Friday, December 15, 2017

Year End Sorting Bins: [HATE STARE INTENSIFIES]

Going in on Meltzer, daddy, to start this whole shebang off
Photo Credit: @ObserverQuotes
The Year End BLOWOUT continues with the return of the Sorting Bins. For those who are new to TWB, I categorize the various peoples whose performances I've absorbed in the past year into five separate bins depending on how much I've liked them. The first category is Unequivocal Hatred, which is reserved for those who make me wanna throw a brick through my various television screens. A note, I'm not ranking anyone on these lists who have been accused of harassment, sexual abuse, or domestic violence. They can and should be forgotten. These lists are for annoyances inside the ring or on television or what have you. Anyway, onward and upward, or in this case, downward.

Dave Meltzer - I know he's not technically an on-screen personality, although perhaps his stature as a booster of the Young Bucks and a superfan in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla make him count. Either way, he's a polarizing figure for many reasons: his wrongness on social issues, his habitual equivalence between pro wrestling and MMA, his vague reporting. However, I can look past those things if it weren't for the fact that he's so horribly, terribly, catastrophically bad at Twitter that it's way past ironically funny and all the way into "take this man's phone away from him." It's not that he posts awful comedy like Dolph Ziggler or selfish, tryhard self-aggrandazation like Cody Rhodes. It's that he just quote-tweets the dumbest shit in an attempt to own people online. Basically, he spends the time that he's not working, sleeping, or ingesting PEDs shooting dead fish in a barrel, quoting braindead n00bs with seven followers asking whether or not CM Punk is coming back to WWE or whatever and emphatically smacking them down as if he were Hakeem Olajuwon in the mid-'90s. Of course, it's a byproduct of the culture he fosters in the DVDVR circle and such, where arguing over talking points is almost like a sport or a game, or in Meltzer's case, a Japanese role playing game. The way he treats these people tweeting at him is the way one might just beat the shit out of enemies below your level in one of those games. It's called grinding. It's great for when you're playing Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy and need to level up, but when you're on Twitter trying to stoke the discourse, it gets old really goddamn fast. Basically, this man is the avatar for everything in wrestling's fourth estate, and he just compulsively tries to own the easiest people online one can own. That may not be the reason no one respects wrestling, but goddamn, if it isn't an ugly symptom, like hacking cough one develops when battling bronchitis.

Dolph Ziggler - Oh, hey, speaking of Ziggler, what's it like to have a gimmick that you have great matches and yet haven't had a great match since when, 2013?

Cody Rhodes - Oh and also speaking of Rhodes, I heard he's mad at me because his dad invented talking shit about people he didn't like in the business and I haven't kissed the damn rings yet.

Togi Makabe - New Japan's American expansion couldn't have come at a better time, i.e. a time when Makabe was winding down his career and not wrestling as much anymore.

Shane McMahon - Look, I'll level with you and say that I haven't been completely enamored with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn as Smackdown's top heels, and not all of it has to do with the framing either. That being said, those two have entertained me in the past decade at least, on quite a few occasions. McMahon hasn't been anything on my radar since Kurt Angle threw him through a plate glass window. That was over 15 years ago. What the fuck. Someone let this motherfucker know that if he wants cheap thrills, he could take up base jumping and not have to clog up my television time or two of my favorite dudes in wrestling. PS the term "babyface authority figure" is fascist propaganda through and through. Authority is not your friend. The boss is never the good guy.

Paul Heyman - "I'M PAUL HEYMAN, THE ADVOCATE FOR THE REIGNING, DEFENDING, UNIVERSAL CHAMPION BROCK LESNAR. I'M GOING TO PUT OVER HIS OPPONENT BECAUSE THAT'S EDGY, REALLY EDGY TO GIVE ANYONE CREDIT IN WRESTLING NOWADAYS IF THEY'RE YOUR OPPONENT. BUT BROCK LESNAR IS A MONSTER, A BEAST, A FORCE OF NATURE! NOW LET ME SAY SOMETHING VAGUELY HOMOEROTIC SO I CAN VIRTUE SIGNAL TO VINCE THAT WE'RE STILL HEELS IN ALL THIS AND THEN LEAVE BECAUSE HEY, WHY SHOULD THE CHAMPION PROMOTE HIMSELF!" - Every Paul Heyman promo from the last five years summarized.

