Andy's Alphabet- I (Internet wrestling- good or bad?)

[Andy]

Andy’s Alphabet- I



Hello guys, and welcome to letter I of my wrestling alphabet. Thanks again to all of you who read and left feedback on my last column. I had been given many great ides for this column, but in the end, I decided to base it around the Internet and discuss its effect on the WWE. I will be discussing spoilers and backstage rumours and headlines, so if it interests you, I would advise you to read on. I hope you enjoy it! Oh, and don’t be put off by the lack of colour and pictures.


For around three years, I’ve been coming to this website (Lords of Pain). I stumbled on this website one Sunday, when I typed “wrestling rumours and pay-per-view predictions” into my search engine. There was a big event coming up that night, hence why I wanted to hear the latest backstage gossip and read someone’s thoughts on who they thought would win. I had known from quite an early age that wrestling was scripted, and I had figured that there were rumours and headlines surrounding the business that they (specifically Vince McMahon) didn’t want us to hear. I browsed a few wrestling sites during my search on that fateful day, but this website seemed like the place to be. Since that Summer day, I began visiting the website weekly, and sometimes when I didn’t have any homework to do, I decided to give the website a scan in order to be informed of the latest scandal in the professional wrestling world. By Christmas of the same year, I found myself coming here three or four days a week and I had began to read columns on the main page more regularly in order to read others thoughts on the product.


Fast forward a year, and I was viewing the main page for around fifteen minutes every day. There were many top feuds taking place during this time, such as the Edge, Batista and Undertaker one, and the Triple H and Randy Orton one. During this point, my wrestling fandom had reached all time high. By winter 2008/2009, I spent about an hour on this very website reading the latest news and soaking in everything that all columnists were writing about. I can even remember that I had two weeks of tough exams coming up, and saying to myself that I would limit my time on this website to thirty minutes every three days. However, when trying to absorb knowledge into my brain by way of reading my notes, I constantly had an itch to say “Fuck this”, just give in to temptation, then go on this site and read until my heart’s content.


It turned out that I wasn’t strong enough to defeat the temptation. Even after trying my damned hardest to convince myself that I had to put other things ahead of my wrestling fandom and this website, I just couldn’t resist it. I turned on this very computer and connected to this website. I read column upon column on the main page and here in the forums. Before I knew what hit me, it was eleven o’clock. I went out to the kitchen, got a bite to eat then trotted off upstairs to sleep. The same thing happened every single weekday for two whole weeks and Saturday seemed to be the only day that I didn’t visit here. Right now, I spend every possible moment that I am at the house, on this very website. Sometimes, I find myself still browsing around here or writing a column at 5am in the morning. Hey, why shouldn’t I? I still manage to enjoy myself, get done all I need to do, and it doesn’t affect my life. I read every single column and every piece of news. The one thing I don’t read though, are spoilers.


A spoiler is slang for any element of any summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot element that will give away the ending or part of something. Spoilers range from knowing the outcome of a match before witnessing it, knowing who is backstage at a particular event, or knowing who is scheduled to win or lose a certain championship. As RAW and pay-per-views are live, there cannot be any match spoilers for those particular events, although the same cant be said for Smackdown!, ECW and WWE Superstars. I will come to an issue regarding this, a little later on. Personally, I do not read spoilers as I feel they damage my enjoyment of the event or show.


Many share different views that me, and actually don’t mind spoilers and read them in order to see if a show is worth watching. Some argue that it doesn’t matter what the hell the outcome is, aslong as the wrestling on display is quality. You see, these people do have a point and are right to a certain degree. Perhaps they may not care for the storylines, segments or in-ring promos, and just want to see actual wrestling. It has been argued that spoilers actually enhance the viewing pleasure as you can relax and enjoy the wrestling show all in the knowledge of knowing what is going to happen. I can understand why wrestling fans who have families, have jobs and have other commitments read spoilers; after all, it allows them to know (for instance) whether Smackdown! is worth watching, or if they could be getting on with ‘grown-up stuff’, whatever that may be. One day I may do the same when I have more responsibilities and less free time on my hands, so I can to some extent see things from their perspective.


