I watched a local wrestling show on TV at 12:30 AM on a Saturday.

Previously on GCW!

Fat guys fight! Zomg a biker fat guy with a taser! And a man with a German accent?

A manager talks about opponents named THUNDERHORSE and CRITTER. And they're filming the backstage vignettes like TNA does.

Adam Roberts is an NWA belt holder. Sgt. Hammer is his opponent. Buff Bagwell is in the opening credits. So is Sgt. Hammer, who is a fun ripoff. MAD DOG DAN SAWYER and EL PROFESSOR are our announcers. (So, by definition, it is a Latin stereotype accent.)

JOHNNY SWINGER is in the first match. Johnny Swinger is still alive, guys. He looks in decent shape, maybe. He looks like a damned giant. This intro took a long ass time. His opponent is JOEY LIGHTNING from Birmingham. There's no ring intros? I'm lost.

A Beyond Ringside poster is seen. Good for Fast Eddie. Shoutout to David Smith.

OH, the intros are after they come out. That's a very cool touch. And cool cheap pops for the Bama boy Lightning. GCW has already got some things right. The film quality to it is really cool, much better than the last local wrestling show I remember seeing forever ago. Also, they either hired short refs or tall wrestlers. That's a fine fine touch to make them look larger than life. Basic start, Swinger knows how to go on auto-pilot, it seems. I'm seriously not telling you all the moves, since I don't know them and this would be the most boring recap ever, for serious.

OH SHIT, OLD GUY NAMED PEANUTS. He's yelling at the heel. The match is still some rather basic submissions. It's oddly very AWA TV opener. El Professor with the absurd nut shot followup, “This will not make Mrs. Lightning very happy.” I don't think a single person in this crowd knows who Swinger is, though. And an Alabama joke! “I saw Ruben Studdard at the Piggly Wiggly, he had a gallon of potato salad.”

Johnny Swinger has clawed the back. It's 12:43 AM and we're still on the opener. The ref's name is Rob Russo and I don't think I've heard a Vince Russo joke yet, which might be for the best. Joey's a young fella who has potential. He reminds me a lot of Kenny King, actually. A couple years and a more fun name and you never know. And a heel turn, maybe. And a ref sees the handful of tights! Non-incompetent refs?

And Joey Lightning gets a fast count with a win at 12:47 AM. A bit of an anticlimax, doesn't really put over either man, but that's cool regardless, since there seems to be a ref storyline. Oh, El Professor has a mask on as he commentates. I'm a bit disappointed Tuscaloosa didn't buy into the last show here, I think this would be totally fun to watch in person. Sadly, me and David Smith might be the only attenders.

I have no idea what this abstract advertisement with lightning, drowning, old people, and the Gulf Coast has to do with anything. It appears to be a film trailer for a company called Roaring Creek Films, who must have something to do with the camera work. This is all GCW-based ads, by the way. This is considered a “paid program,” so all of the ads are paid for in advance.

Johnny cuts a promo, a conspiracy promo. He is doing a storyline with anger for Russo. The ref, not the booker he might've dealt with in TNA. He ends with a catchphrase, “Swing Time.”

And Fast Eddie Layne is the commish. And he passively-aggressively notes his dislike of tasers, so something is happening. He is not fining anybody, but there would be repercussions for tasers. Because they're electric shock! And a plug for the Graysville show! And a Pell City plug!

And we have “Ask El Professor.” This is basically the “Ask the Divas” segment except this is trying to be humorous. He suggests smashing the window for a girl. He has a Twitter! I'll have to send him one question for next week. Something about pants.

It is 1:00 AM and we get a ref Rob Russo interview. This might be a little poorly paced, but this at least keeps the storylines succinct. And we're getting our main event next, so the pacing is better than thought. So basically, there are two storylines.

Still, it does seem a bit off that we've had only three in-ring people involved in the last 25 minutes. Least this isn't Impact, though.

A repeat of the film company ad.