Texano - I hate ragging on the dude because it really does look like he has a ball going out there and swinging his bullrope and trying to win cybernetic hands 'n shit, but I mean, I've derived more enjoyment from thermodynamics homework in college than watching him on Lucha Underground.

Tamina Snuka - I don't believe in quotas, and if WWE had more than one larger Pacific Islander woman who was good on the roster, I'd go buck wild in support. But when Nia Jax is, y'know, proficient at least at her job, and Tamina Snuka actively isn't, then why would have have Tamina Snuka on the roster?

Bully Ray - Bully Ray is what happens when you let Rip Rogers jack off on a Blue Lives Matter American flag and expose it to gamma radiation.

Matt Striker - Remember when Marty Martinez and Killshot had a dope-as-fuck hardcore brawl around the most unique arena in wrestling history, and all Striker could talk about was Republican foreign policy?

Randy Orton - The amount of effort that I want to exert on writing about Orton is just a scosh higher than the amount of effort in aggregate he's given on television all this year.

Colin Cassady - Honestly, he's always been the weak link to the tag team, and then when he turned, it became painfully obvious his ceiling was "beating the shit out of someone who could bump for him." Being a Trumpkin doesn't help, but in all honesty, I'd be shocked if less than 75 percent of the locker room supported the Oompa Loompa-in-Chief, so I guess I can't really hold that against him.

Lana - Really, she could've been 1991 Manami Toyota, and the transphobic slurs she faved about Sasha Banks would put her here.

Kane - Pushing Kane as an unkillable monster in 1998 would have been intelligent. Doing it in 2002 would've rehabbed him and perhaps allowed post-Attitude WWE not to hit doldrums as low as it did (although to be honest, the ratings highs were a bubble anyway). Doing it in 2008, well, you're pushing it. Doing it 2017 is criminal negligence. The fact that WWE didn't do it in 1998, 2002, or 2008 and is doing it now is all the more offensive. Glenn Jacobs is a libertarian whackjob, and him holding public office would be an irresponsible thing to endorse, but I hate having to see him not only on WWE television but there and sopping up attention from wrestlers who are worth so much more like Braun Strowman and Finn Bálor that I am willing to eschew my political values, sell out, and hope like hell that he wins the seat he's running for.

Stephanie McMahon - You think if she ever cut an emasculating promo on herself that the Universe would fold in on itself, thus ending existence? Something to ponder.

TJ Perkins - If you want to calibrate your opinions on something, just see if Perkins also has one. If it's the opposite of the one you have, congratulations, your opinion is correct.

The Briscoe Brothers - Keep fuckin' that chicken, boys.

Nattie Neidhart - I've gotten to the point where if she's on camera, my eyes glaze over. Smackdown's women's division should be so vibrant because Becky Lynch, Naomi, and even Charlotte Flair are all dynamic talents, but Christ. Nattie? Really?

JBL - Oh man, seeing him get to leave WWE on his own accord and not be forced out over some kind of scandal gets my goat. WWE commentary has become downright enjoyable since this eternal shit-breather left.

Vince McMahon - Just remember the next time this senile old motherfucker stops by on television that he's singlehandedly responsible for every bad thing that has befallen wrestling in the last 20 years before you pop for him. If the world had any cosmic justice, he'd have gotten the subdural hematoma, not Katsuyori Shibata.

Triple H - Oh, all you sheeple are just so enamored with him sopping up all the interesting (and okay, some not-so-interesting) indie talent to stash away in NXT and then do his vanity tour of wrestling. Oh, all hail, he subbed for Roman Reigns in The Shield. Wow, he danced with Jinder Mahal in India. Such a magnanimous motherfucker. Well, dickhead ain't fooled me. I see right through him. He's still just building his brand, waiting for Papa Vince to croak or become non compos mentis so he can bring his big 1985 Ric Flair tribute act to the main roster. Think Mahal's title reign was annoying? Just wait for it to be replicated on every brand at all time with actual clones of Triple H. When Drew McIntyre, Bobby Roode, and Adam Cole are all on top of the three brands doing 2001 Triple H tribute acts, don't say I didn't fucking warn you. You say all hail to me and you might be liable to get a middle finger in your grill. Fuck Triple H past, present, and future.