Kaertos

Redmond v. IL 2x no-show Thanks for the effort guys.

As SWF Lockdown begins, there is nothing. No explosions. No music. No pyrotechnics. Nothing. All that can be seen is a black screen, that slowly fades up to show an SWF production truck. Alan Clark sits outside, his head down. Behind him, the door to the truck opens and a man pops his head out. Man: Yo, what you want? Alan pops up and turns around. Alan: Hey, nothing much really. Could you play this tape? Alan pulls a tape out and hands it to the man. Man: Sure, when you want it played? Alan: Right now, if you can. Man: Okay. Alan turns and walks away, a slight smile on his face as the screen fades to black. ----- CUE: “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi The video begins, and the music begins as well. It's all the same, only the names will change Everyday it seems we're wasting away The video shows black and white video of Bloodshed, Apostle, and Alan Clark in various matches, bleeding, sweating, crying. Their images fade to black. Another place where the faces are so cold I'd drive all night just to get back home To the road, Alan sits in his tour bus as it rides down the highways of America from stop to stop, slowly images of Alan lashing out at Landon Maddix, at Mark Stevens, and his various run-ins with Thugg are superimposed over the comfortable Clark in his bus. Soon, they fade over the chorus. I'm wanted dead or alive Wanted dead or alive Shots of Alan Clark walking backstage are shown, his guitar on his back. I walk these streets, a loaded six string on my back I play for keeps, 'cause I might not make it back The video turns to the various images of Alan holding Junior League championships high in the air… I been everywhere, still I'm standing tall The last image is of Alan holding the JL World Title over his head, a few tears on his face, mixed with blood. I've seen a million faces and I've rocked them all As Alan stands in the ring up on the corner and looking out over a cheering, explosive crowd…the images all fade to black…then a rain-soaked highway, two headlights burning in the distance. I'm wanted dead or alive I'm a cowboy, I got the night on my side I'm wanted dead or alive Wanted dead or alive The music slowly fades, and the video goes to darkness. ------ In the arena, everything is still shrouded in darkness. The lights slowly come up, and reveal Alan Clark standing in the center of the ring, a microphone in hand. His head is down, his hair has grown enough to begin to fall over his face. The smile is gone from Alan’s face as he looks up to the crowd, some of who have begun cheering. Alan just stares, cold. Alan: Stop. Stop cheering, please. The crowd seems confused, and slowly the cheers disappear. Alan pauses for a moment and continues. Alan: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As some of you may have noticed – in the last few weeks I have done nothing to receive any of these cheers. I came into Cluster(bleep) with high hopes and dreams, and they were shattered in an instant. I faced loses at the hands of both members of Wild and Dangerous. It seems the only thing I have done has interjected myself in places that I should not. Thugg attacks Landon – a man I have come to almost loathe for his turncoat ways. A man that took away my chances at leaving the SJL a victorious man. He destroyed those dreams. Thugg attacks Spike Jenkins – a man that I too have had the pleasure in making tap out and defeat, and leave lying in the middle of the ring. But then Thugg makes his way to me…and I could not take it anymore. I was raised to care about the lives of others. No matter how much I hate Landon Maddix or Todd Royal…no matter how many times I defeat any wrestler – I know that they have lives just like me, and they do not want to see them destroyed in this ring. But Thugg, he was different. He cares only about himself, and trying to make himself look like a tough guy by throwing around three men that are half his size. Landon, Spike, they mean nothing to me compared to how much it means to see Thugg finally get exactly what is coming to him. Mark…Commissioner Stevens…you give me a chance at From The Fire to exact a little bit of revenge for all the pain I have suffered these last few weeks. I know out there somewhere that Thugg is watching…and this is directed right at him… Alan’s eyes focus on the camera right in front of him. Alan: Don’t think for one second that the pain and the anguish I have been feeling inside these last few weeks is all because of you, oh no. This pain, this anguish, this fire that burns within me is all about what’s right in here… Alan points to his head. Some of these fans can remember that a few months ago, I took on Todd Royal for the JL World Championship in a Falls Count Anywhere match. In the end, I dove off a production truck and left a Todd-sized dent in the roof of a limousine. I told the whole world that it didn’t matter what had to happen, and what extremes I had to go to…I would get the job done. And that is exactly what I did that night in Anchorage, Alaska. I took myself to the limit and won that gold and I sat in that ring and cried. I knew I had finally accomplished something that I could be proud about… Alan falls to his knees, his body hunched over. But I wasn’t proud for long. NO I WASN’T! In the next month, I would lose both the European and World Championships to the same man, Landon Maddix, and I couldn’t even fathom…in my own mind…what was going on. I choked. I (bleep)ing choked! DO YOU HEAR ME OUT THERE? ALAN CLARK CHOKED! Alan points out to the crowd from his knees, his arm slowly moving back and forth. Did you feel the pain coursing through my body…and my mind…when Landon Maddix defeated me? No! Nobody did! And what did I do then…what did I do…I hugged him. I (bleep)ing hugged him! I wanted to show my respect to everyone watching…but I had no reason to be respectful. It was the end of one era…and I went out a loser…then I stepped head on into the beginning of another…and I came in a loser! The last thing I