Author! Author!

Finally started work this weekend on the Letters From A Nut book (well, I'll have to call it something else). Should be really cool by the time I'm done with it, whenever that is...

Book Review - "The Mouth Of The South", The Jimmy Hart Story

Let me just start by saying that Jimmy Hart was one of my favorite managers growing up. Really, when you think about it, he has to probably rank up there with Heenan, Heyman and Cornette in terms of the energy he brought to matches, name recognition and working with some of the biggest names of all time.

So I really thought I'd enjoy this book, but with all due respect, it's one of my least-favorite wrestling biographies that I've read so far (and I've probably at least skimmed through most of them on the market).

The first thing that caught me was the timeline for this book. It was published last year, yet he starts the biography sometime in 2000 when he was orchestrating those "DJ Challenges" in WCW. So fine, I figure, perhaps he'd just been shopping this around for a long time and it hadn't been updated since. That's certainly an acceptable reason. Yet, halfway through the book he refers to WWE (which didn't make its debut until 2002, I believe) , which he alternates with the name WWF repeatedly, and the deaths of Crash Holly and Curt Hennig (2003). And in the photo section, he has pictures that were clearly taken at last year's WrestleMania XX.

The other thing that bugs me is that there are SEVERAL spelling and factual errors. I'm complained about this before, and I know that in most wrestling bios, there's at least one or two facts that aren't entirely correct. Maybe he didn't know how to spell "Arnold Skorlind" or "Sherri Martell". But certainly he should know that he DIDN'T manage Smash and Crush to the tag team championship (he may have been in the corner for a match against the Hart Foundation, but Demolition had already won the tag titles by then, and at that... it wasn't even the Smash and Crush version!). And that the song he wrote for Honky Tonk Man was NOT called "Hunka Hunka Honky Tonk Man". It's called a proofreader, Jimmy; get one.

Beyond that, I can't say there's a lot of new information in there. A lot of the crazy Memphis angle he was involved in were covered off in Jerry Lawler's book, released something two years ago. Maybe that's not Jimmy's fault -- I mean, they're his stories too -- but when that's a good 80 percent of his book, the stories should at least be slightly different.

Were there any good points to the book? Hmmmm.... I mean, I agree with some of booking philosophies, but otherwise.... no. And he really does seem like a decent, loyal guy. He doesn't have to make up shit like Piper and Hogan did in their novels about how great he is. And he doesn't knock people he has heat with, like Flair and Foley do. So I guess that's only the redeeming quality.

Definitely not on my recommended list.

The Bulldog World Tour Continues...

Off to Halifax, Nova Scotia this evening, where I'll be for about a week. Hopefully, this trip will go smoother than last week's journey....

New DVD Reviews

Mini-reviews of 3PW, ROH, FMW and UPW discs right here.

No Way Out Thoughts

Well, let's see...

JBL vs. Big Show

VERY creative ending which didn't hurt Show and if anything, helped JBL carve out his reputation as a sneak. The Batista stuff was as expected, and fine besides. Easily the best match on the show, not that that's really saying much...

John Cena vs. Kurt Angle

Definitely a little underwhelming. Angle has just been slowly deteriorating while Cena's still not at "that level" yet. Not a terrible match, but a little on the long side.

Undertaker vs. Luther Reigns

A terrible match that was a little on the long side. Was he just kind of waiting for SHNITSKY and Heidenreich to attack at the end or something?

Chavo vs. London vs. Misc.

Not a bad match. Hey, I admit I haven't watched Velocity in ages, but when did Shannon Moore become the lovechild of HBK and The Red Rooster? It's one thing to be a Matt Hardy follower, but Jeff Hardy? Anyways, London showed his stuff and hopefully, this sets up for a match at Mania (well, Heat at Mania).

Booker T vs. Heidenreich

I have no problem building Heidenreich up a little bit, but was that really their best attempt to do so? I mean, what the hell?

Eddie & Rey vs. Bashams

Nothing special at all, considering my two favorite SmackDown guys were involved. Are they going to still do the turn, or what? And if not, what happens at Mania. Eddie and Rey against Luther and Jindrak??

Overall, a pretty terrible show, even by SmackDown's lofty standards. Especially because going it, the show sounded pretty cool....

Book Review - WWE's "Are We There Yet?"

I hadn't even heard of this book until I saw it tucked away on a Borders bookshelf during my recent "Flights from hell". But this was just released a few weeks ago, apparently, to very little fanfare. And I've got to tell you -- it's not bad.

The book (very short, I should say up front, at only 200-odd paperback pages) is a collection of crazy road stories, ribs and that sort of thing, written by (mostly) current WWE guys. Most of them are short and two the point, a couple are extended tales. For the most part, they're little bite-sized antecdotes that, with the exception of three or four, I'd never heard elsewhere before.

