For Immediate Release...

[Ace309 0]

Smartmarks Wrestling Federation Limited (NASDAQ: SWFL), a Chicago-based sports entertainment promotion that has been plagued by financial losses for six consecutive quarters, has scheduled its annual shareholders meeting for March 1, 2007, in Spokane, Washington.

 

SWFL, $13.09 at Friday's close, has dropped consistently. Many attribute the financial issues to the promotion's refusal to build new stars and their on-screen reliance on Michael Stephens, known professionally as "Toxxic", and his tag-team partner, Landon "La Cucaracha" Maddix. There has been talk of unseating the unpopular SWF Ltd. CEO, Joseph Peters.

 

Mr. Peters, who built his fortune by developing and marketing the Snow Demon line of snowplows for use on sports utility vehicles, had no comment as of press time.

 

On-screen authority figure Tom Flesher has been discussed as a possible replacement, but laughed the idea off. "I'm not a businessman," Mr. Flesher said late Friday. "I'm a political scientist, I have some legal training, I'm a philosopher. I work with the boys in the back, but I can't manage an international enterprise like the SWF. No one would ask me to."

 

Mr. Flesher said that he had no idea who might be organizing the shareholders' revolt, but that in order to avoid controversy, he would abstain from voting at the shareholders' meeting. Many wonder if Mr. Flesher's on-screen character, a manipulative backstage politician who claims to be retired but continues to meddle in Mr. Stephens' on-screen affairs by "phasing him out" of main attraction matches, is merely a cover for his ambitions to run the business' front office as well.

 

One of the more persistent and credible rumors involves Stephen Popick, a George Mason University-trained economist who was involved in the creation of the SWF's chief competitor, The OAOAST. The OAOAST has been criticized of late for "poaching [the SWF's] talent, then sending them back to us bruised, battered and disillusioned," Mr. Flesher said. "They have more money than we do, and so they can steal Johnny Damon from us, but they won't even let us have Kevin Youkilis," he continued, making reference to Major League Baseball's practice of large, rich teams poaching talent from poorer, smaller-market organizations.

 

Mr. Flesher, when pressed, admitted to having recently read Moneyball.

 

Other rumors involved a hostile takeover planned by the Osaka Textile Concern, a recent daughter of the Aechiba Corporation's split. The Aechiba Corporation was the corporate owner of the SWF between 2003 and 2005, when the business went public at the request of on-screen commissioner and Vice President of Talent Relations Mark Stevens. Stevens, now retired and training new wrestlers in his Nebraska home, had no comment on Friday, preferring to "stay out of the money issues."

 

BennerCorp, a small public relations firm located in Northern New Jersey, has expressed an interest in purchasing the promotion. BennerCorp has appeared in storylines in the past, chiefly to be remembered as the producer of "Ghost Machine." Ghost Machine is, as Mr. Flesher put it, "a bit of a running gag in the SWF." In the recurring storyline, a popular athlete is taken off-screen and replaced by a robot of his exact dimensions, with exactly the same athletic abilities and wrestling style, but an imperfect artificial intelligence engine.

 

Expect more details to follow when information is available.

[Toxxic 0]

This is awesome, and I especially like the bit about Snow Demon snowploughs.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Just like the old Wrestling Panda articles... but somehow not as lighthearted.

[HollywoodSpikeJenkins 0]

$13.09 a share? God damn.

[Justice 0]

"Once again, the conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor!"

[Toxxic 0]

I've been reading Dilbert cartoons lately. I demand that if Peters is disposed we have a Pointy-Haired Boss.

[Smartly Pretty 0]

my friends math teacher is a carbon copy of pointy haired boss. I must find a picture of him somewhere.

 

but now that I think about it, it says no where that peters isn't pointy haired. we could just start writing him that way.