===============================================================================================

THE UGLY TRUTH about . . .. . EDDIE GILBERT AND DENNIS CORALUZZO . . . ROTTWEILERS . . . CG AFI . . . SHANE DOUGLAS . .. . RANDIE CARVER . . . .and yes, unfortunately, JESSE VENTURA!!!!!!

Well here we go again with another Eddie Gilbert Memorial Tribute weekend. It will probably be a weekend of nostalgia, memories and great wrestling.

Then again it IS being run by Dennis Coraluzzo.

I remember the last Gilbert show where Dennis, the class act that he is, used a plaque ceremony to the Gilbert family to take a shot at Paul E. Dangerously. ECW fans in the audience wouldn't stand for it and protested, only to have Skeletor and Doug Gilbert yell at and threaten them.

That was real nice. That certainly was a memory that I will never forget. Thanks Dennis.

PWBTS readers if you cannot make it to the show, fear not. We have a preview of the in-ring plaque presentation to the Gilbert family right here:

DENNIS: I would like to now bring to the ring Mrs. Gilbert along with Tommy and Doug Gilbert for a special presentation.(polite applause from the fans; Gilberts enter the ring) All tight all right, settle the fuck down. The plaque reads "In memory of Eddie Gilbert, the 4th Eddie Gilbert Memorial Brawl" (hands it to the Gilberts; polite applause)

MRS GILBERT: (thinking to herself) Isn't this the same plaque I got at the THIRD memorial brawl? How many more plaques is this idiot going to give me?

ECW FAN SITTING IN THE FRONT ROW: (to other ECW fan sitting next to him) So far, so good, Gary. Dennis didn't rip Paul a new A-hole yet.

DENNIS: I also wanna thank all you fucks for coming out tonight. Enjoy the rest of the show. (more applause)

DENNIS: Oh yeah, one more thing. Ahmed Johnson was supposed to be here but his limo was delayed at the airport, so the main event tonight will be changed to Gary Steele versus Koko B. Ware for the NWA title. That reminds me . . .

ECW FAN: Oh no.

DENNIS: I remember when the NO GOOD SON OF A BITCH PAUL E DANGEROUSLY SCREWED ME OUT OF THE NWA TITLE IN 1994!!!! LET ME JUST TELL ALL OF YOU SOMETHING- IF IT WEREN'T FOR EDDIE GILBERT, THERE WOULD BE NO FUCKIN ECW!!!! (Dennis' humungous forehead turns red and veins start popping out) DER WOULD BE NO PAY PER VIEW, THERE WOULD BE NO TNN, IT WAS ALL EDDIE, EDDIE EDDIE!!!!!(fans start booing Dennis and throwing things at him)

ECW FAN: (yelling to the ring) Come on, that's Bullshit Dennis!

DENNIS: Aw, you don't know nuthin about nuthin pal! You're an idiot, you stupid moron!

MRS GILBERT: (grabs mike)I want to just let you all know that it was Paul Heyman who screwed Eddie out of ECW. I hate that man and always will hate him!

DOUG GILBERT: (to the ECW fan) YOU LITTLE SON OF A BITCH! I OUGHT TO GET OUT OF THIS RING AND KICK YOUR ASS YOU ECW MARK!!!! (full scale riot breaks out as Doug pummels the helpless sap with a chair)

Good job, Dennis. Another touching moment.

Anyway, I actually hope that Dennis did learn his lesson and keeps his mouth shut.

Dennis. Just shut your pie-hole and hand the Gilberts the damn plaque. That is the right way to remember Eddie.

Oh and for the record, I can absolutely POSITIVELY guarantee that if Paul didn't take ECW away from Gilbert, ECW would have either been run into the ground or Eddie would have walked out. It was simply a matter of time. Eddie had his problems, and the last years of his life were spent burning bridges in every promotion he was involved with. I didn't want to bring that up, but I just want to set the record straight before Denny embarrasses not only himself but Eddie Gilbert's legacy by opening his trap again.

I think Eddie Gilbert himself showed us how to best remember him on the night that he had the book taken away from him by Tod Gordon and Paul Heyman at UltraClash in September 1993. He got on the stick, and instead of shooting on ECW in front of the fans, he made up a story that he wasn't happy that his "contract" didn't work out, and even urged the fans to keep supporting ECW and Tod Gordon.

