Tom zenk, brian pillman, disgruntled wrestlers

[Guest Maurizio C... Version 2]

I usually read Tom Zenk's commentaries. He's a witty, funny, informative individual. Sometimes I even ask myself "if Pillman was still alive, would he be like this?".

 

The internet is a funny, funny world. Where if not on th internet would you find yesterday's stars, hire them and let them write for your little crappy site? Hey, you can even know them in person, chat a little, find things in common. Hyatte had Wayne Ferris, Random has Tom Zenk.

 

Then, as I said, Tom Zenk, the Z-Man, is really a funny, funny individual. You read his pieces and lvae the computer thinking "wow, the guy knows his shit. He knows the truth. Fuck Jim Morrison or Brian Pillman, he's the real Lizard King of wrestling!"

 

And that's a little bit sad. poor, poor Brian Pillman. Along with Bruiser Brody, members of the Hart family and the always present Funk Brothers, Pillman was this era's true shooter. The guy who pulled awesome stunt to get the people to guess his every move. Almost in sadomasochistic ways, where Bruiser Brody managed to get more money, more bookings and more fame, Pillman did his best just to surprise the fans. Did his shooting led him to something bigger? Maybe a wwf main event run? Pillman's best claim to fame until the day he died was divided in these 3 points:

 

A) having **** plus matches with Jushin Liger.

B) Screaming an insider term on a live ppv before the wrestling boom of '98.

C) Being a member of the reunited Hart Foundation.

 

So, when he died, people paid their respects to Pillman. hell, they organize an annual card for him and his family just as a tribute. Of course, no one tells about how Pillman was despised in the locker room, about New Jack wanting to kick his ass and shit like that.

 

... and today, the Lizard Kings of wrestling are just an URL away.

 

It was Jake Roberts with his drug indiced rants about Mcmahon, Stephanie and Jericho. One can justify him since he's never been too sharp in the first place. Then he went to jail and disappeared... time for (cue rock music) Honky Tonk man, aka Wayne Ferris, to shoot his mouth off. Wayne Ferris went so far as to accuse Jerry Lawler of liking children. is that true? do you care? so here you got a former iC champion fighting with his cousin over what? Then HTM disappeared, too. No more Lizard King in town!

 

... and then came Tom Zenk. This shit got funnier now.

 

One can tell himself "HTM and Jake were legit stars. They sold ut arenas and were part of great angles. HTM was the perfect coward heel of his days and Jake, as paul Heyman said in Beyond Themat, had IT".

 

Tom Zenk.

 

Tom Zenk never main evented as far as I know. Not in WCW, not in the WWF. His claim to fame is his rants, his tours in Japan and his "respect"matches with japanese wrestlers.

 

Of course, japan is not only wrestling heaven for smarks but the place old asses go to make some money and get  some fame with the smart crowd. The WWF treats Vader like shit because he's a fat bastard? Fine, I'll go to japan to headline against Misawa. Terry Gordy is in  comatose state? He'll main event for Baba and ECW will cream their pants when he finally comes back to the states. Steve Williams is old a battered? Yu know the story...

 

Now Tm Zenk has his pros. He was a real athlete and, differently from HTM and Jake, seems true in his words since he's not asking Vince for a job.

 

Tom Zenk's biggest mistake, however, is in his judgments on wrestlers like Hogan, nash, hall and others.

 

Do I hate Hogan? you bet. Do I despised HHH's politicking? Of course. I sincerely can't stand these guys because they suck.

 

But here's something Tom Zenk and the majority of the net never got:

 

We're you're over in the States, then who gives a fuck about the rest.

 

Hogan's been over for how many years? People pay to see him blow spots and act like, well, the old man he is.

 

Fact: No one paid to see Tom's ass. They paid for Sid, Sting, Flair. Tom just happened to be in some midcard match against some fuckaholic.

 

Rock's a decent wrestler. He cuts great promos.

 

Fact: I don't even remember Zenk cutting promos. Forget about great ones.

 

Nash and hall are money, or at least they were. They led WCW to money and fame, then to its end, but no one can argue about their ratings power back in the day.

 

Fact: Once again, Tom may have headlined japan cards, I really don't know nor care, but has he ever headlined a ppv, a little one at least? he's lucky he headlined Saturday Night if he did that far.

 

factis. Hogan, nash, Hall, HHH, Austin and the others self centered jerks ARE in the game. Tom Zenk is NOT.

 

Of course, in the old traditions of the Bret Harts (wcw days), Reckless Youth and Steve Corino, Tom blames it all on the big suits. He wasn't pushed... the main eventers didn't want him in the main event... his opponents couldn't have decent matches... and while I read this self centered crap I can't stop thinking about Steve Austin, Jean Paul Levesque, "The Blue Chipper" Rocky Maivia, Jeff jarrett, etc...