That’s not to say that men and women who do read wrestling spoilers, have nothing better to do, because that is incorrect. This may be a tad controversial, but I believe die-hard wrestling fans will ignore wrestling spoilers and watch the shows like ECW whilst being clueless to whether or not it is going to be a brilliant show, a good show, a mediocre show, a bad show, or a terrible show. It’s a risk I think we all should all take, because how great is it when the unexpected happens? Take for instance Smackdown! last week where CM Punk attacked Jeff Hardy. I, for one, certainly didn’t expect him to lay the smackdown (no pun intended) as badly as he did! It just came out of absolutely nowhere. I kinda expected a GTS or something, but not a vicious assault! It was the best ending to a Smackdown show in years! Now if I had have read the spoilers for the show, I wouldn’t have been presented with such a mark-out moment. The unpredictability factor that comes with not knowing the outcome of an event is great.


As I mentioned in my very first column, ratings for RAW, Smackdown! and ECW are well below what they should be. As well all know, Smackdown and ECW are taped shows, therefore spoilers of match results are plastered all over wrestling websites by the very next day. So let’s say that a wrestling fan called Joe Average logs on to his favourite wrestling website on a Thursday night. He see’s “SPOILERS WWE Smackdown! 7/8/09 taping results from Long Island, New York” and can’t resist the urge to click on the link. Inevitably, he does indeed click on the link and he views each and every one of the match results and major talking points. Then Joe decides that he doesn’t want to view the show because he doesn’t think it is good enough, or because he isn’t that bothered now that he knows what happens, therefore a viewer is lost. There is more than one person who does the exact same thing, that’s for sure. I will go on record and say that spoilers destroy the Smackdown! ratings. It’s obvious because how could you fail to pay attention to such a cleverly booked show with such top-class wrestling on display?


Fine, but what about RAW? The flagship show does draw the highest ratings, but I am certain that if it was a taped show, then the ratings would be half of what they are now. It stands to sense, really. It is a possibility that people read spoilers on a weekly basis and don’t tune into any of the shows, so they eventually lose interest completely in the product and switch off, possibly forever. Of course, those wrestling fans who cannot get the network that Smackdown! is on, or those in the U.K that don’t have Sky Sports, have to view spoilers or results on order to keep up with the product, although they could also view matches on You Tube. Having said that, it still means that spoilers, and mostly match results can be important for those ones. If there was no internet, and the fans without cable couldn’t watch, then that would see a slight decrease in professional wrestling fans.


Which brings me onto my other point; what about the non-spoiler side of things? Results of wrestling events and headlines can be found on wrestling websites such as this one, straight after they have taken place. Now if there were no wrestling sites on the internet, there would be no columns forum, there would be no dirty laundry being aired in public, and there would be no IWC. That means that you would not be reading this right now, and I would be down in my local forest hitting unsuspecting victims with water-balloons, instead of writing this. Anyway, Vince and his henchmen do not want all the backstage news and backstage politics to be publicised. It damages his company’s image, the image of his family, and the image of himself. That is why Vince went to such drastic efforts in order to stamp out leaks about future title changes and storyline plans. He put tracking devices in his creative team’s laptop and if my memory serves me correctly, there were a few ‘behind the curtain’ releases around the same time.


I don’t know about you, but if there was no internet and there was only 6 hours maximum of WWE wrestling on our televisions, then I don’t know what I would do. I suppose that I would deal with it and continue watching, but I know for sure that my interest would definitely wane. I am a strange individual though, so maybe you feel differently. I need the internet in order to get full enjoyment out of what I’m watching. Damn, after writing that, I feel the need to go to IAA (Internet Addicts Anonymous). Some peoples wrestling fandom has been damaged by the internet, whereas mines has been enhanced. Not just writing columns, but viewing the headlines on the main page have helped increase my interest in the product. So in my eyes, internet wrestling sites are a major plus.


