Straight Shooting
WCW's content is just as outrageous as the WWF's now - but where are the critics?
January 19, 2000
by Fritz Capp
The first thing I would like to do is to thank Blake Norton and the staff at IGN for contacting me and giving me a forum in what will become the greatest spot for wrestling information anywhere, bar none. I have to admit it. I was planning on doing a nice little intro column so everyone who doesn’t know me could become familiar with me. But to be honest I am throwing that right out the window.
I am so totally sick and tired of the hypocrisy amongst the wrestling promotions and fans that I am ready to explode.
For over a year I read, listened to and received e-mails about how horrible the WWF was because of the content of its shows. The vulgarity that was spewed from the wrestlers mouths, the physical and verbal abuse its women had to endure, the sexual innuendos that was constant in each show and the violence that was out of control had many people up in arms about the state of wrestling. It was so bad that a watchdog group decided to interject themselves into the fray to get themselves some cheap media. Well I have a question... "Where are all the outcries now that WCW has gone to a more adult style of programming?"
Don’t sit there and play stupid because you know exactly what I am talking about. Week after week WCW does it’s best WWF impersonation although to be honest they still have a long way to go in most aspects. But I am not here to say anything about the way they are pushing the envelope, that is their business. There are some things that I have enjoyed on WCW lately but just like when the WWF pushed the envelope and there were some things that I did not agree with the same holds true here where WCW is concerned but that is another column.
On the January 12th, 2000 Thunder I heard more profanity then I think was played on all WCW television in 1999. I also saw not one, not two, but three women in the first hour either physically or verbally attacked to the point that even I was offended and that isn’t too easy to do considering I was one of the biggest ECW fans in the world and I reveled when Francine or Beulah would get theirs courtesy of Tommy Dreamer’s piledriver.
So if I don’t mind these things what am I writing about? It is the simple fact that as I go around the news boards and wrestling websites I do not see the public outcry that used to happen when it was the WWF doing these exact same things, that’s why!
Now to the WCW self proclaimed "smarts" they will just write this off as a WWF "mark" whining and crying. That would just show their ignorance and their inability to face reality. The WWF fans will rally around these words and the ECW fans couldn’t care less because to them the only thing that exists is ECW. Isn’t this the way it always goes though? Let’s delve a little deeper into this shall we?
On the January 10, 2000 Nitro we had the pleasure of seeing Scotty Steiner take turns with a bevy of women with heavy sexual innuendo’s implied. This is something that every 8 year old should be seeing isn’t it? Oh I see, just because it was implied it is ok correct? It doesn’t matter that thousands of children were watching this. (I guess it is ok if WCW implies sexual relations outside of marriage... that won’t influence any children at all will it....(note to the WWF...your organization could learn from this considering everyone has said for the past year how your organization and it’s television programs influence children)
How about the alleged infidelity angle of Kimberly Page with "Buff" Bagwell? Is this something that children should be watching? At this time I ask all of you who are opening up your e-mail programs getting ready to tell me about the later time slot to just shut them back down because it is a cop out. RAW broadcasts in the same slot and it was oh so wrong for them, ok?
The WWF was blamed for children imitating wrestlers and hurting each other when these kids used/practiced wrestling moves on each other. Well what kind of influence will WCW’s current NWO angle be when they brutally attack people with weapons (weapons that they carry with them at all times) on children?You don’t think this will influence them into thinking that the "gang mentality" is the way to go?
How about the way that Oklahoma belittles women? When Jeff Jarrett was in the WWF the WWF was lambasted because of his degradation of women but in WCW we have Oklahoma doing the same exact thing without the use of a guitar. He uses a Bar-B-Que sauce bottle instead. (I won’t even get into the way this character mocked a person’s physical affliction) He physically slaps them around and verbally abuses them. What kind of message is this sending to the youth of America?
Do I need to go into the way Oklahoma poured bar-b-que sauce all over the front of Madusa while she had her rather well endowed breasts thrust towards the camera compete with a close up shot? Isn’t this like the gratuitous sex that was used in the WWF that everyone whined about being so bad for children to see.
You see people my complaint is that there is no consistency. The same people that were so offended by what the WWF did are now rejoicing in WCW’s current product.
We can talk about the infamous "RAW IS PORN" column written by WCW employee and head lackey Bob Ryder who not only attacked the WWF vehemently but also attacked then WWF script writer Vince Russo whom he blamed as being a big part of the WWF’s product. What does he do now? Ryder is so far up the posterior of Russo that he can tell what he ate a few hours ago. If Ryder was so offended by the WWF’s product and his claims to being unbiased were true why is he not offended by WCW’s current product?
If Internet wrestling fans and self proclaimed journalists were so offended by the WWF’s product where is their outcry now? Why isn’t anyone speaking out against the horrible language or the treatment of the women? Because each and every writer, parent, organization and fan who denounced the WWF but revels in WCW are nothing but no good stinking hypocrites.
You say that WCW isn’t a poor carbon copy of the WWF? Well how about this faux paux? On the Thunder in question Tony Schiavone referred to Terry Funk, Arn Anderson, Larry Zybysko and Paul Orndorff as the "New Age Outlaws". Maybe they would be better off if they weren’t so focused on what the WWF does and instead worried about their own product.
I won’t even go into the fact that it appears that they were booking on the fly on the January 10, 2000 Nitro. Isn’t it coincidental that as the Rock was stipulating matches for that night’s RAW show which pitted Degeneration-X members against each other that about 10 minutes later the same thing was happening on Nitro? Oh, I can hear the cries of "FOUL" coming out of the rafters if the WWF did something like this. I guess WCW doesn’t really need bookers...just a good satellite connection.
All in all the hypocrisy of certain journalists and a majority of the Internet wrestling fans leave a lot to be desired. I want to leave you all with one last question:
Why is it that ECW has faced censorship and why is it that the WWF has faced censorship but WCW seems to be able to get away with what it wants? Funny how the one that always point the finger never get checked themselves huh?
With that I’m outta here for now. Remember wrestling is nothing more than it appears to be.
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