Surprisingly, some of the funniest stories come from guys like Triple H, Coach, Paul Heyman and Mark Henry. Randy Orton's is good, too, but only because it fits the stereotype we have of him to a T. The section on ribs is, obviously, the funniest part of the book. Most of these ribs are of the harmless kind, unlike the ones Piper and Flair describe in their books. But they're still worth reading.

Anyways, I'd definitely recommend picking this one up if for nothing more than a light read.

Ring of Honor

I'd seen exactly one Ring of Honor video before yesterday night, and it was one of their earlier events (to be profiled in an upcoming review on OO). I was very impressed, but was curious to see how the tiny, workrate-focused promotion had evolved over the years.

I found out last night. In a word: wow.

I have to give major props to Gumgod's Derek Burgan for sending me a copy of "Final Battle 2004" as well as an (autographed!) shoot interview with Sensational Sherri. Now, I haven't been able to watch through the entire ROH video (time constraints) but the first two hours or so were extremely impressive. Granted, the video quality isn't even on a TNA level or anything, but for up-and-coming guys, THIS is the pony to bet on.

My favorite moment (so far; I've been told the main event is a must-see) was a verbal confrontation between Mick Foley and Rick Steamboat, who at this time was just hired by WWE. Foley takes several shots at WWE's talent (including Heidenreich, SHNITSKY, Luther Reigns and Chris Benoit???) and even kind of apologizes for being punched in the face backstage by Ric Flair at a recent Raw. Just surreal stuff. Steamboat, for his part, is pretty quiet and doesn't say much of note. But nonetheless a classy guy for (A) helping out ROH as much as he had and (B) pushing the talent on his way out of the company, which clearly he didn't have to do.

Looking forward to the main event (as well as the Sherri interview; I'll bet she mentions my prank to her at least three or four times!). Anyways, I'd HIGHLY recommend what I've seen of Final Battle 2004 so far.

No, THIS was the flight from hell!

Hey, everyone. Arrived back in Toronto this morning from what was supposed to be a routine, 24 hour business trip. Where to begin?

Thursday night -- as I'm heading off for the airport, I'm involved in a screaming match with the powers-that-be at work. I won't get into all the details, but I was extremely pissed off by the end of it all, and I let them know.

I was headed to Portland, Maine via Toronto then Detroit, starting at 6 p.m. Or so I thought. There I was roughly a ninety-minute delay from Toronto for reasons that were unclear to me. My connecting flight was supposed to be at 8:50, so I was quite panicked. We arrived in Detroit at 8:40, and immediately I went to a ticket counter and asked them if they could call my gate to hold the flight. They said there were no guarantees, but they did call ahead.

Little did I know that the gates were, like, football fields apart. Detroit seems like a HUGE airport. I was soaked in sweat by the time I got to the proper gate. They give me this whole speech about how they weren't supposed to let me on the plane, blah blah blah, but they'd get me on. So great, I'm very thankful, slip onto the plane and everyone's in a bad mood. At first I thought they were pissed at me because I held everything up. But no, there was ANOTHER DELAY in Detroit. And this was, I'm going to say, about two hours. Two hours in one of these little 30 or 40 set jets, people muttering and sighing loudly, the sweat still sticking to me and the temperature turned waaaaaay the hell up. It wasn't a pleasant flight at all. Lucky for me I had the foresight to bring a portable DVD player with, and watched a good chunk of a South Park disc before the batteries died.

So I arrived in Portland, it was past 1 a.m. I am STARVING by this point (didn't get to stop for dinner, and neither flight had anything to serve except pretzel sticks because they were both "short flights". Thankfully, my hotel was only eight minutes from the airport, and the nice folks at the Sheraton had upgraded me to a suite, which I would have enjoyed immensely had I not had to wake up in less than five hours. So I gave up on finding something to eat and tried to salvage forty winks or so.

The next morning went quite well. I felt I accomplished my goals for covering the event, made some good contacts and even landed interviews with all the people on my wish list. I considered it to be a success and even broke some news, but those powers-that-be at work were less enthusiastic. So I was pissed off again. REALLY pissed this time.

Now, stupidly, I didn't take my laptop with, which meant searching in hotels and shopping malls in Portland for Internet kiosks to send messages to my work. I found a couple, and all them failed to work properly. It was a comedy of errors, for sure.

By five, I headed back to the airport for a 6 p.m. flight. This one was only delayed by only 30 minutes, which gave me more than an hour at the Philadelphia airport for my connecting flight (I had a choice to be flown through Washington or Philly on the way back; I don't know why I chose Philly. It was just an airport. Did I expect to see people being thrown through tables or something? I don't know).

It was a bad decision because... you guessed it - another delay! This one was more than two hours, without ANY explanation from the ground crew, flight crew, whatever. So instead of being home by 11:30, I ended up getting in a few minutes before 2 a.m.