The main event is for the GCW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE. This seems to be getting some time, too. There's 25 minutes. The Pell City show promotes BULLET BOB and BRAD ARMSTRONG in ring action. Bob Armstrong is pushing 70. What balls he has. Or lack of brains. Or lack of funds.

Sgt. Hammer is a heel, I suppose. Rather interesting to have a sergeant heel in Alabama. And a friendly black guy without dancing or rapping as a gimmick win the first match. Maybe times have changed?

SGT. HAMMER has the longest entrance ever. It is 1:08 and he is now ready. And he's yelling to the fans. ADAM ROBERTS is the holder of “Ultimate NWA Championship.” It took 40 minutes to find out that the annoying manager from the first segment was called The Equalizer. I presume Adam Roberts is not winning this belt. And there's a fat guy in a suit and a mask! (Howard C. Cross is his name, apparently.) Wrestling is great sometimes.

Oh, Rudy Charles is the ref! I legit want to meet him. Seems like a nice guy, and knows his shit about how to play incompetent well, which is something refs should do.

1:12 AM, the belt is raised and the match is on until end of television time. I'm surprised this isn't a brawl start, but we'll see where it goes. Zbyszko stalling and taunts with a couple of grapples but nothing match. Certainly paced like a main event. Lots of Roberts kicks and punches and so on. And weird punches by him. A bit weak, honestly. A post shot rather early. “A nice slam on the concrete floor.” This is a gym floor, which makes me smile, so hopefully there's a little give, please. Please guys, don't be stupid with the bumps.

This is all within five minutes of the match, by the way.

“Just sitting right there on the meniscus,” Sawyer says.

Lots of post shots and a case shot. A bit too much heel beatdown although nice babyface fire.

“Let's see how high Rudy Charles can count!” El Prof says.

Heel case shots while the ref is turned and the Hammer wins. I suppose there's a final angle coming, since this is 1:23 AM.

Or not? We're back in the commentary booth and we're going off the air. Next week will have MEAN MIKE POSEY. Yes, I think that's the former WWE ref. And the GCW Tag Titles on the line. This is as easy as some of the WWECW shows, so I think I'll come back next week. Nothing mindblowing or anything, but simple local wrestling's got a place on my TV.

WWE: The Best of Smackdown - 10th Anniversary 1999-2009

Why Sonic Changed Dynamic Storytelling

Let's go back a bit here. It's the mid-90s, the console wars between Nintendo and SEGA are raging. Soon, SEGA would try hard as hell to take out Nintendo for good with its Saturn system, and was actually outright winning the fight with the Super Nintendo, even by a paltry close margin. This leads to Sonic vs. Mario and numerous battles detailed a thousand times, so we'll simply note the basics.

Sonic The Hedgehog's release in 1991 was finally something that kickstarted a real console war between the two companies, and all on a dynamic that took a lot from 1985's Super Mario Brothers. You jump through levels, fight creatures that can only be killed with a little bashing on their heads, and fight an insular boss that still somehow manages to be intact after every fight en route to ultimate victory. I suppose the only difference is that Mario wanted to get laid (and save the kingdom) and Sonic wanted to save the kingdom (and I don't know what else). Still, there are obvious similarities to the point that SEGA's own attempt to make a Mario clone in 1992, Kid Chameleon, was readily ignored because it wasn't even as good and casual as Sonic, much less Mario.

This dynamic was added on to with 1992's Sonic The Hedgehog 2, introducing Tails as the Luigi of the team, even though he was made to look radically different than the top hero in Sonic and has the all-important power of flight (and being able to fly airplanes). Still, the plot is made the same. The player is to take out the evil Dr. Robotnik and go through various wacky levels yet again. The final boss is more audacious, of course, which naturally means the team paid attention to the “bigger and better” mantra of Hollywood sequels. The game was a better playing game as far as pacing goes, but the plot never changed, which seems silly for platformers to do, but might be why I felt it should be my favorite of the series. But I really never bought what I thought. I wondered what in all was missing. After all, Sonic 2 was the embodiment of my childhood and a game that I legitimately love to this day. Even the multiplayer modes (well, two-player modes) are extremely competitive and fun a good two decades after its release.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and Sonic and Knuckles also trouble me, but in differing ways. They are truly groundbreaking endeavors in one respect alone, the art of video games and platform storytelling. One new character is introduced in the two games, the red echidna Knuckles. Unlike Tails, Knuckles is the villain to Sonic. Or at least he comes off like the villain. Instead of sole enemies, Sonic 3 and S&K end up finding a way to twist the story. Knuckles is a bad guy who turns good (a heel face turn), Dr. Robotnik may or may not be a deceived pawn of Dr. Eggman. The time continuum of both Sonic and Knuckles' quest are supposedly different (well, if we're explaining the plot via the Japanese manual). And, oh yeah, no one speaks. No characters talk at all during the entire game.

