Well, we're talking...

I can see it now, clear as day. This past week, those great folks at TNA Management(TM Larry Zybysko) were surfing the web and stumbled across my blog. They see "TNA really hasn’t given me anything worth talking about" and then a conversation follows:

TNA Management 1: This douchebag says that there we haven't given him anything to talk about!

TNA Management 2: Ignore it, it's probably just some retarded teenager in his parent's basement.

TNA Management 3: Isn't that basically what HHH has said in the past?

TNA Management 2: Well, I added the retard part. Besides, we borrow both workers and writing style from WWE,(Badly, might I add) why not our insults as well?

TNA Management 1: Since we actually listen to our fans, we need to do something that will get this guy talking.

TNA Management 3: Didn't he say something about how we should get him talking?

TNA Management 2: I didn't read that part. Let's throw away more money by signing someone famous!

TNA Management 3: Shouldn't we do something to further the state of the business instead? Especially after the shocking tragedy involving the Benoit family. Why don't we offer some health insurance to our workers, since Konnan is on National Television telling the world we wouldn't do that for him. Why not save the money and use it for filming Pay Per Views outside of Orlando?

TNA Management 1: That sounds good, but I'd rather hire a celebrity! We'll get a video that doesn't remotely mention anything about who we are on ESPN! It will be great! Who should we hire? How about David Hasselhoff?

TNA Management 2: We need someone with an edge. How about Dennis Rodman?

TNA Management 3: We've already hired Rodman and it didn't work out.

TNA Management 1: I know! Let's hire someone who frequents strip clubs and has constant run ins with the law!

TNA Management 2: New Jack?

TNA Management 1: No, that Football Player that I heard about. The one who's suspended by the NFL.

TNA Management 3: Which one? There commissioner is cleaning up their image. Something we should be doing.

TNA Management 1: That Pac-Man fellow! It'll be great. We'll have him lead his own stable! There will be a tag team dressed in different color sheets. We'll hire a woman everyone considers decent in the ring accompany him to the ring as "Ms. Pac-Man." Our ratings will sky rocket to 1.19!

TNA Management 2: You're a genius!

TNA Management 3: *Head explodes*

Obviously, that's made up, but the way TNA has been going lately, it wouldn't surprise me if that were more accurate than not. It seems ridiculous to me that TNA would hire a high-risk name like Adam "Pac-Man" Jones during a period of time in which Professional Wrestling is under instense scrutiny.

What clearly drives this decision is money. Not that TNA has that much, but they clearly see this as another opportunity to get their footage on ESPN. Which is ridiculous, as ESPN never identifies the company. They read a line like "Pacman Jones is back in action this week, in the wrestling ring. Pacman took on Jeff Jarrett this past weekend on Pay Per View, and won." Great publicity, right? Because people are really going to look into it more than that.

As far as I'm concerned, it's another stunt that carries TNA in the wrong direction. It will probably end up on a "TNA's Greatest 100 Moments" DVD someday, but that will be the only time anyone ever remembers it.

Talk about TNA signing "Pacman", and his multi colored sheet wearing entourage here.

Movie Review: Transformers

Right off the bat, I’ll admit that I’m a “Transfan.” For you un-initiated people, that means that I’m a Transformers nerd. I grew up on the cartoons like New Englanders grow up on Red Sox games. I pined over the toys in catalogs and at stores. I cried the first dozen or so times I watched Optimus Prime die in the original Transformers movie. I’ve even watched nearly every Transformers cartoon since. I begrudgingly watched Beast Wars, and grew to love it. I sat through the oddly pseudo religious anomaly called Beast Machines. I endured “Robots In Disguise” even though there was just as much screen time for people as there was for Transformers. I even watched Transformers:Armada and gave Transformers:Energon a shot in spite of the oddly stiff computer animated Cybertronians. (If they could make an entirely CGI Beast Wars/Beast Machines, why was it so hard to make someones mouth move properly in ‘Energon?’) All this doesn’t even include the comics.

Having said that, I was willing to accept that Michael Bay’s Transformers was going to be a departure from what I had grown accustomed to. I wasn’t expecting complicated plots or Oscar worthy performances (or directing). I just walked into the theater expecting to see a movie about a race of alien robots reliving the classic good versus evil battle. What I got instead was a mish mash of Men In Black, Independence Day, Malcom in the Middle, and Pearl Harbor. Not even the good parts, either.

