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Damn, it has been a tough week. Joe Madden may have over thought the Cubs last two games. “Venom” is a so bad it is good movie which leads me to fear the fate of the Sony franchises. I seem to be getting ahead of my blogs by one week, hence I may be working too much.
And then you have the all but certain demise of the country with the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation. How do you tell a happily married man who takes you to sporting event and respects his Nike-boycotting wife that there is no way I want to stand for a flag that represents a dead country. But I respect the man, so I should not embarrass him despite his wife has said that we cannot fault powerful men for abusing their power, unless they were communist revolutionaries.
I never got away with anything growing up. Being too honest has plagued me. Striving for decency deters me from a negative path. The point is, if I screwed up, I paid, and have always paid. If we have learned anything from the Me Too Movement, is that everybody should answer for their indiscretions. It is not vengeance, it is a means to encourage protecting those whose safety is the target of those in power.
Thus, I am pondering if I should make this rant relevant to the current theme of the blog by exploring the incidents of sexual assault and harassment that I have experienced from my time in professional wrestling. You could call it hazing bullshit, but the fact of the matter is if I broke these guys faces, I risked never being booked again by that promotion. What really hurts is that the promotion never used me again. To their credit, I was booked and wisely ended up being a healthy scratch on my last trip to Southern Wisconsin for a last minute appearance by Silas Young, so at least the promotion remembered me.
It was 14 years ago. I was victimized. You cannot hold it against me if I was bumped from the card for someone less prestigious that The Last Real Man in Professional Wrestling (do not hold the gimmick against him). The culprits and facilitators are remembered, especially those who boasted about it. The stories were something I laughed off with the guys in the business like it was just a permanent marker stunt on my face, but when normal people ask for crazy and obscene stories from the business, you realize that the ones that come to immediate mind demonstrate behavior that is not acceptable. You realize that you were abused and you feel you can only blame yourself since you still want to be a part of the business. You cannot blame the sport.
But, these guys (for the most part) are friends and a couple of them have kids. There is a slim chance their life could be ruined since I am already wrestling’s persona non grata south of I-80. Why be afraid of going national? Should I wait till I hear about their next job opportunity? I have not killed their present, but why do I feel like I have paid for their constant happiness I have perceived?
I suppose I should just be happy not having post traumatic stress in regards to this issue, or am I just now showing that I suffer from these stunts? Time does not heel all wounds. If this would have been realized when I was in therapy in regards to abusive relationships and and failing to prevent a gas station suicide, perhaps the Supreme Court fulfilling the wills of sex offenders for the next 20 years would not leave me considering snuffing myself (I really needed a better therapist, so probably not).
Hopefully, Ronan Farrow gets wind of this blog and helps me decide if I will name names. Provided that we get over the mess of me being a Woody Allen apologist of course. Time wears away, it does not heal. So I guess the moral is not to wound in the first place.
With that said, I would like to apologize to “Lauren” at Big Al’s in Peoria (2015) if I was too handsy to begin with. It was me testing boundaries, and regardless if I stopped when told, I did wrong to begin with.
I gotta at least answer for my indiscretions, before I get this blog back on track. If only I could hold off on the posting till WWE’s Evolution for the sake of cultural relevance. But, releasing this a week later may be too much time from when I wrote this.
Anyhow this blog has all the stuff marks want in bold, so the intro and transition do not matter to anyone besides me I suppose. More reason to try and be brave about abuse and the regret that people may have givien a shit about me if my struggles were more relatable than just being in my head.
Pardon the dark tone. It makes me hope a lot of the visitors just paged down to The Disgruntled’s Real World Champion content.
66th Real World Heavyweight Champion - WWE Champion John Cena (2) - 5/11/2001 to 7/17/11
Edge had forfeited the Big Gold Belt due to a career-ending injury. Christian and Randy Orton’s battle for that belt was full of stipulations and swaps to please the fans who thought it was ridiculous for Christian to only have a two-day reign after succeeding the man he broke in to the business with.
Davey Richards aloofness toward Ring of Honor and wrestling in general always left a bad taste in mouth, and until Kevin Steen came into the title picture, his challengers, like him, lacked personality to match their in ring talent. If you thing that in ring ability trumps personality, then you would be ignoring the wrestler of the summer.
67th World Heavyweight Champion - WWE Champ CM Punk (1) - 7/17/11 to 8/14/11
68th World Heavyweight Champion - NWA’s Adam Pearce - 8/14/11 to 4/8/2012
Before “All In” there was “Seven Levels of Hate,” the story of two wrestlers (Pearce and Colt Cabana) wanting to do right by the business. That has never been WWE’s prerogative. Fearing a drop in ratings, WWE had Alberto Del Rio cash in Money in the Bank on Punk so that he could drop the belt to Cena. Realizing it did nothing for the long term, Cena would drop the belt back to Del Rio. Del Rio would then drop the belt to Punk and avoid making THEIR star look bad by losing to his rival thrice.
69th World Heavyweight Champion - NWA’s Colt Cabana - 4/8/12 to 7/21/12
70th World Heavyweight Champion - WWE Champ CM Punk (2) - 7/21/12 to 1/27/2013
It is tempting to give the belt to ROH’s Kevin Steen since he was the headliner during Richard’s reign without even wrestling. Him winning the title proved his importance to the business. But, WWE has gone out of their way to make us forget the 434-day reign of the predecessor to Steen. In the end, NWA fell from relevance not committing to Pearce and Cabana efforts to elevate their title. WWE chose stock over substance having Punk drop the title to a part-timer in the Rock.
71st World Heavyweight Champion - ROH’s Kevin Steen - 1/27/13 to 4/5/13
Just because WWE chose their stock, does not mean I have to.
72nd World Heavyweight Champion - WWE Champ The Rock (5) - 4/5/13 to 4/7/13
And then indie wrestling shoots itself in the foot. Jay Briscoe had the resume to be ROH Champion, but in what were progressive times, he was not meant for the REAL champ title. This reign brought us the personalized world title belt featuring Confederate battle flags. The injury that ended his reign may have been legitimate (Wikipedia says no), but I think his babyfaced character’s pro-gun, anti-marriage equality tweet during his championship was the reason his reign did not make the two-month mark.
73rd World Heavyweight Champion - WWE Champ John Cena (3) - 4/7/13 to 8/13/13
74th World Heavyweight Champion - WWE Champ Daniel Bryan (2) - 8/13/13
75th World Heavyweight Champion - World Heavyweight Champ Alberto Del Rio - 8/13/13 to 10/27/13
Randy Orton had cashed in Money it the Bank to start the “brilliant” storyline for Daniel Bryan’s Wrestlemania moment. I still believe this narrative was not going to happen until Punk left and the Bootista backlash occurred. Alberto Del Rio’s reigns with the Big Gold Belt had everything. He beat the Big Show as a babyface. The break in his reign was a raw deal with a Money in the Bank cash in, so he became a vengeful heel to regain it.
76th World Heavyweight Champion - World Heavyweight Champ John Cena (4) - 10/27/13 to 12/15/13
The original formatting of this blog post actually allowed me to conclude this list. But with the title and the downer nature of the intro, I think it is best to conclude this with my next post. This blog’s title may get more eyes on it, and the feedback to make the post more fun. Or more insightful if the focus will be on the intro. If I want to get the most out of my writing, gotta make it so it encourages more.
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