So there was a point a long time ago where I wrote comic book reviews for a website called Pop Syndicate (don't bother looking; it's not there anymore) and I was doing it for free because it was fun and I was getting a modicum of exposure. And I said to myself, "Any time that this starts to feel like a job and not like fun and I'm not getting paid, I'm stopping". As Heath Ledger's Joker said, "If you're good at something, never do it for free," and I considered myself pretty good at it, but I was willing to do it for free to get some of that sweet, sweet online presence going. Well, after about a year or so, it started to feel like work so I gave it up.
When my mother was dying in 2010, I started a YouTube channel where, shockingly, I reviewed comic books. It was a way for me to get out of my head and try to channel all the negative emotions I was experiencing in a positive way. I kept that up for a few years, and became part of a pretty solid community. But for the amount of views I was getting, which was very little and I wasn't monetizing (because, you know, swears are bad), and all the work I was putting into it each week... again it just started to feel like work, so I stopped.
In 2016, I started doing a podcast about WWE and put it on SoundCloud. It sucked and I wasn't proud of it, so I stopped.
In 2017, I started doing another podcast, this time about movies, and it had its own hook but admittedly, it was kind of a bland hook but I was putting a lot of work into it, and it just went nowhere. I couldn't even get the thing on any kind of major podcasting service like Apple or Google or anything. So after about 20 or so weekly episodes of that, I gave it up.
We're now in the final month of 2019, and I've been trying to write weekly columns here about WWE and New Japan and AEW and the things that work or don't about the shows, and guess what?
It's starting to feel like work.
Now does that mean I'm stopping? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe. It's been a rough couple of weeks and we're getting into some really crazy times coming up with the holidays and despite how exciting some stuff has been lately, I just haven't been in the mood to write about a lot, except there is one thing that I would like to write about, and that's the real-life heat I have with Corey Graves.
So as you might know already, depending on how long you've been reading these columns, I hate Corey Graves on main roster commentary. His heel commentary on NXT was honestly some of the best heel commentary in the business at the time. He was never a complete asshole, though. I never found him insufferable. But just a few months into his transition into main roster commentary, particularly being on both Raw and Smackdown, I was getting so fucking tired of him. The Lawler-esque salivating over some of the female roster members, the constant shouting over his broadcast colleagues, and just his cruel bullshit was getting too tough to swallow. This became much much worse when he started working with Renee Young. It got to a certain point where if I wanted to actually watch a match or a show with his commentary on it, I found myself turning the volume down most of the way or muting it entirely. People defend him as the second coming of Bobby Heenan, and I think that's maybe not a good thing. I know that this is a lot of Vince screaming in his ear all the time, but it's also a lot of him. Look at Nigel McGuinness for example. He's the heel commentator on NXT and I never ever ever find him to be a complete and total jag-off like I do Graves. Nigel seems to have great respect for the people that he's actively rooting against because good heel commentary isn't just running down the babyfaces and your colleagues 9 out of every 10 minutes of the broadcast; it's being a jerk but with some begrudging respect, which is exactly what Graves was before he got to the main roster.
But if the next few things that happened hadn't happened, it likely would have stayed at, "Well, he's just a dick" as opposed to becoming, "I legitimately hate you and think you're a shitty human being" which is where I'm at now.
First, I want to discuss the Mauro Incident.
You can call Johnny Gargano the heart of NXT all you want (and I frequently do), but if there's a true beating heart to NXT, it's the heart of Mauro Ranallo. This is a man who had a tiny camera on him during TakeOver New Orleans because he clearly loves his job so much that the broadcast booth just can't contain him. He is the proverbial "third person in the ring" and he's awesome. Tragically, as most of you should know by now, he also suffers from Bipolar Disorder. He teamed up with Showtime to do the documentary "Bipolar Rock 'N Roller" which showed Mauro at some of his best and some of his truly saddening worst while dealing with his mental illness. Being someone who suffers from severe anxiety and depression, my heart just goes out to Mauro.