 

jeff jarrett . the champion of South. Son of Jerry. former IC champion. This "not intensive enough for Steve Austin" ass main evented in WCW. Hell, he was he only one caring about the product in '99 and that's a fact. He hadtalent, he's the one that can legitimately say "I was screwed". Maybe because he never liked playing politics and dig his own grave after the Hogan shoot.

 

Rocky maivia - Die Rocky Die, Rocky sucks! People hated him and there semt to be no hope, no chance in hell of getting him over. An heel turn and... you know the story. He had talent as far aspromos are concerned. he used that talent to get over his hollywood-like wrestling ability.

 

Steve Austin - once part of the revolutionary Hollywood Blondes, Austin accepted to break up with Pillman after Flair promised him a run as face versus Flair's heel. Too bad Flair was a face himself during that period. Austin's last wcw memory is jobbing to Duggan in a few seconds and then fading to japan and ECW.

A few years ago he caught the public's eye after a promo at KOTR. He went to make money and literally save a dying, no Bret hart having, Shawn Michaels losing his smile-itis WWF.

 

HHH - Wasn't he in the opening match at Starrcade'94 against Alex Wright? Not only was he a shitty midcarder in wcw but the sole guy to get punished for the MSG incident in '96. he went to headline with Rock during Austin's hiatus away from the wwf. He got over. Yes, h fucks the boss' daughter and play politics to an all new level. Is he good? yes. Is he that damn good? you bet.

 

Tom Zenk's last hurrah will be when XPW (Bingo Wrestling Federaton 2) will award him a plaque for his "hardcore career". Then Zenk will shoot a little for the surviving ECW marks and fade into the sunset.

 

Quite frankly I think he's the last that can talk. When you're the shits, someday people will notice. Look at benoit. He got shit from WCW and even if the WWF will screw his return, he will always be able to say "I got the wcw world title because people wanted it so bad they couldn't refuse it to me when occasion presented itself".

 

Of course Tom will argue there wasn't the 'net back when it was his turn to become a legend.

 

Apply to be a booker for some of the wwf's territories, Tom.

 

Leave the bitching to guys like Jericho, Benoit and soon (after he'll get fired for not drawing a few years from now) RVD. leave it to the guys that actually cared enough to try. Leave it to the guys like Jericho who are getting abused day in day out just to get a glimpse of that fucking belt. leave it to the Drozes, who got injured and got shit in return plus a column on WWF.com just to *make up for your legs and show you the respect*.

 

And I do't even wanna touch the subject of unionizing wrestlers. As Keller made clear in a piece of his a few months ago, if you were happy with big money contracts in your days of fame and didn't give a shit about an union, then shut the hell up now that you're home with nothing to do at all.

 

Too bad Zenk's a young man, yet he's finally entered that not so exclusive clique of BITTER (yeah, I said the infamous word) wrestlers who always complain about today's lack of psychology... crappy tv... stupid angles... abuse of power by wrestlers and bookers...

 

To end my rant, and since this post wan long enough notwithstanding, I wanna quote an ENTIRE Bruce Mitchell

piece bout Hulk Hogn. A fair good read.

 

Credit: www.PWTorch.com

 

 

"He Got Game"

By Bruce Mitchell, Torch columnist

Originally published: May 9, 1998

Pro Wrestling Torch Weekly newsletter #493

"Hulk Hogan is the most unselfish person I've ever met."

-Eric Bischoff

“What is Game?

Who got Game?

Where's the Game?"

-Public Enemy, 1998

One of the great things about any sport is the never-ending debate - Who's the greatest?

Every sport has its version. In pro basketball most fans believe Jordan Rules, but what about Wilt, or Bird'n'Magic, or the Doc, or the Hawk, or any of the corporate creations like Kobe Bryant that David Stern is desperately trying to get over for the day when Michael retires?

Or how about the NFL, with its basso profound list of legends etched in granite? How many drunken louts have wasted how many hours in the bar arguing Bret Favre and Joe Montana, Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton, Johnny U and Bart Starr, or Lawrence Taylor and Dick Butkus?

Or "the national past-time" baseball, that stats-ridden bore? There's plenty of time during any game for fans to debate the relative merits of Ted Williams or Say Hey Willie or Joltin' Joe or the Babe or the Mick or Gamblin' Pete or any of the other self-centered jerks who make up its Hall of Fame. In this case cast my vote for Ty Cobb. You gotta love a guy who jumps into the stands in the middle of an at-bat to beat up a heckler with no legs. I'm hardly qualified in this area, though, since I've never been able to sit through an entire eight-hour baseball game from start to finish.

As for hockey, well, you pick your favorite toothless wonder. I can't take grown men on skates "fighting" like a couple of women seriously.