If Dennis can't show that same kind of class that Eddie did that night, then maybe he shouldn't hold any more Eddie Gilbert shows.

__________________________________

I know I promised by swearing on a STACK OF BIBLES that I would not bring up Jesse Ventura again. But EVERY TIME I cut this guy some slack, he sticks his foot in his mouth!

When asked about the Tailhook scandal, when a bunch of drunken servicemen groped and fondled their female colleagues at a convention, Ventura responded with this brilliant observation in a Playboy interview:

"These are people who live on the razor's edge and defy death and do things where people die,"
"They're not going to consider grabbing a woman's breast or buttock a major situation. That's much ado about nothing."
"You have to create these people for your own protection"

That's just great Jesse.

How about if I grab your wife's breasts and then touch her ass? My guess is that would be OK if I were in the army. Since when is the molestation of a woman and sexual harassment part of Navy SEAL training?

Sexual harassment is NOT acceptable behavior for ANYONE, ANYTIME Jesse. If we were to go by your twisted and sick logic, it would then be all right for police officers, Secret Service agents, firefighters and even foreign journalists to feel up any woman that walks on by! And people actually want this dope wants to run for President?

I can see the press conference now.

REPORTER:"President Ventura, is it true you felt up one of your female interns?"

PRESIDENT VENTURA:"Why yes. You see I am the President and my life is in constant danger. So that makes it OK."

I now have a new nickname for Jesse. Jesse "Formerly the Mind, Back to the Body, Then the Fraud, Last Month He Was the Disgrace, NOW THE PERVERT JACKASS" Ventura.

____________________________________

I can't believe I didn't get to this item yet. The always humble and modest Shane Douglas is up to his old tricks again. The always respectful and self-effacing "Franchise" offered to put up his yearly salary betting that given time, he and Ric Flair could main event Nitro and outdraw Raw in the ratings!

Sure Shane, whatever.

I have a bet for you, Shane. I'm willing to bet that I will NEVER log onto the internet EVER AGAIN if you ever get over in WCW! I feel safe in making this wager; after all I'm simply basing my prediction one past history:

Shane in the NWA. Dynamic Dudes. FLOP.
Shane in the WWF in 1991. FLOP.
Shane BACK in WCW. A tag run with Ricky Steamboat, but that was about it. FLOP.
Dean in the WWF. Absolute disaster. MAJOR FLOP.

Oh that's right; it was Ric Flair, Razor Ramon and Jim Herd all holding Shane back.

This week's memo goes out to Shane Douglas:

Shane. SHUT UP, COLLECT YOUR JACK FROM WCW, WORK YOUR TWO NIGHTS A WEEK, AND STOP MAKING STUPID STATEMENTS. You will NEVER GET OVER IN THE BIG 2. You just are NOT good enough! My career advice to you is this, Shane: collect the rest of the $40,000 that Paul Heyman owes you. Then, go back to ECW because it is the ONLY PROMOTION THAT WILL PUSH YOU!!!

If I were Bill Busch, I would take Shane up on his offer. What a great way to cut your budget! Let Shane humiliate himself, and you get his services free of charge!

COST SAVINGS: $200,000

__________________________________

Remember when Al Snow was the hottest commodity in wrestling? Then again that was in 1994. Now what do we have?

Oh yeah that incredible five-star steel cage classic with the Big Bossman surrounded by perhaps the STUPIDEST dogs I have ever seen.

After watching the WWF's failed version of the Westminster Kennel Show on Sunday, I'm so glad I have a cat.

By the way, isn't this the WWF? Could they NOT afford to scour the country and find five Rottweilers that could be trained to bite the wrestlers, and NOT EACH OTHER? This is a $750,000,000 company is it NOT?

As a matter in fact, that gives me an idea for the next WWF pay-per-view: let's call it WWF DOGFIGHT. Just set up a steel cage, and have eight Rottweilers fight to the death in an elimination tournament!

As an added attraction, UFC referee John McCarthy could officiate the contests, and Ken Shamrock can present the winner with a golden dog biscuit.

I would even put the dogs in lucha masks. That would add to the intrigue of the pay-per-view: not only does the dog get ripped to shreds, but must go through the humiliation of LOSING IT'S MASK!