needed was that big mother(bleep)er attacking me backstage and calling me a (bleep)ing bitch! Alan stays on his knees, clenching his fists with rage. So look now! LOOK NOW! Look what I have in MY future…Alan Clark taking on H…V…T…Thugg…one on one in a STREET FIGHT! No matter what…at the end of that match, Thugg will be gone for good. FOREVER! That is for certain…a constant. But in with that constant, I am the variable. It’s all up to me, now, as to whether Thugg leaves From The Fire and the SWF as a winner…or as a loser. Alan stands back up to his feet and paces around the ring slowly. It’s up to me! It’s all on my shoulders…on my back…on my mind! All on Alan Clark…I have to bring my ‘A’ game and try my hardest to end the career of Thugg as nothing more than another down note in his life. And you know what…I’m not coming to From The Fire alone… oh no… Alan Clark’s demeanor changes rapidly a he moves faster and faster around the ring. You people all think I’m crazy! But I’m NOT! I am anything BUT crazy…in fact…I may just be the SMARTEST MAN ALIVE right now! Alan begins laughing almost maniacally as he falls onto his knees and looks into the camera. Come on Thugg…you want to come and get me? I’ll be at From The Fire…but you won’t just have to deal with ME… NO! NO THUGG! I WON’T BE ALONE! …Bloodshed is coming, Thugg…oh yes he is…the man that almost ended the life of Craig McLennan by tossing him down a flight of stairs... The Apostle…he’s sure to show up too! The man that made Silent tap out! The man that drove Jamie Drazon’s head into the center of this ring and knocked him out cold! The man that defeated Crow, arguably one of the greatest SJL World Champions EVER! The same man, Thugg…the same man that defied all the odds put against him to almost make it to the finals of the Genesis Four Tournament… They are coming, Thugg… they stand beside me and they fight with me. You want to know what it’s like to stand across the ring from the three of us… go ask Todd Royal! Ask him how his back felt as he got slammed into that limousine…or how it felt to have pure blood sprayed into his eyes! Ask him how much it pained him when he regained consciousness backstage and saw Alan Clark in the ring holding his World Heavyweight Championship! NO THUGG…I’m not crazy…I’m not insane…I know the truth… I know EXACTLY how I am! But the question that I place before you…and before everyone else watching at home…is do YOU know exactly who I am? Do YOU know exactly what you are getting into, Thugg, when in a less than two weeks you are standing across the ring from not just Alan Clark…but all who have come before him? Do you think for one (bleep)ing second that I’m not going to seize this opportunity and leave you lying in a pool of your own blood…or a pool of mine? Do you have any IDEA exactly how much torture the human body can go through before it just SHUTS DOWN? …Guess what, CUZ… at From the Fire… YOU WILL KNOW THE ANSWER! YOU WILL KNOW THE TRUTH! YOU WILL BE ROCKED! …and the only thing that you or anyone else can do about it…. …is to simply WAIT… …AND… …(bleep)ING… …BLEED~! Alan drops the microphone as he gets to his feet, the crowd in stunned silence around him. As he crawls out of the ring and heads toward the curtain…an image slowly fades up onto the SmarkTron… ----- Silence… Dead silence… And then… “OH MY GOD!!! SOMEONE JUST SPEARED ALAN CLARK RIGHT OUT OF HIS BOOTS!!” Comet’s voice is heard as HVT spears Clark right into a wall, leaving him laid out in the hallway. The still black and white images of the attack fade in and out over the screen, stopping on the small index card… “Welcome to the SWF, You Are Officially My Bitch” More still images, taken in the ring, where Thugg was brutally fired by Commissioner Stevens… “you are no longer an employee of the Smartmarks Wrestling Federation…YOU ARE FIRED!!” Steven’s voice fades away, replaced by a sold-out arena… “Na, na, na, na.” “Na, na, na, na.” “Hey, hey, hey.” “Goodbye!” Thugg leaves the ring, surrounded by security, his eyes burning with anger…the crowd’s explosive chanting dies away… …More images appear, taken later that evening, as HVT finds his car destroyed at the hands of Alan Clark. Thugg’s voice can be heard over the images… WHAT THE (BLEEP)!?! The images fade away over the same card left earlier in the hallway, and Thugg walks away from his car, pissed. One final voice is heard as the images fade… “I…want…Thugg…NOW!” Alan’s voice is heard screaming out…then more images appear…showcasing the interactions from Thugg and Alan Clark since that Lockdown two weeks earlier. Mixed with the images of Thugg and Alan, are also shots from Clark’s recent losses at the hands of both Wildchild and Johnny Dangerous. The distraught look is in his eyes as he tastes defeat twice in a little over a week’s time. A deep ominous voice is heard… “One man… HVT…Thugg…a man with no concern for the lives of his fellow man. A man disgraced and humiliated…fired… And another…Alan Clark…a man that some say doesn’t have what it takes to succeed in the big leagues. A man that has his shot to show the world exactly the kind of person he is. One man…a fighter…a veteran...a human wrecking ball. The other…a smartass…a psycho…a walking time bomb. These two shall meet in volatile circumstances. It is for sure one man’s final match…his last chance to show himself as better than anyone else. For the other man, it could very well be the beginning of something special. Thugg… Clark… A Street Fight. For Pride. For Revenge. For Victory. FROM THE FIRE 2004 ----- …The SmarkTron fades to various shots of Thugg and Alan Clark from the past two weeks, ending on a shot of Alan Clark standing off in the distance as Thugg finds his destroyed car. As Lockdown heads to it’s first commercial break. The image of Thugg and his car fades away, leaving a still shot of Alan on the SmarkTron…slowly the images of Bloodshed and The Apostle appear next to Alan Clark. They stand side by side…then slowly they move back together into one solid image of Alan Clark… …and the thunder rolls.