Pro wrestling, as you know, is another matter. A&E's documentary, "The Unreal World of Academic Blowhards, uh, Pro Wrestling" answered the question of "Who's the Greatest?" during the second hour. Its answer featured Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon telling the touching story of how the gentle Andre the Giant, after some grouchy contemplation, passed the mantle of greatness that had gone from Frank Gotch to Strangler Lewis all the way to Andre, his unbeaten streak, and the world title to its final heir - the modest Hogan. To make the fable complete, Andre croaked soon after, content in the knowledge that his legacy was in good hands.

Of course the story was pretty much a crock. Andre was a big star, but he was hardly the heir to Frank Gotch. For much of his career he was a boring gimmick performer who only worked most territories a couple of times a year because the act got stale quickly.

And at Wrestlemania III Andre wasn't the champ, his undefeated status was a work, and Titan had planned for months for the not-so-gentle Giant to do the job to the Hulkster. The only thing printable that was passed at the Pontiac Silverdome that night was a bunch of money. And it was several years before Andre the Giant died.

Still the seeds of what makes Hulk the Greatest are in that story. Hulk Hogan comes off as a humble culmination of a century of tradition, Vince McMahon is the brilliant promoter who made it happen, and the A&E producers (who hailed McMahon for his honesty) are the gullible saps who buy the story without a blink.

What, you think just because Hulk Hogan is so unathletic he'd sit on the bench in an Over-40 b-ball rec league that he's not the greatest?

Maybe you think Lou Thesz, the NWA Champion who travelled the world for decades, surviving the physical and political pitfalls with grace and skill, was a better candidate. That Shooter-Hooker stuff has its place, but Thesz is so little known that the A&E producers had to be told who he was. They sure knew who Hogan was before they began.

And if Ric Flair has learned anything from the lawsuit he faces from WCW, he knows that being the best performer of the last 20 years counts for nothing when your iconic status threatens Hulk Hogan's ego.

But hey, you think, you can't walk down the street without seeing some guy in a black T yell, "Oh, Hell Yeah!" every three blocks. Stone Cold Steve Austin carries his company, with much less depth in its talent roster, to comparable record-breaking TV ratings, headlines more record-breaking house shows, beats Hogan in recent PPV numbers, and sells more t-shirts than Hulkamania at its peak. Austin is everyone's favorite wrestler, and wrestling's biggest attraction - not Hulk Hogan.

But Hogan, unlike Austin, has got Game. You think Hogan would ever put himself in the position of being his company's most underpaid performer, relative to his market value?

That's exactly what Austin has done. Austin works on a downside guarantee in the million dollar range plus that lucrative merchandise commission. A conservative estimate of the WWF's gross for 1998 comes to about $200 million. Steve Austin, the single biggest reason for the WWF's resurgence, is worth an easy $10 million this year. Austin will be lucky to get a fourth of that.

Hogan, on the other hand, could, with contract incentives, double Austin's pay in 1998.

Hulk Hogan is the greatest in the sport because he knows the Game. That game has little to do with ringmanship, or even star-power. Hogan understands it's a game of positioning and perception.

He plays it like a Grandmaster.

Consider this. Hulk Hogan has yet to sign his contract with WCW. He gets every perk of that enormous contract while retaining the leverage of free agency. Kevin Garnett only wishes he had that freedom (although Hogan would trade it for "Garnett Money.")

Remembering Don Vito Corleone's dictum to "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," Hogan has mindf---ed Eric Bischoff into believing Hollywood Hogan is the overwhelming reason WCW ascended to Number One in the industry. He used Bischoff's fear and weakness to position himself as the center of the WCW universe.

Bischoff has forgotten the contribution of the Wolfpack, of Ric Flair, of Sting, of the hard-working cruiserweights, of the luchadors, or the Japanese - all in his desperation to keep Hogan. Despite the roster enjoying the most lucrative contracts in American wrestling history, he leads a locker room in open revolt.

One of the most closely followed stories of this year will be the ultimate fate of Eric Bischoff in World Championship Wrestling.

Bischoff is so worried that Hogan might jump somewhere that he has made concession after concession to him: bringing in the "Mule" Ed Leslie when he was adamantly opposed to it, making the famously inaccurate statement that the only wrestlers in the locker room to put "asses in the seats" were Hogan, Randy Savage, and Roddy Piper.

For the record, Ric Flair put many more "asses in seats" and headlined more big cards than either Savage or Piper during the course of his career. He did it as recently as January when his match with Bret Hart drew a bigger buyrate than Spring Stampede's main events featuring Hogan, Piper, and Savage.

And what if you are someone like Chris Benoit? No one draws fans unless their promotion puts them in a position to do so. What is Benoit supposed to think when he sees Steve Austin, so similar to him, succeed because he finally got the opportunity? WCW has a locker room full of Benoit types who will never get the chance to break out as long as Hogan keeps supreme power over Bischoff and WCW.