That sure a hell would be a lot more entertaining than that piece of dogMEAT that the WWF presented Sunday!

_____________________________________

I will however, give the Big Bossman his props for even coming out to for the match on the PPV. Bossman had a piece of a bottle STUCK IN HIS EYE recently, and you could tell by looking at his face that he was still a mess. Gee nothing like having a piece of glass stuck in your eye to start the day! Lots of laughs.

The Bossman is NAILS! You have to respect that- Ray Traylor is a TRUE man's man! (This by the way, according to Jesse Ventura, would mean that he could now go and molest the make-up girl in the back).

Unlike C.G. Afi.

CG Afi is that skinny guy with keeps jumping out of the audience after Lenny Lane and Lodi.

Unfortunately at a recent Nitro, Doug "Wake Me Up When the Show's Over" Dillinger (I'm NOT making that up- I actually saw him dozing off in his chair at a house show in Philadelphia!) forgot to tell security that Afi was a plant! Good work, Doug.

In the ensuing scuffle, CG was accidentally poked in the eye. But instead of taking it like a man, CG made the fatal mistake of complaining to the WCW higher-ups!

Now granted, if Dozing Doug Dillinger had is act together, none of this would have happened, but CG did NOT get over with the veterans in the dressing room.

See when CG started crying like a little sissy boy, the veterans pointed out how they had to fight angry fans for their lives to get to the dressing room. I remember Bob Orton Sr getting stabbed by a fan in North Carolina. And a fan pulling a gun on Ted DiBiase in Louisiana.

No doubt Dean Malenko harked back to when his dad, Boris Malenko, would get his tires slashed and bricks thrown through the family window in the 1960s.

So what if you get your eye poked out of your skull?

Some career advice for YOU, CG Afi (I seem to be giving out a lot of this today):

Follow the example set by Vampiro. After getting his ASS kicked by Scott Steiner on Nitro, a bloody, broken and battered Vampiro went into a booking committee meeting and THANKED THEM A FOR GIVING HIM A MATCH!

That got over BIG TIME with WCW, and thus you see Vamp getting a little but of a push nowadays.

CG Afi if I were you not only would I NOT cry like a bitch about getting hurt by Dillinger's goons, but if you want to have ANY SHOT of having a career at this point, I would take a fork and POKE YOUR OTHER EYE OUT! And while you are at it, I would pay someone to smash in your nut-sack with a baseball bat!

Then limp into the next booking committee meeting, and THANK THEM for having Doug Dillinger's hit squad punk you!

I guarantee that you will be Cruiserweight champion in a week!

_______________________________

Oh one more take and this is on Bret Hart. Vince McMahon must be praying right now that some athlete somewhere dies and they DO NOT stop the show.

If Vince is lucky, maybe some hockey player will get cut open with a skate and bleed to death on the ice, but since it will be a 3-3 in overtime between the Flyers and the Rangers, they will not stop the game.

This is the ONLY way people in the business will stop pointing fingers at Vince saying SEE? SEE?

The latest nightmare for McMahon is the in-ring death of boxer Randie Carver in, of all places, and this just shows how much bad kharma Vince McMahon must have, KANSAS F'N CITY.

And of course this summer a Houston Astros game was halted when manager Larry Dierker collapsed in the dugout.

And of course, like many others, Bret took the time to use these two tragedies to rip Vince in his Calgary Sun column.

Well, no one else will defend Vince- BUT I WILL.

Here is the difference. There are 162 baseball games a year. The Randie Carver incident as far as I know was not on pay-per-view. I do not even think it was on TV.

THERE ARE ONLY 12 WWF PAY PER VIEWS A YEAR. It is a hell of a lot easier to stop a baseball game with 20,000 fans paying 15 bucks a piece than it is to stop an event that is going to gross $5 million for your company!

Am I entirely happy with the way the WWF handled the show that fateful night in May? How can I be? But when the NFL stops the SuperBowl after a player dies on the field, I'll take a shot at Vince.

Until then, stop being a bunch of hypocrites!!!!

DAN MORELAND
"WRESTLING'S MOST BELOVED JOURNALIST
PWBTS 2000

Dan Moreland is a columnist for Pro Wrestling's Between The Sheets - for comments or opposing viewpoints please e-mail to Dan Moreland