuffs.

The population generally falls between 65,535 and 999,999, although it can vary quite a bit depending on just where Hurtsville materializes and what may or may not be considered sentient life in said location; as we will cover further in our upcoming series on the flora and fauna of Hurtsville, there are quite a few chatty Cathys in this most unique of lands, and not all of them are bipedal.

Public transportation is the main method of commute in Hurtsville, consisting mainly of a rapid-transit trolley line and a series of strategically-oriented catapults. Automobiles are rare, as the streets of Hurtsville are as narrow as a medieval village owing to our strict policy of having as many alleyways as possible.

Government in the Glorious Nation of Hurtsville is a pretty straightforward affair, a welcome contrast to the veiled corruption and indolent bureaucracy found in the world of Man. The Foiler acts as tyrannical dictator, as well as the creator and founder of the land. While he (really, ‘it’) employs a veritable army of administrators and legislators, The Foiler is the only voice of authority in the Glorious Nation, ruling by his whim and the fact that his nigh-infinite power can easily transform any dissenters into a plate of eggplant rollatini. Despite appearances, the citizens of Hurtsville enjoy the highest quality of life, if not the longest actual lifespans. The Foiler, being of primordial darkness that he is, has no vices he cannot sate through his own power, and seems to consider government as something akin to a strategy game.

Foiler Fact: the ‘do not disturb’ sign on The Foiler’s office reads ‘reticulating splines’.

This is all just scratching the surface of the rich and brutal history of the Glorious Nation of Hurtsville. Stay tuned for further installments, and be sure to send your questions and topic requests. I am quite literally required to answer, lest my skin be removed and made into a sporty windbreaker, so feel free!

-Kip Casper, Semi-Official Hurtsville Minister of Records and Barista

*usage of verbs, nouns, and/or adjectives subject to interpretation by The Foiler

chugga chugga

It's coming. Ahahahaha!