If Vince was really determined to stamp out wrestling spoilers, he would make Smackdown! go live, and maybe ECW as well. But, as you probably already know, that would be very unpractical and expensive. You just can’t take risks like this, especially in today’s economic climate. A more practical route to take would be to have Smackdown taped on Thursdays instead of Tuesdays. This scenario would mean that there would be less time for any of us to read spoilers. For example, if I logged on to Lords of Pain on a Wednesday to read the Smackdown! spoilers, it would all be fine and dandy. I would have around three days in order to look at the spoilers, however if it were taped on a Thursday, then I would have less than 24 hours to look at the spoilers. See what I mean? I’m pretty sure that this would result in more viewers tuning into the show. If you recall, the ratings for Smackdown! were considerably higher when taped on Thursdays.


Here’s a final question for you; are the WWE keeping tabs on websites like this one? Three months ago when The Miz came out and starting insulting John Cena, a lot of us thought that The Miz was representing the voice of us smark’s here on the net. He was making all sorts of smarkish comments towards Cena by insulting his movies and his move-set. Now, I believed that The Miz was the voice of the people (the people being the IWC), and I was loving his time in the limelight, absolutely loving it! At the point when he was getting involved with Cena, there were some in the forums and some columnists saying that The Miz would eventually get squashed by Cena as a huge “Fuck you” to all of us very intelligent and lovely people. Well, it looks as if Vince really has given us the middle finger and metaphorically squashed us. Unless The Miz somehow reestablishes himself, the future does not look bright for the poor fellow. First, he gets rejected by Maryse, now he is made to look like an absolute pussy. There is no concrete evidence that Vince and Co. have done this, but it certainly seems that way. Shame on you Vince, shame on youuuuu!!!


There is no doubt that this is a controversial topic which has caused heated debate throughout the pro-wrestling world. Before starting this column, I was of the firm belief that the internet wrestling sites were great for us fans, but terrible for the companies. I am still sticking by my initial thoughts, because they haven’t changed much at all, if any. I also believed that wrestling spoilers were the worst thing surrounding the IWC, although I now see more clearly why some of us do in fact read them. For those of you who think that logging onto sites like this spoil your enjoyment of wrestling, there’s not really an explanation. I suppose you could quit watching wrestling altogether, or stop logging on to websites which spoil your enjoyment. This is certainly a topic that will be thought about and talked about for many more years to come. I tried to look at this from both sides, so I could let you see the reasons as to why certain people make the decision to do what they do, and help you understand why some do it.


So letter I has been completed, and as always, I hope you enjoyed reading it. It certainly opened my eyes to certain things surrounding internet wrestling, and I hope it had the same effect on you. Feedback is always welcome, and all of it will be responded to in some shape or fashion. Question on this subject are welcome, as well. I think my next column will be on jobbers, but if you have any better ideas, don’t hesitate to let me know. If you want to read my last column, you can do so by clicking on this link http://www.lopforums.com/showthread.php?t=2528. It’s also my 17th birthday on Saturday, so feel free to send gifts and money, or you could just leave me some birthday feedback. Bye-bye.

[Box Car Rocco]

I really liked this Andy as it was completely different from what I thought it'd be. I thought you were going to bash half the internet elitists then praise the logical fans or something similar but you made it a personal piece, good job. When I first came to this site, it was through Daveyboy's column section and not the home page as that's what was in my favourites. I didn't know there were other columnists for about 10 weeks but once I found them, I was reading them.

J next, Jobbers please

[Freeman]

Yo dude,

Good stuff! I enjoyed this, and it's good to see you writing in different styles. You've gone from fun in letter G to serious in this one, and you don't seem to have any problems with the transition.

I pretty much agree with all your thoughts, however there is one tiny detail. Internet sites like this one may be bad for WWE, however the internet as a whole isn't bad for them at all. They must make a load of money and benefit greatly from WWE.com and the Universe, so I guess they have to take the rough with the smooth.

Anyhow, a good read overall, not many criticisms at all. Happy Birthday for Saturday by the way, hope you have a good 'un, and keep up the good work, you're having a good month so far.