Let's go back in time to a little over two weeks ago. I had the worst panic attack that I've had in over a decade one night that it's been difficult for me to sleep since. I've been slowly getting over it, but it's a winding road. I've known a few people in my life that have had Bipolar disorders and watching them crash is heartbreaking, and anything can set it off.
Even a cruel tweet.
When someone, in particular a professional colleague tweets the following:
... well, that's just being a huuuuuuge asshole. Believe me, Graves, I believe 100% that both Beth Phoenix and Nigel McGuinness love working with Mauro and 100% believe they would hate you in the booth. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that can send someone who suffers as severely as Mauro does into a downward spiral. He didn't show for Survivor Series and he didn't show for the next episode of NXT. We're meant to believe that Mauro is suffering from a "sore throat", and yes, we do not know with absolute certainty that Mauro is currently out because he's recovering from a crash, but the odds are unfortunately pretty good.
Now these comments have become fodder for a lot of dirt sheets to report on the aftermath of this, and there have been veiled threats from former MMA fighter and Mauro's friend Frank Shamrock, who was totally willing to punch Graves in the face about this, and a lot of online hate towards Graves being a total punk about this. Whether he wanted to use it as fodder for his podcast or to drum up controversy or whatever, this tweet is just a shitty thing to tweet, particularly from someone who said that he doesn't like it when people air personal grievances on Twitter.
And then there's this tweet:
Now that's a woman in her room who was dropping some truth about how annoying Graves and Baron Corbin have been lately, particularly how brown-nosing Graves is to Corbin. I have a couple of problems with this tweet.
Problem #1: It's incredibly uncool of anyone in the profession, particularly a heel, to call out someone who's not in the business on Twitter. Because what generally happens when someone like Graves tweets this? The person in the video gets dog-piled on by some of the worst kinds of fans of all wrestling fandom. People calling her stupid, ugly, etc. One asshole went so far as to say that she was "obviously on the spectrum", basically being ableist. It's just not something that a professional should do.
Problem #2:
Now you might say that I'm "white-knighting" my own wife because she can't handle it. She could and she did, but there was so much internet bullshit slung in her direction because of this asshole that she was pretty fucking upset. But you look at Graves's timeline and there's no other indication that I could see of him doing this to someone, so either A: he thought he saw an easy target for all his minions to pile on, or B: something she said about him really bugged him and he wanted to throw some shade back at her.
In fairness, some of the people who were in agreement with her sentiments in the video were very supportive and that inspired her to start her own YouTube channel where she talks about WWE products. Sadly, she's not leaning into the whole "stuffed animal" thing, but she's doing her thing and it's making her happy.
Even more interesting, I have some information on what he said to her afterwards in her DMs:
So do you honestly believe that he was "just having some fun"? And that this whole tweet was part of his "gimmick"? That doesn't pass the sniff test for a number of reasons; the biggest one being that he doesn't do this to other people. This is basically the same thing as his apology regarding his tweet about Mauro: a non-apologetic apology. Basically what this says is, "if other people bothered you about how I insulted you publicly, that's on them, and everything that I do is just kayfabe".
Here's the biggest problem with that: if everything he tweets is kayfabed to be part of his "gimmick", then what is genuine? Is him calling out Meltzer for Meltzer calling him out for being shitty to Mauro just part of the "gimmick" or is he really angry? Because that tweet sure seemed angry, and frankly, I don't think Graves is that good of an actor.
So yeah, fuck Corey Graves.
Anyway, War Games was awesome. Last week's episode of NXT was also awesome. Rhea Ripley and Keith Lee are going to be massive stars thanks to Survivor Series (which I also have not seen because I work Sundays). I haven't watched the latest episode of AEW yet because I've been busy because of life and NXT primarily gets my attention. I heard Survivor Series was actually really good for once, and I'm wondering why that is... could it possibly be because there were so many NXT performers there? I'm thinking that is certainly possible. I have nothing to say at this time about last week's ratings because they're apparently still not available due to the holiday weekend.