You indeed rock. I take back everything bad I said about you.

Are you sure? 7 Pacific doesn't jibe with any of the times actually given on the card. I corrected the time difference before I saw this post, so the card reads 5 Pacific and 8 Eastern.

::sigh::... well, any chance we could decide on the draft date more than a day or two in advance this time? With my comp's shaky state right now, I can;t promise anything, but I will try to make it.

I ask a favor of you Evo... Any chance this list could be updated with the venues and cities the events took place in?

Thoth, if you want to play Texas hold-em against King, you are nuts. Hell, even IRL, you're still nuts. Myself, I've been playing since I was 5. Not that I am any good, but I can win a hand here or there.

I've also read "The Sun Also Rises" and thematically, I liked it. But I disliked the wrting if that makes any sense. Hemingway, at least to me, is a little too stream of conciousness to maintain a narrative and my interest.

A.) I do not. I don't even like the baseball variant of poker. Seven card stud... B.) By offline draft, do you mean we do it in chat or something? In that case, as usual, I must protest as I rarely can make the draft.

I have received this request before, so CC is looking into it. I will keep you all updated. Promise.

Dangerous and Clark: No extensions from me tonight. I have some things to do and will be unable to get back to my computer until about 10 or 11 tomorrow morning. Let me know if this is a problem...

Then you didn't get the point I was going for. Sorry. Be shocked, be appalled... whatever. I have stopped caring, to be honest. Here's the thing: I like the WWE right now, as it stands. You don't for reasons that I can't begin to fathom. We will never agree on anything, so I am going to stop wasting my words. Sorry I ever started...

In this case, I am blaming the fans, or rather, the "smarks", for not liking things which are not, in and of themselves, bad. When has the WWE, or wrestling in general for that matter, ever given anyone the idea that it is continuity based, linear storytelling? If it were, then nobody would ever form tag teams since at some point, most of them have fought before. The proper way to look at it, at least from where I stand, is selective continuity. This month, for example, it might be useful to bring up the fact that Jericho and Kane have had issues in the past. Then again, how relevant is that to now? As far as good matches, I see at least one or two good matches a week on WWE television. I think that the "smarks", to continue making a sweeping generalization, have set their standards too high. You can't have a show filled with ****+ matches twice a week. Doesn't work that way. Heck, I was watching back in the long-gone days where a three hour show was filled with matches where stars beat jobbers. If you were lucky, you got to see two mid-carders go at it late in the show. I consider the current situation to be far superior. And if it came off that I was condemning people for not liking the product, then I apologize. I can understand many of the reasons people dislike what is going on now. I was, however, referring to the glut of "smarks" that seem to be looking for a reason to complain about the shows. Most of what I read here is not what I would call constructive criticism. Most of it sounds like very critical and bitter people complaining treating their opinion as hard fact. It is the nastiness and mean-spiritedness of it all that both frustrates me and makes me want to defend the show I enjoy. And when I said I wasn't "Anti-Smark", I didn't mean that you should not express your opinion. This is a free country, and a free forum. As long as you follow the posting guidlines, say whatever you want. I just disagree with, well, nearly everyone here apparently. Oh well, so be it. As a wise friend of mine once said, "No one has ever changed anyone's mind on this board, and it won't start now." Perhaps I am guilty of trying too hard to get my point across.