Edit: Be careful with Jobbers in your next one though dude. Chrisss did a really good column on the same subject a little while ago, might be worth checking it out to avoid it looking too similar.

[Marksman]

I only occasionally view the Columns Forum, and even rarer give feedback, but I felt compelled to on this Column.

I thought it was very well structured, well thought out and very good grammer.

But my one gripe was that I was going to create a column every once in a while and this was going to be my first one

Just kidding, done better than I probably ever could.

Looking forward to Jobbers.

[Little Sneak]

Wow, Andy, wow! I actually cannot believe how good this column was. Having read every single one of your columns, i thought you couldnt really get any better. Boy was i wrong, very wrong. The structure, personilization and sheer information of the column just made it top standard. Reading the column i didnt once find myself reading quickly or scanning through, i read it with pure concentration and appreciation of the work you put into it. Clearly, you just keep improving and it is amazing to me that you have only been writing columns for afew months. Your writing style in this column also made it what it was as i took it more seriously than others. I think its always good to mix between writing styles every so often. I am really looking forward to J and hope it gives me the same enjoyment i got from this one. Only negative thing i can say was that you had more typos than previous columns: but who the hell cares when you produce work like this.
Very good work!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
YOUR COLUMNS GET MANY VIEWS
WE ALL LOVE YOU, ANDY
TO US, YOUR COLUMNS ARE LIKE CANDY!



Miss Sneak

[Jason Boy]

Great Job based on the title I thought it would be a full bash of the IWC. Can't wait for J

[Hovis.]

I really liked this. I've read the A-H of your columns but I was really interested when I clicked on this one. It didn't have the headings or multiple topics that the ones preceding it had. I was intrigued to see how you'd handle writing a piece solely based around one topic.

It was a tough topic to tackle, (Alliteration. Maybe I should start writing.) and you managed to avoid an all-out attack on the IWC. Instead, it was an excellent critique, including your own experiences as a member of it gave the piece a personal feel.

All in all, I loved it. I can't wait for J. In fact, I think I've started looking forward more to what topics you're doing, than I do the spoilers.

[Prince-Jigsaw]

Amazing column, I don't know what I could say that these other gentlemen haven't already. J for Jobbers would be interesting, but I'm ready for the swerve....

J For Slam Master J!

[Mr Chop]

Happy "HOOOOOOTIEHOOO" Birthday. 17? Almost a full blown growd up

Anyway, this was quality, I too am curious how much wwe really cares about the iwc. I think not alot. If they did it would be a very different product methinks.

[Pinky]

Glad to see you went with the internet topic and it paid off as this was a very good column. You managed to avoid bashing the IWC, something I thought you'd struggle to do but you pulled it off magnificently.

Am looking forward to Jobbers as I'll enjoy reading about MVP & Jack Swagger.

Oh and happy birthday Andy.

[Super Chrisss]

Andy, I'm going all out here by letting you know that this was probably the best column you've ever posted. Heck, had I read this a few days earlier I likely would have voted for you for CotM for this column alone. The flow was constantly excellent, you had brilliant arguments, and you turned this into a very enjoyable read.

Like I said, this was my favorite column of yours and J will have to be really good to impress me more than this one did! Amazing work Andy - you are now officialy one of my favorite columnists in these forums bud.

[Andy]

BCR- At least it was a nice surprise . It was a possibility but it would have been a dull topic that has been talked about way too much. Ironically, Daveboy’s column was the first I ever read as it popped up when I searched. Thanks for the feedback, chum.

Freeman- Yo Freeman! I’m gleeful that you seem to think that. I totally agree with what you are saying, but I wanted to base it around the WWE like I said at the start, although I should have mentioned it briefly in the end or something. Thanks a lot man, and I will try to satisfy your column reading needs with the next one as well. Oh, and thanks for giving me the heads up about Chrisss’s column; I’ve read it again and I it should be ok.