The film is rife with bad humor. Almost every character that isn’t white has a racial stereotype connected to it. Shia Lebouf’s character Sam is connected to too many scenes (one of which centers around masturbation) in which his parents remind us that being a teenager is incredibly uncomfortable as if no one knew. John Turturro’s character reminds us that government agents are not only inept, but practically retarded. Not even the Transformers are safe from bad humor, as a Chihuahua “lubricates” Ironhide’s foot, and Bumblebee later “lubricates” Turturro’s character. There’s also a Decepticon CD Player that apparently watched a lot of Robin Williams on Fast Forward. Because that’s what it acted like.

If you think the humor is bad (and I do) you should see the action sequences, or the lack thereof. When you do get to see a fight, it’s usually in slow-motion. Not Matrix-esque bullet time, mind you. It’s good old fashioned Michael Bay “I’m running and shooting at the same time” action. That’s if you get to see it, though. Often in the film, you miss the best action because the camera follows Sam instead of the giant battling robots. It happens early on as Bumblebee and Barricade go at it, and instead we see Sam fighting Frenzy and being saved by his girlfriend. It is most noticeable, though, at the climactic final battles as instead of watching the Transformers duke it out, we see the Military ducking for cover, or instead of watching Optimus Prime and Megatron have at it we follow Sam into a hole in the ground. I’m serious. Be rest assured that you’ll know exactly when the battles over, though. Every time a battle ends, someone stands up dramatically to take a peek at the devastation. That’s just in case you forgot Michael Bay was directing.

What truly amazes me about this film is not that the bad action or the bad humor. It’s that in a movie about 30 foot transforming robots at war most of the time we see the robots they’re standing around like a bunch of high school kids in between class. In plain sight. In some scenes they talk loudly and fall over in suburbia and no one seems to notice. They’re also made to look like idiots who are less intelligent than the “Primitive” humans they’re supposedly protecting. Especially when it’s the human’s that save the day, and not the Autobots. It’s WCW booking in a major motion picture!

Save your money and see another movie. If you’re thinking about spending your hard earned $8 on an action flick, save it for “Live Free & Die Hard.” If you want to spend your cash on a comedy, try “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.” If you want something to take the kids to, try “Harry Potter.” Even if you’re against the “black magic” of Potter, you won’t have to explain to your 7 year old what Masturbation is. Because if you take them to Transformers, you’ll be explaining that and a lot more

Something to talk about....

At some point last week, I looked at my blog and realized that nearly every single post I’ve made has been WWE oriented. Of course, part of that has to do with the Benoit Tragedy, but that’s not all of it. The majority of the reasoning behind it is that TNA really hasn’t given me anything worth talking about.

I mean, I could go on with the stereotypical Internet Wrestling Nerd rants against Jarrett and co. Throw out a few “OMG Russo is teh sXu0rz!!!” or something about how they won’t last another six months. But that would be redundant, right? I’ll just be saying the same thing we’ve all been saying all along. I hate to just re-hash what has already been said.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t really have much to say about TNA. Not because I don’t care, but because I DO care. I’ve watched TNA since the beginning. My college roommate and I ordered the first TNA Pay Per View at our apartment. Partly because I earned enough in tips delivering Pizza the Friday night before. I didn’t order every one, so I missed such classics as the infamous “Midget in a trash can” incident, but I did get to see some interesting attempts at establishing a company. I was introduced to Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles and Abyss. I re-discovered Ron “K-Krush” Killings, Low-Ki (who blew my mind in a match on a syndicated WWE show), and Jerry Lynn. I supported TNA in spite of cage dancers on the entrance, wrestling Johnsons, and so much more.

I really got excited for TNA when they gave Raven the title. I watched every week when they were on FSN. I taped a lot of it. It was really good, especially compared to today’s shows. Then TNA landed on Spike, and it hasn’t been the same since. There has been some things I’ve enjoyed: Samoa Joe’s run with the X Division belt, Abyss’ feud with Sabu, and Alex Shelley’s commentary on the Paparazzi Productions videos; but for everything I’ve really liked, there have been lots of things that have irritated me: Everything in the Main Event since Kurt Angle has arrived, Team 3D’s feud with the James Gang (Honestly, pretty much anything involving those two teams in TNA. Which is sad, because I do like both of those teams.), and the most annoying thing of all since TNA came to Spike, Sting’s feud with Abyss & James Mitchell.