So back to where I started here in this column; is this it for me and this blog? I don't know. I feel like I still have a lot to say about NXT and AEW, but my life has just been a little too chaotic lately to give a honest answer. Right now the only answer I have is I'm considering keeping up, and I'm considering just letting it go.
You'll know when I know, kayfabers.
When my mother was dying in 2010, I started a YouTube channel where, shockingly, I reviewed comic books. It was a way for me to get out of my head and try to channel all the negative emotions I was experiencing in a positive way. I kept that up for a few years, and became part of a pretty solid community. But for the amount of views I was getting, which was very little and I wasn't monetizing (because, you know, swears are bad), and all the work I was putting into it each week... again it just started to feel like work, so I stopped.
In 2016, I started doing a podcast about WWE and put it on SoundCloud. It sucked and I wasn't proud of it, so I stopped.
In 2017, I started doing another podcast, this time about movies, and it had its own hook but admittedly, it was kind of a bland hook but I was putting a lot of work into it, and it just went nowhere. I couldn't even get the thing on any kind of major podcasting service like Apple or Google or anything. So after about 20 or so weekly episodes of that, I gave it up.
We're now in the final month of 2019, and I've been trying to write weekly columns here about WWE and New Japan and AEW and the things that work or don't about the shows, and guess what?
It's starting to feel like work.
Now does that mean I'm stopping? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe. It's been a rough couple of weeks and we're getting into some really crazy times coming up with the holidays and despite how exciting some stuff has been lately, I just haven't been in the mood to write about a lot, except there is one thing that I would like to write about, and that's the real-life heat I have with Corey Graves.
So as you might know already, depending on how long you've been reading these columns, I hate Corey Graves on main roster commentary. His heel commentary on NXT was honestly some of the best heel commentary in the business at the time. He was never a complete asshole, though. I never found him insufferable. But just a few months into his transition into main roster commentary, particularly being on both Raw and Smackdown, I was getting so fucking tired of him. The Lawler-esque salivating over some of the female roster members, the constant shouting over his broadcast colleagues, and just his cruel bullshit was getting too tough to swallow. This became much much worse when he started working with Renee Young. It got to a certain point where if I wanted to actually watch a match or a show with his commentary on it, I found myself turning the volume down most of the way or muting it entirely. People defend him as the second coming of Bobby Heenan, and I think that's maybe not a good thing. I know that this is a lot of Vince screaming in his ear all the time, but it's also a lot of him. Look at Nigel McGuinness for example. He's the heel commentator on NXT and I never ever ever find him to be a complete and total jag-off like I do Graves. Nigel seems to have great respect for the people that he's actively rooting against because good heel commentary isn't just running down the babyfaces and your colleagues 9 out of every 10 minutes of the broadcast; it's being a jerk but with some begrudging respect, which is exactly what Graves was before he got to the main roster.
But if the next few things that happened hadn't happened, it likely would have stayed at, "Well, he's just a dick" as opposed to becoming, "I legitimately hate you and think you're a shitty human being" which is where I'm at now.
First, I want to discuss the Mauro Incident.
You can call Johnny Gargano the heart of NXT all you want (and I frequently do), but if there's a true beating heart to NXT, it's the heart of Mauro Ranallo. This is a man who had a tiny camera on him during TakeOver New Orleans because he clearly loves his job so much that the broadcast booth just can't contain him. He is the proverbial "third person in the ring" and he's awesome. Tragically, as most of you should know by now, he also suffers from Bipolar Disorder. He teamed up with Showtime to do the documentary "Bipolar Rock 'N Roller" which showed Mauro at some of his best and some of his truly saddening worst while dealing with his mental illness. Being someone who suffers from severe anxiety and depression, my heart just goes out to Mauro.
