Hail and Howdy, True Believers!
It is I. Your Paragon Of Professional Wrestling. The Masked Man who loves to wax poetic about the mat game. Some know me as the Chief Executive of our Fair City, Parts Unknown, currently concluding a fourth term in office. Some know me as a beloved and ever-so-eloquent wrestling columnist. Some, as the (now-inactive) CEO of the Pro Wrestling Federation, an independent wrestling promotion in East Tennessee.
You can call me The Mayor.
The Esteemed Collection of Creativity here at Gonzogeek has been kind enough to give me this space to apply the three Rs to professional wrestling. That's Ranting, Raving and Writing for those who lack a classical education.
I've lived pretty much the storybook life for your garden-variety Parts Unknownian. Boy is born. Boy dons mask. Boy graduates, with honors, from Pierroth High fluent in Parts Unknown's four official languages (English, Spanish, Samoan & Gibberish). Boy meets girl. Boy and girl get married. Boy and girl have three children -- all born at our top-notch hospital, Mil Mascaras General.
So here I sit. Wearing a neck brace as a result of being throttled by Big Daddy Freddie, in an ergonomically friendly chair at City Hall. A picture of The Missus and our three bundles of joy -- Tully, Abdullah and Gordy Sue -- on my desk.
Meanwhile, Dear Old Dad has retired from the spandex factory at Parts Unknown. He now makes his home in East Tennessee, where he spends most weekends out enjoying one or more of the independent promotions in the area.
And it's there that we kick off this Inaugural Docket.
Ring Of Honor World Champion
Davey Richards will be appearing as
NWA Smoky Mountain presents "The Big One", tomorrow night, Thursday Aug 4. from the
Civic Auditorium in Kingsport. Richards will be taking on Chase Owens, the NWA Mountain Empire Champion. Owens appeared on ROH's event in Charlotte last month, and recently was announced as one of the participants in CHIKARA's
Young Lions Cup.
Kyle O'Reilly, considered a protege of Richards, also will be on the card. O'Reilly and Adam Cole have been tearing it up in ROH as a tag team, but he'll be in singles action at "The Big One" against NWA Smoky Mountain's Jason "The Gift" Kincaid.
The Illuminati, a recently formed faction of rulebreakers, also will be in action. Former longtime fan favorite Tony "The Dragon" Givens, who turned his back on the people to form the Illuminati, teams with Chris Richards and the returning Josh Cody against Robbie Cassidy, Beau James and Wayne Adkins. These six were staples on the Kingsport scene earlier in the decade and NWA SM is dubbing this as a tag match "10 years in the making."
You can check out the full card for "The Big One"
here.
Dear Old Dad actually has two wrestling events lined up for his keyster this weekend. Friday, Aug. 5, he'll be heading to the Back To School Bash presented by the
Pro Wrestling Federation. That card is taking place at the Rogersville City Park and admission is free. In the Main Event,
Travis Dykes takes on Cody Blade in a Falls Count Anywhere Match. Dykes apparently won the PWF's "One Way Ticket" battle royal last month. However, Cody Blade was thrown out of the match while the referees were distracted by a ringside brawl and Blade tossed Dykes from the match in a controversial decision. After chance after chance at regaining his job since getting fired in March, Dykes has one more chance. If he wins, he's reinstated. If he loses, Dykes is banned from the PWF forever.
Let's move on to the NATIONAL scene, where all eyes are on CM Punk as he heads into a rematch with John Cena at Summerslam to decide an "undisputed" WWE Champion. Punk's recent work, physical and verbal, has given McMahon-Land a necessary shot in the arm. The promotion also has shown the willingness to think outside the box and even (Dare we say it? Dare! Dare!) go viral with some of the twists and turns. Punk appeared at an AAW show in Illinois, and even crashed the WWE Mattel toys' panel at Comic-Con. You might have seen the
video from that last incident.
This Chief Executive will have his take on the Summerslam match closer to the date of the event. Meanwhile, here are some thoughts left vis-a-vis an inter-office memo filed by my Chief Of Public Relations... known round these parts simply as The Chief, on the role Cena is playing--or rather is NOT playing--in his rivalry with Punk:
"You're the WWE Champion. You get beat, CLEAN AS A SHEET, by CM Punk at Money in the Bank in Chicago. The only reason, in storyline, that Punk even had the chance to leave Chicago and the company with the Title is because of your failure to retain it, in the first place.
"THEN, the company finds itself forced to hold a tournament the next night, to crown a new makeshift Champion. A tournament, I might add, that you're not even a part of, and a tournament that wouldn't even be held, if you hadn't dropped the ball to begin with.
"THEN, out of the kindness of his benevolent heart, the new authority figure of the company graces you with a second chance by giving you a shot at the winner of the tournament -- NOT at SummerSlam, no. NOT even the next week on RAW. The same night. A fresh you vs. a battered Mysterio.
"You then proceed to beat that battered Mysterio to become the new WWE Kinda Champion, and somehow you walk around with a sense of accomplishment, as if you've actually done something. As if you should be considered the true Champion, when in fact, the only reason this Title chaos has been happening in the first place is on account of your failure to get the job done when you had the chance.
"And yet, somehow in this storyline, you're still a... babyface? I could see Evolution-era HHH trying to orchestrate the circumstances to take advantage of. I could see the Ric Flair of 1985 weaseling his way into a situation this way, to cover up for an initial failure and loss of a Title. Hell, I could even see Miz today jumping at an un-level playing field like that and then pridefully celebrating his handout victory that erases his legit failure. But... the guy with the high moral compass? The guy with the cartoonishly high sense of right and wrong, in storyline, couldn't even suggest to the new COO to hold the Title shot the following week, so that the new makeshift Kinda Champion had time to recuperate and prepare for the match? I'm supposed to buy that this guy is a babyface in a storyline like this? Really!?
"The booking of this story from the Cena side of things, on paper, make Cena out to be a complete heel in all this: Getting beat relatively clean (By today's standards), getting silver-plattered a shot at the makeshift Title the same night as the new guy won it, and then proclaiming you should be seen as the true Champ all along, EVEN AFTER the legit Champion who beat you in the first place, shows back up. Astounding."
Just a little food for thought, Beloved.
That's all for this week. Check back within a fortnight for more Mayoral Musings!