So maybe I do have something to say about TNA. The problem is, though, is that everything I have to say about TNA involves the past. Their angles now are so hot-shotted that it’s hard to see where they’re going, and if they’ll ever get there. If they don’t, though, we’ve got plenty of memories to talk about.

You can send JJ Dangerously a hate letter here

Where's the Bright Side?

Several weeks ago, my hopes were high as professional wrestling (I dare not call it Sports Entertainment) seemed to be headed for an upswing. There was a massive amount of excitement focused around the WWE draft, there was hope that TNA could maybe turn around (Isn't there always?), and there was the excitement of the upcoming Ring of Honor Pay Per View, Respect is Earned. Sadly, the tragedy (Is there any other appropriate word) of the Benoit family has now placed us in a valley when we were hoping for a peak.

There are people in all forms of media calling for the head of Vince McMahon. They say McMahon encourages steroid use, steroid abuse, and drug abuse among other things. They want Congress to intervene and create a way for the government to regulate drug abuse and steroid use/abuse at wrestling shows. Everyone, from internet bloggers like myself to wrestlers, radio hosts and "wrestling reporters" blame the schedule and lifestyle of WWE for what has happened. It looks as if a dark day has come for Vince McMahon, one he hasn't seen since Hulk Hogan stepped into court so many years ago.

There's a part of me that wants to defend WWE. I mean, wrestling now is SO much better than it used to be, right? Guys like Harley Race and Dory Funk can look at the schedule WWE works and laugh. They wrestled 7 days a week, sometimes twice a day for most of their career. None of them committed an act anything close to what Benoit did. The Ultimate Warrior, of all people, made a point about the use and/or abuse of steroids on FOX News, listing bodybuilders of the late 70's that used steroids and never had problems. Heck, one he listed is the current "Governator" of California. None of them committed an atrocious act like Benoit.

There is one thing I can't defend in this whole debacle, and that is Vince McMahon. For over 23 years, Vince McMahon's company has represented the industry as a whole. Much like MLB, the NFL, the NBA or the NHL, WWE has become synonymous with Professional Wrestling. Even more so than some of those groups. If you think of any major sport, you think of your favorite team in the league. If you ask most anyone outside of the Wrestling bubble about wrestling, they automatically assume you mean WWE. My little brother said it best when asked if he liked wrestling: "Yeah, I like WWE." All this brings one question to mind: What's different about WWE than all of those major corporate entities/legalized monopolies?

The biggest answer, and the one given most often, isn't that wrestling isn't a "real" sport. But I dismiss that. I dismiss it because those guys spend more tim on the road performing than any other sport. Hell, even Broadway shows get a break. What makes the difference to me is the fact that WWE, in spite of the fact that it works with charities like the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the USO, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, and the Starlight Foundation among others, never shows it's positive side. I bet you had no idea that WWE was involved with so many charities, huh? Well, neither did I. I'm sure the non wrestling world doesn't know. To them WWE is the bird flipping, Mr. McMahon butt-kissing, nearly naked women loving predecessor to the retarded reality TV we're so overwhelmed with. But why don't we, the wrestling fans, even know about it? I mean, we spend hours every week with our eyes on the TV screen with not one mention of any of this, barring Mick Foley making a kid GM for a day.
Where are the WWE sponsored Public Service Announcements encouraging people to pay more attention to some of these interests? I'm sure the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation wouldn't mind having a PSA during RAW featuring WWE Champion and fan favorite John Cena encouraging people to donate money or time to help fight a form of cancer that attacks Plasma in your blood. (Don't feel bad, I didn't know what it was either.) I understand that major sports do charitable things all the time without gaining publicity, but pro wrestling NEEDS the positive "karma" of showing that they're more than a way for kids to absorb violence through television. Not just WWE, but professional wrestling as an industry. So what gives?

The honest truth is, only Vince and Linda know why they don't do more. I do know, however, that when wrestling is looked down on by talking heads (and mustaches. I'm looking your way Geraldo) on cable news like the bastard stepchild of American past-times, that there is now only one place to lay the blame. It's not TNA or ROH, both of which are still in their infancy. It's not the now defunct WCW or ECW, as both were absorbed into Vince's empire. In my opinion, it's solely at the feet of Vincent K. McMahon, who built a worldwide conglomerate out of a small company by using the marketing knowledge and skills that would actually save him if he used them for something other than the "almighty dollar."