Before we kick off all the usual smarktastic shenanigans for another week, I want to take a second to send my best wishes to Adrian ‘Lionheart’ McCallum. For those of you who are reading this from overseas and don’t know, Lionheart is one of the top names on the UK wrestling scene, who unfortunately recently suffered a serious neck injury.
He sustained the injury at the weekend, following the most high profile match of his career against AJ Styles for the Preston City Wrestling promotion in England. The injury happened when Lionheart took a post-match Styles Clash. The footage of his head and neck being driven into the mat is absolutely brutal. It’s one of the scariest things I’ve seen happen inside in a wrestling ring for a long time.
Lionheart has since confirmed that his neck is broken in two places. Thankfully he doesn’t appear to need surgery and has since left hospital to begin his recovery. While the early prognosis and news from Lionheart himself has been positive, it’s still a very serious and very scary situation for anyone to find themselves in. It’s also a stark reminder that wrestling is incredibly dangerous and we should never forget the real risks these guys take to entertain us.
Lionheart was the first wrestler I ever interviewed for MFX, back in 2011. He won’t remember it, but I still do. While I was secretly shitting my pants to be interviewing a wrestler for the first time, he made the interview incredibly easy for me and a lot of fun.
I found him to be a really good guy to talk to. He was very open, professional, humble, funny and informative. The confidence I gained from that interview and how well it went, allowed me to go on to interview other wrestlers and also to really help find the voice and style I use now on MFX.
I don’t know Lionheart personally. I don’t claim to be a hardcore fan of the UK wrestling scene. I just know that in my limited interactions with him, and from what others have said about him, he’s one of the good guys of the UK wrestling community.
I want to send my thoughts and best wishes to him and his family as he begins his recovery from this very serious injury. I’m sure everyone at SLTD and everyone reading this will join me in wishing Lionheart all the best and hoping that he recovers quickly and fully.
I’d also like to send a big ‘fuck you’ to all the point scoring smart asses online who have been revelling in this unfortunate situation. If you’re using something as serious as this to make yourself look smart by apportioning blame, then you need to take a long look in the mirror and ask what kind of human being you really are. The answer is: a twat.
The ONLY thing anyone should be concerned with at this time is Lionheart’s health. There is nothing to be gained from blaming either AJ or Lionheart himself for what happened, which I’ve seen plenty of people do.
You want to score a few smark points by making claims and assertions that you actually know nothing about? That’s cool. Just don’t expect any sympathy or understanding if you take a fall off your high horse and break your neck. You dicks.
Ok, let’s try and lighten the mood a little. Did you hear the one about the wrestling promotion that launched an online network and then all its fans were surprised when it crashed on the first day?
I take it all the folks who were stunned and angered by the WWE network launch have never done anything on the internet, ever? I guess all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the launches of online games like GTA5 or even WWE2K14 just sailed right over their heads? Maybe they’ve just never tried to watch a You Tube video during peak times on a crappy Scottish internet connection and they’re not used to seeing a constant ‘buffering’ icon? Who knows?
I’m not a WWE apologist by any means. I just think anyone who was genuinely surprised the WWE Network had issues on launch day is shockingly naïve. I’d also like to take a moment to tell them about an exciting new financial opportunity that has arisen in recent days. All they need to do is send their credit card details to duckmanisrippingyouoff@gmail.com and I’ll send them all the details of my great money making scheme.
If their launch and live test broadcast of NXT is anything to go by, anyone who tries to watch Wrestlemania 30 on the WWE Network might soon know what it feels like to be living in a non-WWE Network country.
WWE and their network partner need to get their act together and have the infrastructure and technology in place for Wrestlemania 30 – that much is obvious. Given how important Wrestlemania is to the fans and the company, they can’t afford to have major problems and leave people unable to watch the biggest show of the year.
If they don’t get things together and people are left unable to watch Wrestlemania on the WWE Network for $10 as promised, the shit storm that will be heading their way will make the Royal Rumble crowd reaction look like a friendly meeting of church elders.
I don’t have a subject or a theme to write about this week, so it’s time for another collection of random thoughts and half-baked opinions. Sorry, it’s the best I can come up with.
There’s been a lot of talk about the fact that CM Punk didn’t return to RAW this week. Given the way he left WWE, and the fact he’s a stubborn son of a bitch, I wasn’t holding out much hope that he’d be at RAW. He seems burnt out and broken and coming back to WWE felt like a long shot. I really hoped he would be there and was more than happy to be proved wrong. It’s a damn shame I wasn’t.
WWE and Wrestlemania are a lot worse off without CM Punk being there. Say what you will about him as a person or the decision he’s made, but Punk always delivers in big match situations and for him to miss Wrestlemania is a loss to the viewing audience. If this is the end of Punk’s run in WWE, it’s a shame he hasn’t gone out on the high his hard work and dedication during the last ten years deserves.
The way some people are reacting you’d think Punk had pulled a Benoit and committed some kind of heinous crime. I’m not one of those people who are denouncing him as a quitter. I’m not someone who has instantly forgotten all the great things he did in recent years because he’s decided to step away from WWE.
I don’t know why Punk left and therefore I can’t judge him for making that I decision. If he feels he’s done the right thing for himself, then I’m cool with that. After everything he’s put into wrestling over the course of his career, I don’t feel like the guy owes me anything. I’ll be in the minority with that opinion, but it’s a minority I’m happy to be a part of.