Marksman- That makes me feel honoured that you decided to do so! Sorry about that, and I also saw that you are thinking of bringing one out quite soon, so I’ll look forward to it. Thanks for taking the time to feedback, and I’ll do my best for the jobber’s column.

Little Sneak- Your feedback always amuses me . I know it your opinion and all, but I could definitely improve from my previous work, and I’ll be looking to improve on this one as well. I’m pleased that you enjoyed it so much, and it’s nice to know that you appreciate my hard work. Damn those bloody typos! I even read it through three times on this occasion. And yes I’ve only been writing for a few months, but I have been reading for a hell of a lot longer which makes it easier, I guess. That was quite a funny and cool rhyme . I hope you enjoy J.

Jason Boy- I can see why you thought that. Thanks for the comments.

Hovis- Yeah I thought that this was deserving of one big chunk of text which is different from my previous writes. You should definitely give writing a go, its heaps of fun, seriously. Wow, knowing that you loved it has made it feel even more worthwhile. Haha that is nice to hear, and I hope you like my next one. Thanks for the generous comments. Cool name by the way.

Prince-Jigsaw- Always nice to hear! Hah no way will it be on Slam Master J- not after his performance on Smackdown! this week. Thanks for stopping by.

Mr Chop- Thanks HOOOOOOTIEHOOO alot, Chopster! Hey, I’m grown up in my head . You’re right about that, and it would most likely be a much better product. Thanks for feedbacking.

Pinky- Yes so am I, and thank-you for the great idea! I’m full of surprises. Don’t get me started on those two. They would both be better off in ECW at the minute. Thanks for the birthday wish, and your feedback. I heart your avatar too.

Super Chrisss- Wow that is awfully kind of you to say and I’m delighted that I managed to impress you with it. I will consider that a challenge, and do my utmost to make J even better, for you and for everyone else. Crikey! Your comments mean a lot.


Thanks to all of you who left feedback, and if I get anymore, it will also be responded to. Thanks guys.

[Mr Chop]

J is for Junkie. A column about the most talented wrestlers who must have been on drugs(Randy Savage leaps to mind).

[PLUTO]

hey, this was a great column. I've read some of your other ones and enjoyed but this one left me wanting more. I kind of had a similar way of finding out about the site as you, just searching for more insider knowledge on wrestling and stumbled accross LOP and i been checking back every so often since, only now bothering to make an account.

Good job!

[Andy]

Mr Chop- That's a good suggestion actually. Thanks for the idea.

PLUTO- I'm pleased to hear it, and hopefully you will get full satisfaction out of the next one. It seems as if quite a few have found out the same way, and thanks for feedback.

[Benjamin Button]

This beats the hell out of throwing water balloons at random victims. I think it's important to use sites like this to maximize your enjoyment for wrestling. The internet has definitely had its affects. It changed the way we view wrestling. Some like it. Some hate it, as you showed us. This one blew your G column out of the water, and that’s saying alot.

[Uncle Joe]

Internet wrestling is not good; it's GREAT. Well, I never wrestled over the internet, but I assume you mean the IWC shit. It's great to hear JJ fucking Karen, Vickie blowing both the Hardy's and Chavo.

[Baba O'Riley]

Hi Andy, first time replier, but not first time reader.
I've read all your columns, and I enjoyed this the most out of them. Although G was the funniest and most light-hearted, it lacked a bit of depth, I felt. Depth this column had, in my opinion.
Enjoyed this, as I have enjoyed all your work, catch ya next time

[Andy]

Benjamin Button- it does if I get positive comments. That is what most seemed to think, and it has definately changed the way we view it, and it probably has created alot more smarks. That is aing alot, and I thank you for the kind words.

Uncle Joe- Perhaps I sold it a bit short by saying it was good, so I'll confirm it as GREAT, from here on in. Well Joe, we could have a wrestling match over the internet; have you got webcam? And that image you just presented me with has mentally scarred me, however your feedback is appreciated.

SenileTurnip- Always nice to hear from someone for the first time! Yep, I would agree with you, and I'm glad you found thius one to have much more depth. That's nice to hear, and I hope you stop by again.