I have a paper due in two days, yet I'm half drunk and watching wrestling and it's not even 7 yet. Must be time ot write another column.

The big news this week seems to be the firing/quitting/parting ways of Hogan and the WWE. This comes right after Roddy Piper's firing, which I started to write about, but like 90% of what I write I put it off without finishing it. Anyway, Hogan's gripe seems to be about money. I think the Wrestlemania payoff was mentioned in particular. Unlike most of the recent happenings in the WWE, this is actually suprising. If I remember right, Hogan left last summer after complaining about money, so it would seem that some agreement had been reached on his return. I mean, shit, the last few months of Smackdown! have been nothing but the Hogan & Vince show, so you'd think he wouldn't have too much to complain about. Plus, he got to see Sable's breasts (before you say "we all have" let me say that I didn't feel the urge to spend $7 or whatever on that particular issue of Playboy. Or any other issue for that matter. I'm more of a Swank man.).

The following may or may not contain a Smackdown! spoiler.

I wanna watch how they handle this, though. I'm hoping Vince puts on his "serious voice" and calmly shows the footage from MSG, declares Hogan fired, and says "and now, moving on . . ." Of course, that's not what it's gonna' be like (the spoilers I read were a bit vague about the whole thing), as it will probably involve Zack McGowan or however you spell it coming out and looking completely bland and emotionless and not saying anything, as always.

Something Like a Smackdown Rebeak

Funaki squashed
Sable's breasts and ring implodes
Not worth staying up

Does Abdullah Hate my Freedom?

I've been watching a fair amount of recent All Japan lately, and I must say that Abdullah the Butcher (or "Abby," if you're some fag that thinks "cute nicknames" are amusing, or you use them to show that you're KNOWLEDGABLE ABOUT THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING BUSINESS) still fucking rules. Sure, he was never the greatest of workers (smark term #1), but he knew how to create chaos, and that goes a long way in my book. Anyway, his recent stuff in All Japan may be less than amazing due to his immense girth (his man boobies hanging down over the side of his pants has got to be annoying) and age, but he still looks like he's having fun. And that's what fucking matters. After some match I saw recently, he grabbed the mic and started chanting his name. Another time, he laid on top of some guy he had just beaten, grinning the whole time (Note: this would be ample time to make some "lost his smile" comment. However, I really feel no urge to do that. If you do, please keep it to yourself and then die).

To tie this in with the beginning of the column, which suprises me as much as it suprises you, maybe that's why Hogan left. No, not because Abudullah's teaming with Kendo Ka-Shin over in Japan, but because he (Hogan) stopped enjoying it (wrestling). When Hogan first came back to the WWE, he seemed to enjoy every minute of it. When I went ot RAW about a year ago (the night after Hogan won the Undisputed title) Hogan looked like he was having a lot fo fun goofing off with Austin after the show. It even showed through on tv those first few months he was back. Lately, however, he hasn't seemed the same. He doesn't seem to enjoy what he's doing anymore. Oddly enough, I think that feeling is mutual with most of the fans. if this is the reason he left, then more power to him. If it is just about money, then fuck him. I never liked him anyway.

Non-sequitor Match Recap

Some Guy (BJPW) vs. Zandig (CZW)

I can't understand what they said his name was. It might be Honno Homo or something like that. I'll call him Nahanahanahanahanaha. I think this is for Big Japan's belt, or something. Why is Zandig named Zandig? Does it have something to do with Danzig? If so, that's gay. I mean, I like Danzig as much as the next guy (assuming the next guy likes everything he did up to the 2nd Danzig Album), but that's just dumb. Anyway, Wifebeater comes out with a weedwhacker, most likely with no plastic strip or whatever they use, and Zandig is up on top of a truck. Yeah, this show is outside somewhere, and the truck they used to carry the ring in is not too far from said ring. Nahanaha shows up behind Zandig and hits him with a fluorescent lightbulb, which is the current weapon du jour of hardcore aficianados. Zandig comes back and somehow has a chair, prehaps in homage to the roots of hardcore wrestling. Or perhaps because he's a lazy lazy man and wanted to sit down after climbing up the ladder to the top of the truck. The ref gets in the truck and backs it up into the ring, which causes Nahanaha to spill into the ring. Wifebeater grabs him and holds him up for Zandig to jump onto. Now Zandig has a staple gun, and Nahanaha is ducking the flying staples, as if they will really hurt him. Stupid. You know, Big Japan used to have deathmatches with Cacti, crocodiles, naked men and women trying to take a bath, and grocery stores, but they've become quit boring recently.

It seems that Japanese feds often have shows in parking lots and fields and whatnot. I live not too far from a vacant lot, which I walk by about twice a day, but I have yet to see some chubby Japanese guys bleeding all over it. The closest thing is either that time I cut my finger real bad (I felt the blade hit the bone) while drying the dishes or the time I was walking home and some retarded lady started demanding I was her father. I must live in the wrong neighborhood.

Nahanaha sets up a lot of tables next to the truck. I think I know where this is headed. Zandig gets control and Wifebeater helps him set up the rest of the tables. It's three tables on the bottom, two on top of those facing the same direction, and one perpendicular on top of those two. They try to put Nahanaha up there, but he accidentally knocks over the first table, and then helps them set it back up, but is somehow still so injured he can't move for over a minute while Zandig has to go around and climb up the truck and Wifebeater sets the table on fire. Kind of. See, this is the type of thing that prevents me from getting into CZW or XPW or any of the millions of others of federations that wanna be the next ECW. Yes, ECW used tables and chairs and whatnot, but it was more the sense of chaos that made it enjoyable. When your opponent has to lay down for an hour or even help you make some stupidly elaborate set up, it loses all chaos. Anyway, after that whole thing, Zandig hit a spinning powerbomb, which probably has an "extreme" name, like "the devil's fucking ass raper" or something, and gets the win. And then he decides to start selling his injuries. Somehow, this tape made me start renting a lot of Big Japan tapes. I still can't figure out how.

I guess that's about it this week. With school ending, and work piling up faster and faster, I might be doing this a lot more often.