The much talked about crowd high-jacking of RAW this week ended up being more of a gentle detour. Credit to WWE for structuring the show in such a way that they took away a lot of the usual opportunities for the crowd to steal the show. Notice the lack of any boring ass matches in the first hour like we usually get on RAW each week? It was also really smart to use guys like Heyman, Cena, HHH and Bryan to play puppet masters with the crowd.
Sure the chants were there and they were frigging loud, especially for HHH and Steph. That was one of the loudest ‘we fucking hate you for real’ reactions I’ve ever heard on RAW, at least since the last time Miz appeared.
Apart from the nuclear heat directed at McBoobs and The Nose, the Chicago crowd didn’t exactly over throw the evil McMahon Empire. They weren’t that much different from the crowds of the last few weeks.
While they probably thought they were high-jacking the show and causing trouble, the fans in attendance were actually doing exactly what WWE wanted them to do. It resulted in a hot atmosphere and the people in the stands probably none the wiser than they had been worked to perfection. Like I said, very smart by WWE.
It’s also difficult to take a protest or a high-jacking of a show seriously, when those doing the high-jacking paid a ton of money to go there, probably bought a t-shirt and some food and are effectively putting money in the pockets of the evil group they claim to now hate.
Maybe if they’d chanted “fuck you Paul/Vince/Stephanie” all night long things would have been different, as it was the whole show just felt like WWE played with the crowd and their emotions and got off pretty lightly in the end.
I’ve been trying to decide on what side of the fence I sit when it comes to the disruptive chants at WWE events. On one hand I’m totally supportive of everyone’s right to voice any opinion they want to voice. Then on the other hand I just want to scream at these people to shut up, get over it and explain to them that if they really hate what WWE are serving up so much, they could just stop going to the shows and their problem would be solved.
There was a real point being made by the fans when this all started to kick into a higher gear after Summerslam. That point appears to be rapidly vanishing. It now just feels like the fans who are chanting aren’t doing so out of protest or to effect change in WWE. They’re doing it because it’s fun and there’s a bit of a buzz in being part of a crowd that’s doing something they’re not supposed to.
I think my support and sympathy for the plight of the disenfranchised WWE fans was seriously dented last week during the Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns match on RAW. Here are two guys who have been built perfectly over the last or so. Two guys who are fresh, exciting and interesting main event wrestlers. They are two guys the company could build around for the next 10 years. EXACTLY the type of stars WWE fans have been begging for the company to create for YEARS.
So WWE give these guys the kind of pushes that Daniel Bryan would sell his beard and his Bella for. They feature them in main event segments, they showcase their strengths and perfectly hide any weakness. They do everything right from a booking point of view and both Bray and Roman do everything right on the mic and in the ring.
Things were done so well that WWE put them in their first RAW singles main event, after they were central parts of the potential match of the year on PPV the night before. All good, right? All boxes ticked. Smarks happy, marks happy, everyone happy, right? Nope.
Instead the fans decided this was going to be their weekly ‘chant about pointless shit’ match and all those hilarious and classic chants for the commentators and Randy Savage were quickly ringing around the arena. And people then wonder why WWE are so reluctant to give new characters a chance at the top of the card…
I understand chanting ‘boring’ at Randal Keith Orton. He is boring. I get that disrupting a match between two people you don’t care about is fun. You want to send a message that you’re sick of seeing another pointless ADR vs. Kofi Kingston match on RAW? Awesome. Send that message. I just don’t understand what chanting for Jerry Lawler or Randy Savage accomplished during the Wyatt vs. Reigns match or what kind of message the fans were sending to WWE.
We all wish we could be part of THAT crowd. You know the one; the one that was like that post-Wrestlemania crowd last year. The one that was so hyped up and vocal they almost convinced the world that Fandango was a big fucking deal. If you’re part of a crowd that goes down in history that makes you feel great. You’re a memorable part of the show. Good for you. Go write that down on your CV and share with the world just how important and awesome you are.
I just think if you’re looking to send a message to WWE, do it at the right time, not when two guys who are EVERYTHING YOU WANT YOUR WWE STARS TO BE are performing in a prominent and important match. There’s a time and a place to complain and it’s not when you’re served up a filet mignon, it’s when you’re being force fed a shit sandwich.
That seems like an appropriate image to end on. As always, if you’ve got an opinion on anything you’ve just read, feel free to leave a comment here. Or you can send me your abuse directly on Twitter which is @MFXDuckman
Time for the obligatory plug for MFX; skip to the end if you’ve heard this one before. Each week on the Marks for Xcellence Wrestling podcast (MFX for short) you can hear me and my partner-in-crime Sir Ian Trumps, take a sideways and alternative look at the week in both WWE and TNA. By sideways and alternative we mean childish, occasionally insightful and always hilarious.
Our TNA show goes up at the start of the week, with the RAW show being your second slice of MFX goodness of the week. The show is NSFW and not recommended for anyone with a low tolerance for a wrestling podcast that spends just as long talking about movies, TV shows, food, politics and any other random subject, as it does covering wrestling.
You can find the show on the MFX Podcast page here, or by going to www.mfxpodcast.com where you can find our most recent show (MFX80) and all our archived shows – including my interview with Lionheart from all the way back in the mists of time on MFX7.
As always, thanks for reading and be sure to keep supporting SLTD and all the great contributors here. With Wrestlemania season upon us the site is going to kick into a higher gear, with loads of Wrestlemania related articles coming soon. Good times.
Until next time…
Peace
Duckman
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