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Dedwyre's Shock Therapy
February 5, 2004
Welcome, one and all, to the first edition of a little column I like to call “Dedwyre’s Shock Therapy.” Okay, actually, this isn’t really the
first column I’ve written under this title; just the first in a long time. I
used to write for a now-defunct website that focused on a now-defunct
wrestling federation, Xtreme Pro Wrestling. I was a halfway XPW fan, liking some
of the wrestlers and matches, but hating the fact that the group was owned
by an adult film company. Looking back, I guess the main focus of those
columns was to prove that my favorite fed, Extreme Championship
Wrestling, was way better than its copy. Well, both organizations are
dead now, as is that old website. Its former webmaster e-mailed me after he gave up the
site to some friends, saying he was moving to the East Coast, and would
start a fan site about another “extreme” fed, Combat Zone Wrestling, and
that I could be a part of it. As excited as I was, I never got any
further letters on the subject, and I doubt the site ever happened.
More recently, I tried to put “Shock Therapy” on my own little website. I
did one edition, realized that no one would read it anyway, and gave up.
Still, writing is my passion and wrestling is my past time, and I enjoy
putting the two together. Thankfully, the good folks (there’s more than
one, right?) who run the Stro’s website have given me the opportunity to
show my skills to a different audience. For that, I am thankful, and I
hope I don’t let you down.
What makes me a worthy columnist? I’m a wrestling fan who’s majoring in
English to be a writer. How’s that?
Unlike most fans I’ve met on the ‘net, I haven’t been a lifetime wrestling
fan. Before 1998, I was under the impression that pro wrestlers were
fakes, and whatever they did could have no chance in peaking my interest,
simply because they didn’t actually do it. The media of the day (commercials,
TV shows, movies, magazine covers, etc) wouldn’t let me go through life
without a little bit of knowledge on wrestling, though. But I do mean little.
I knew some names and faces…Hulk Hogan (from Suburban Command), “Macho
Man” Randy Savage (from the “Slim Jim” Commercials), the Ultimate Warrior,
the Legion of Doom, and Demolition (all from the “WWF Wrestlefest” arcade
game). Oh, and let’s not forget the legendary Sergeant Slaughter, who made
many an appearance on the immortal “G.I. Joe” cartoons. None of the
aforementioned muscle-bound maniacs managed to lure me into the world of
“sports entertainment.” No, it took a slightly different maniac to do
that… Mike Tyson made me a wrestling fan. Yes, you read right. A
celebrity guest appearance in a wrestling company actually created a hardcore fan.
Well, some would say that Tyson’s appearances on RAW and WrestleMania 14
sent the then-World Wrestling Federation straight into their “Attitude
Era,” and it’s not a bad argument. It got me.
I remember flipping through channels one Monday evening, and ending up pausing on the USA Network. On came an advertisement featuring the
original confrontation between Tyson and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, where Tyson
shoved Austin for flipping him off, and a bunch of bodyguards and
officials held the two apart. It said that Tyson would be on WWF RAW coming up
next. The ad was obviously teasing a battle between the two. Well, I’d heard
about Austin from a friend of mine, and I’d seen him on an ad for MTV’s
Celebrity Death Match. I knew he was a tough dude. Tyson’s legacy
spoke for itself at the time. In my mind, a spark in interest managed to
light a candle, which led to me setting the remote control down and tuning in.
That night, I saw Tyson join D-Generation X (though I had no idea then what it was). I saw the New Age Outlaws get the law laid down on them by
none other than Commissioner Sergeant Slaughter, who forced them into a
match, leading to an attack by Cactus Jack and Terry “Chainsaw Charlie” Funk.
And that was it. I tuned into many RAWs afterwards, and soon got hooked on
WCW Monday Nitro as well. “Watching” scrambled pay-per-views, buying
wrestling magazines, and ordering wrestling tapes soon became common activities of
mine. In fact, not until more recently have I truly mellowed out and
explored other interests regularly, without having my mind on wrestling
24/7.
Well, that’s me. I hope I’ve proven myself qualified to write publicly about this grand spectacle we call wrestling. I hope this column
survives this time around. And I hope I can provide my own form of insight and
entertainment to anyone who takes their time to read.
Vielen Dank (Thanks a lot),
Dedwyre
e-mail: Dedwyre@msn.com |
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