Argh... I feel like shit now and still have some work to do before leaving for Halifax again this week. I am so exhausted now...

Latest ITR

If you thought you knew Brock Lesnar's whole story, guess again. If you thought you had the No Way Out PPV figured out, guess again. If you thought you'd seen all the WM21 movie spoofs there are to see, guess again. The Canadian Bulldog is here to set you straight!

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Gimmick Man Strikes Again!!!

In his groundbreaking article on the NHL lockout, intrepid reporter Matt Bishop writes:

Now, if you're still reading this: Thanks for the compliment - that either means you're a huge hockey fan or you're bored. But back to business.

Coming up next week: "Best slam dunk ever. EVER!!!"

Downtime

Hey, folks. Just a heads-up that I'm probably not going to be doing too much writing over the next few weeks. Travelling on business to Portland, Maine later this week and then a week later to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in between arguably the two busiest work weeks of my year.... so aside from this coming Thursday's ITR (already written), I can't imagine writing or blogging all that much more.

New DVD Ideas for WWE

I did this about a year ago and with the notable exception of Jericho, WWE has definitely answered my DVD wishlist. Watching the better-than-expected RVD disc last week got me thinking of some ideas:

Chris Jericho: I am SHOCKED that they haven't done something like this yet. Surely, if John Cena and Rob Van Dam can get DVD's going, then Y2J is overdue. I don't enough of his ECW work to make any suggestions, but from WCW you could do matches against Syxx, Rey Mysterio (I'd like to see the one where he gets unmasked, but I doubt WWE would allow it), Juventud Guerrera (same thing), Dean Malenko, Saturn, etc. Then from WWF/WWE, as I mentioned last year: the Last Man Standing match with Triple H, any number of matches with Benoit and Angle, his match against Hogan and the TLC matches where he teamed with Benoit and then Christian. Add to that his ladder match with Christian from 2004, some Fozzy footage and his introductory WWF promo, and you've got a surefire winner.

Kurt Angle: Sure, he had a commercial videotape several years back, but that was really before his star took off. Although they're be a wholllllle lotta blurring going on (due to Kurt's debut during the WWF attitude era), it would still be worth it. Just a few suggestions off the top of my head: his triple threat match with Jericho and Benoit at WrestleMania; the Royal Rumble match against Triple H; virtually ANYTHING from his 2001 run with Stone Cold Steve Austin; something with Chris Benoit that isn't the 2003 Royal Rumble match (because that's already on Benoit's DVD); his SummerSlam match against Rey Mysterio; his PPV win over Hogan... the list goes on and on. Throw in an hour or two of old Confidential vignettes, a handful of goofy backstage skits (or pre-match promos in the ring) and there you go.

The Big Show: While this concept would have been laughed out the door a year ago (and may still now), I think it's time to strike while the iron is hot. From WCW you could use the Hallowe'en Havoc match with Hogan (although... leave off the monster truck stuff, please); perhaps his title-winning bout against Ric Flair; the botched power-bomb match with Nash and perhaps something with Sting. Then from WWE, you could use the triple threat match from Survivor Series (where he wins the belt against Rock and Triple H); his match as "Showster" against Kurt Angle (I think that was Fully Loaded?); one or two of his Brock Lesnar matches over the years and the Angle match from last year. You have tons of ready-made extra vignettes (granted; they all make Show look like an idiot, from the Boss Man angle to last year's scaffold nonsense), et cetera. In any event, I think such a release is long overdue.

Ultimate Ric Flair Collection, Volume Two: Why the hell not? You're telling me there isn't enough A-level footage to fill a few more discs? And the earlier version was, what, the third best selling DVD they've ever had? It's not one that's long overdue or anything, but would definitely sell a few copies...

The Best of Randy Orton: Just kidding.

Arrested Development Line Of The Night

"THE NUTS!"

Which, admittedly, wouldn't make any sense unless you just watched the episode. But Martin Short was absolutely fantastic in his all-too-brief appearance as Uncle Jack. In fact, this is possibly one of the strongest AD shows I've seen in a while; definitely the best of this season. I can't wait where these latest developments go....

Unusual Valentine's Day Contest...

For you last-minute romantics out there.... order a pizza and win a diamond ring!
(I'm guessing this applies to Ontarians only)

Almost Famous

It seems as though EVERYONE is borrowing the tried and true Canadian Bulldog standard of borderline-journalism these days.

Want proof? Here's an article from Matt "Gimmick Man" Bishop at MSU's State News, which is (now) my favorite news source for college basketball:

Excerpt:
MSU will be the handle, the Wolverines will be the mop. The handle will wipe the floor with the mop. Bank on it!!!

Gimmick, I say this in all sincerity: THANKS FOR THE COMPLIMENT!!!