Rajah was one of the first sites I came across when I got into the whole Internet Wrestling thing. I learned fast to disregard most of their info.

One thing about KoR 2002 though... If you skip it you miss a pretty decent match between Eddie and Ric Flair. BUTT more importantly, you get to see Hulk Hogan tap to the Ankle Lock. I was there and I admit to saying this is among the greatest live wrestling expieriences I've ever had. Angle was solidly the heel, but as soon as he hooked in the Ankle Lock, the crowd went bonkers wanting to see the Hulkster tap.

Did some checking on that. I was wrong, but I swear to you I remember lookg over at my friend and saying "I bet the WWE is loving having Angle as their champ right now." Oh well...

I didn't say that. And by the same token, it doesn't make you a real fan to dislike the WWE. Here's the thing, I'm not "anti-smark". Really. And I'll be honest, when I first got back into wrestling and started reading about it on the INet, I agreed with most things that were said. But as the past few years have gone by, everything has become very, very negative, extremely critical and, frankly, a little mean for my tastes. You say there hasn't been a good PPV (other than WM X7 and NWO '01) since Judgement Day 2000? That I have to disagree with. Off the top of my head? - SummerSlam 2000 (TLC I, HHH / Rock / Angle, Benoit v. Jericho) - Royal Rumble 2001 (Benoit v. Jericho Ladder Match, Angle v. HHH, Kane rules the Rumble) - Judgement Day 2001 (Angle / Benoit 2/3 falls, Kane v. HHH chain match, Jericho & Benoit win Tag Team Tumoil) - Vengeance 2001 (Jericho wins Undisputed Title) And that's just off the top of my head. SummerSlam and Survivor Series were both good the last two years. WMXIX was a good show. I have no regrets having boughts all of those Pay-Per-Views.

To be fair, Angle was already champ when 9-11 happened. Fortuitous planning, as it turned out.

Im sorry. Why? Oh... that's right. I forgot I'm on the WWE board where everyone watches, nobody likes anything and if they do they won't admit it for fear of being labelled a "mark". Well label me what you'd like then. I like the WWE. I think that while they had some issues during the Invasion era, they have turned things around and have put on a great run of both PPV's and regular television. And while I'll admit to thinking Booker T should have gone over at WMXIX, and I think this year I would prefer HHH v. Benoit as a singles match (where I think Benoit should go over), I will cop to liking many of the things that are generally regarded as "crap" here. The rain and lightning effects for Taker. Awesome. The Jericho / Trish / Christian storyline? Cool. The Big Show? Smackdown MVP of 2003. Triple H? Will be remembered as one of the greatest ever. I'd joke about having to turn in my Smarks Club Card, but I never had one really.

To be fair, a lot of those numbers that declined severely have direct "pocketbook" impact. That is, they are relatively expensive out-of-pocket luxury items for the average wrestling fan. The economy, while showing signs here and there of a recovery, is still bad from the bottom up. And since most of WWE's fanbase hang in the middle class, they haven't seen the recovery yet. I know I skipped a WWE show this year because I just didn't have the cash to go and I haven't missed a Pay-Per-View since Judgement Day 2000.

I was going to ask who pissed in King's cornflakes this morning, then it occured to me that he only hates baseball by association... so I let it slide. On the other hand... Poker is crap. You ever seen "Rounders"? Crap. Total boring crap. There... karma is restored...

okey-doke... if it is an offline draft, I am there. And I will just delete the league i was making when I saw this post...

And updated through Battleground...

I've seen (and participated) in a few, but they usually die a swift death. Which is unfortunate. Personally, I would love to participate in a nice, intelligent thread about some real literature.

The only line from any Austin Powers movie I or my friend's have used with any frequency was, "How about NO!! you crazy Dutch bastard!!" which for some reason is funny as hell. Although, for some reason, "Would you like a shmoke & a pancake? A bong and a blintz? ... " is getting some play recently.