Hogan has kept Bischoff so close he knows all of his weaknesses and secrets. Eric Bischoff has no choice but to ride the Hogan train wherever it leads - at least until Hogan kicks him off. Bischoff is the perfect fall guy for Hogan, when the time comes for Hogan to find a movie to do while the heat comes down.

Hogan has used this power brilliantly, exploiting every opportunity, co-opting and positioning possible rivals so they are clearly weaker than him, both in the ring and in the dressing room.

Hogan played Kevin Nash and Scott Hall's personal weaknesses in such a way that their act has lost its cool almost completely. He wants to weaken them further by putting Hall on his side of the NWO split. He weakened the CrowSting with those bizarre double pin finishes almost as soon as Sting returned to the ring, and he has promised to never job to Sting again since Sting refused to let his character be weakened further by an incomprehensible heel turn.

Randy Savage has been co-opted totally as Robin to Hogan's Batman. Piper is too old and out of it to be much of a threat. The Giant has been "allied" with Hogan so long he's on the level of a Lex Luger.

A young, large threat to Hogan? Kinda similar to Bill Goldberg, isn't it? Look for Hogan to use the same strategy to befriend wrestling's hottest new star and cool him down in a subordinate position to Hollywood. A seven month rookie will have no chance against the maneuvering of a master like Hogan.

Like anyone who has Game, Hogan has saved his masterpiece for the final quarter: Bret Hart. Now that Hogan has all of his other rivals positioned, he can turn his attention to his successor as the Man in the WWF.

After giving Bret some time to get caught in Brother-in-Law quicksand, Hogan had his surrogate Randy Savage give the game away during that befogged interview on Thunder where he claimed Bret was "overpaid," a "whiner," and a "mark for himself."

Hogan has to take Bret Hart seriously, at least in part because of the size of his salary. No doubt Randy Savage will do the job to Bret Hart. So will Hogan. They are professionals, after all.

But have no doubt that, most importantly, the jobs will be done in a way that weakens Bret Hart in the long run - Bret taking a stunner from the Mule or something after the matches. Bret is too busy dealing with the surreal atmosphere of a multinational company that is run out of Eric Bischoff's back pocket to see this coming, and, even if he does, there will be little or nothing he can do about it.

Hogan knows the Game is one of perception. He took himself off of the Slamboree PPV because he knows the buyrate will be down after the Nitro preemptions due to the NBA playoffs. If the WWF starts consistently winning the ratings war, Hogan will disappear, waiting to ride a Jim Hellwig quick fix back to the top.

So where did Hogan learn the real Game of professional wrestling? Well, Hogan spent a good bit of the early part of this year watching the true Greatest, Antonio Inoki, manipulate his way to true legendary sport and media status in his country, unlike the ersatz legendary status Hogan enjoys.

Inoki is a true phenomenon, able to convince an entire generation of Japanese that he is a serious hybrid sports master, using his worked legitimacy to rise from disaster and scandal brought on by his true working nature time and time again. Inoki drew more money than Hogan ever has or can.

Hogan, no matter how well he plays the Game, will never ride his string of B-movie flops to the U.S. senate, as Inoki did to the Japanese Diet. He'll never see a 70,000 seat lovefest, covered by every segment of the mainstream media, hail his first retirement. No one will ever recall Hogan performances with the respect and affection Japanese regard Inoki matches with the likes of Dory Funk, Billy Robinson, Tatsumi Fujinami, or Big Van Vader.

Hogan will be lucky to get the halfway respect Ric Flair gets from the mainstream. Inoki plays another level of the game.

The irony of it all is that Inoki's supremacy, like all of Hogan's many flaws, doesn't count in this game of perception because as long as the Eric Bischoffs, Vince McMahons, and A&Es of the world fall for Hogan's illusion, then the illusion becomes reality.

Ric Flair sits at home. Steve Austin earns less. Kevin Nash seethes in frustration. Scott Hall falls apart. Sting fades away. Bret Hart looks on, confused. Eric Bischoff takes the blame.

And Hulk Hogan?

He Got Game.

 

and that's all I've got to say about that.

[Guest HartFan86]

Long, very intresting read. Made me think about some stuff.

[Guest Maurizio C... Version 2]

that was the point...

[Guest Brian]

Inoki is such an image in the Japanas public. He's greater than Hogan in that sense, that the public sees him as legitimate. I mean, look at the Muhammed Ali and Inoki fight. Hogan will never have that; that perception as an athlete. He's an image, a character. Inoki's perception is the real deal as far as wrestlers go; the image, the fighter, the toughman, the icon.

[Guest Maurizio C... Version 2]

as mitchell said, inoki plays politics to a whole different level.