R-V-D D-V-D

Picked this up yesterday and, honestly, I didn't think I would be overly impressed. RVD is not a wrestler I dislike or anything, he's just never been my favorite. Has some fantastic moves, but I'd always thought he couldn't really carry a match on that alone. I'd seen a handful of his ECW stuff, but obviously not the right stuff.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised. I've only watched the first disc so far, and three of the matches (one Vs. Sabu and two of the Jerry Lynn matches) were among the best things I've seen in ages. I mean, not as good as, say, the pair of Benoit-HHH-Michaels matches in 2004, but maybe only a notch or two below that. BY FAR the best ECW stuff I've ever seen.

Anyways, the "story" portion of this disc is barely existent (kind of like the Flair or Michaels DVD's; I prefer the Benoit or Mysterio-type DVD's, where they have the full story and THEN the matches. It's just random comments by RVD about various feuds and opponents. It would have been nice to hear from other people as well (and theoretically, its possible that some of that will end up on Disc 2). He does manage to verbally put over Sabu quite a bit.

In short, the DVD has so far exceeded my expectations. Those three matches alone (and there's some other decent stuff on here as well) are worth the purchase price alone.

Updated 2/12/05: Disc 2 wasn't too shabby, either. I remembered the InVasion match vs. Jeff Hardy as being a good one, but I didn't remember the King of the Ring vs. Chris Jericho being as decent as it was... The extras here are okay, though nothing outstanding. Mostly rejects from WWE Confidential or something. An interesting pairing for commentary: RVD and Paul Heyman for a loooong-ass match with Balls Mahoney. Again - this is definitely worth getting, although the first disc is far more interesting.

Latest ITR - Retro Edition!

Randy to the Rescue

Have you ever asked yourself: "Self, what would happen if Evolution could be converted into cartoon form, and then placed in a time machine to become characters on the not-even-remotely awful Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection?"... if you have, well, you're wasting your time! Because this has already happened, and it's been documented for nigh on 2 decades! Although intrepid reporter The Canadian Bulldog can't be here with a fresh column this week, he thought you'd enjoy one he wrote 19 years ago, including a recap Evolution's (cartoon) invasion from the future and a whole lot more. Check it out in a retro edition of Inside the Ropes.

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New T-Shirt

Thanks to BullBLOG reader and fellow Ontarian Static for the following AWESOME T-Shirt idea.

101 Reasons Not To Become A Wrestler

Just heard about this documentary, coming out at one point this year. I'd highly recommend watching this trailer... it sounds like a really interesting documentary. Perhaps with a very limited appeal, but nonetheless, you HAVE to check out the Sean O' Haire and Diamond Dallas Page comments, too funny...

I'm excited to see whether they can accurately answer the question of why wrestling is in such a bad state right now, or if it's just two hours of DDP and Konnan bitching.

Complaint Of The Day

I receive, by conservative estimates, a good 30 e-mails a day (between work and personal e-mail addresses) that all start with a ridiculous message header like "snoozin'" or "coffeecup", and then the following message:

a'cÏalìs
''l'i'n'k
euu.gfvcdnnnr.com

I swear the message is the same every time. Now, I UNDERSTAND that this is just spam, but why would people waste time on an approach like this? "Hmm, we didn't manage to snare him last time with the title r elaX, maybe we should try sUgar, nOw, or something even more obscure.

Is the multi-billion dollar cialis (or should I say cÏalìs) industry so desperate for my business that they think this has even a remote chance of working? Will it work on ANYONE? You guys ever consider a Super Bowl ad or something? Granted, it would be expensive, but I'd bet at least people would PAY ATTENTION to it.

Geez....

Useless Link Of The Day

No, I have no idea what prompted this.

Latest ITR

With early raves for the "Eugene Gump" WM21 ad, you KNOW that WWE has more movie parodies waiting for us. But why wait till WWE debuts them? Canadian Bulldog has already seen 'em, including a Snitsky/Heidenreich moment that will bring tears to your eyes. Enjoy.

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Useless Link Of The Day

Backstage demands of famous musicians

New DVD Review

Andre The Giant

Let me know what you think...

Useless Link Of The Day

The truth is out there...

Guide To Guys movie

It pains me to say this, but these clips from Dave Barry's new movie are just... horrible. As in, I can't believe this is actually going to be a movie. Even a straight-to-video movie; it's just that bad.

Please don't get me wrong -- Dave Barry is a fantastic humorist; I proudly own almost all of his books. And the actual Guide to Guys book is one I would highly, HIGHLY recommend for plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

But this film looks like... essentially a group of untalented actors more or less reading the book. Ugh. I can't imagine a more uninspired transcription of the written word, judging from these three clips.

Now, perhaps this movie will end up surprising me. But I highly doubt it.