Let's go back in time to a little over two weeks ago. I had the worst panic attack that I've had in over a decade one night that it's been difficult for me to sleep since. I've been slowly getting over it, but it's a winding road. I've known a few people in my life that have had Bipolar disorders and watching them crash is heartbreaking, and anything can set it off.
Even a cruel tweet.
When someone, in particular a professional colleague tweets the following:
... well, that's just being a huuuuuuge asshole. Believe me, Graves, I believe 100% that both Beth Phoenix and Nigel McGuinness love working with Mauro and 100% believe they would hate you in the booth. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that can send someone who suffers as severely as Mauro does into a downward spiral. He didn't show for Survivor Series and he didn't show for the next episode of NXT. We're meant to believe that Mauro is suffering from a "sore throat", and yes, we do not know with absolute certainty that Mauro is currently out because he's recovering from a crash, but the odds are unfortunately pretty good.
Now these comments have become fodder for a lot of dirt sheets to report on the aftermath of this, and there have been veiled threats from former MMA fighter and Mauro's friend Frank Shamrock, who was totally willing to punch Graves in the face about this, and a lot of online hate towards Graves being a total punk about this. Whether he wanted to use it as fodder for his podcast or to drum up controversy or whatever, this tweet is just a shitty thing to tweet, particularly from someone who said that he doesn't like it when people air personal grievances on Twitter.
And then there's this tweet:
Now that's a woman in her room who was dropping some truth about how annoying Graves and Baron Corbin have been lately, particularly how brown-nosing Graves is to Corbin. I have a couple of problems with this tweet.
Problem #1: It's incredibly uncool of anyone in the profession, particularly a heel, to call out someone who's not in the business on Twitter. Because what generally happens when someone like Graves tweets this? The person in the video gets dog-piled on by some of the worst kinds of fans of all wrestling fandom. People calling her stupid, ugly, etc. One asshole went so far as to say that she was "obviously on the spectrum", basically being ableist. It's just not something that a professional should do.
Problem #2:
THAT'S MY WIFE.
In fairness, some of the people who were in agreement with her sentiments in the video were very supportive and that inspired her to start her own YouTube channel where she talks about WWE products. Sadly, she's not leaning into the whole "stuffed animal" thing, but she's doing her thing and it's making her happy.
Even more interesting, I have some information on what he said to her afterwards in her DMs:
So do you honestly believe that he was "just having some fun"? And that this whole tweet was part of his "gimmick"? That doesn't pass the sniff test for a number of reasons; the biggest one being that he doesn't do this to other people. This is basically the same thing as his apology regarding his tweet about Mauro: a non-apologetic apology. Basically what this says is, "if other people bothered you about how I insulted you publicly, that's on them, and everything that I do is just kayfabe".
Here's the biggest problem with that: if everything he tweets is kayfabed to be part of his "gimmick", then what is genuine? Is him calling out Meltzer for Meltzer calling him out for being shitty to Mauro just part of the "gimmick" or is he really angry? Because that tweet sure seemed angry, and frankly, I don't think Graves is that good of an actor.
So yeah, fuck Corey Graves.
Anyway, War Games was awesome. Last week's episode of NXT was also awesome. Rhea Ripley and Keith Lee are going to be massive stars thanks to Survivor Series (which I also have not seen because I work Sundays). I haven't watched the latest episode of AEW yet because I've been busy because of life and NXT primarily gets my attention. I heard Survivor Series was actually really good for once, and I'm wondering why that is... could it possibly be because there were so many NXT performers there? I'm thinking that is certainly possible. I have nothing to say at this time about last week's ratings because they're apparently still not available due to the holiday weekend.
So back to where I started here in this column; is this it for me and this blog? I don't know. I feel like I still have a lot to say about NXT and AEW, but my life has just been a little too chaotic lately to give a honest answer. Right now the only answer I have is I'm considering keeping up, and I'm considering just letting it go.
You'll know when I know, kayfabers.
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