All of these things are fascinating to me because they appear in a non-RPG atmosphere. They appear in the atmosphere of (for its time) the most mainstream game that there is. This is not a Kid Chameleon situation where the game is trying so hard to be something that it throws everything against the wall and ultimately it is played by a mere few. No, this is the most popular game not named Mario on the other side of one of the most famous gaming conflicts in history. More importantly, this is a situation where it doesn't affect how casual audiences view the series.

The preoccupative reason Sonic became less and less of a mainstream icon as the years went by is squarely based in storytelling (although, the logistics of losing a war to Sony and Nintendo are not exactly helpful). The series began abandoning the idea of “keep it simple, stupid.” Chaos along with more and more silly characters destroyed the purpose. While yes, Mario did the same thing, Mario still kept the focus on Mario whereas games like Sonic Heroes almost completely ignore Sonic as a sole character. (We could also go into the mediocrity of any Sonic spinoff projects, but that's beating up on one icon too much.)

Nonetheless, in every field, there is the real pioneering point and then the mainstream establishment of a storytelling arc. Gone With The Wind is not a pioneer in the form of the epic, Pet Sounds wasn't the first album to have an amazing album feel, and The Honeymooners certainly wasn't the first sitcom. However, they all are mainstream touchstones. That is why we have to note when mainstream products go through a dynamic story that changes the arc. Now, don't make anything out of the comparisons above, the story of Sonic is nothing compared to the following works. But on its own, it created entertainment in the same fashion while adopting a change that eased gamers into the Mass Effects and Heavy Rains of the world, film-like endeavors that play out like movies and are actually outright beloved and embraced by the mainstream. And maybe, in its own way, Sonic The Hedgehog led to this.

Wrestling and the Shakespearean Tragedy

As I write this, in three days is one of the biggest niche events of the spring. Over one million people will buy the event and 70,000 people will fill Phoenix for the express purpose of watching Vince McMahon's megalo-creation WrestleMania 26. And yes, they'll watch guys throw worked punches and win pre-determined contests.

But no one brings up the story arc of these cards, because often, the story arcs of professional wrestling tend to make either simplistic sense or are nonsensically complicated. But no one would ever call the work Shakespearean.

What has been billed as the top match on Mania 26 is a contest between two men in their mid-40s who have given decades of work to the business. The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels actually took place at last year's event and was a workrate spectacle. However, the story was ultimately rather simple. Shawn wanted Taker's winning streak at the pay-per-view (at the time, 16-0, an unprecedented run even in a worked business simply because top stars often lay down for the three count at Mania), and Taker wanted to defend it. A story like this totally works for the match, but it is rather simple. The psychological aspects of characterization are not totally drawn in with the conflict in the first instance.

Skip to 2010 and the rematch storyline that has developed. It only came out of Shawn's initial desire to simply have another match with a shot of breaking the streak (and possibly taking Taker's title) that he would earn a shot. This is no different than the average wrestling storyline to the point of boredom. We see the dynamic of champions and of guys wanting to beat other guys all of the time, in and out of sport. It's pretty simplistic and pro wrestling is intended to be dramatic.

By February, the build for this really came together in the truest of ways. A streak vs. career match formed with Michaels promising to "end his career" should the moment come that he loses to the Undertaker at Mania. But more of this came from the genesis of Michaels' emotions. Michaels is considered probably the best wrestler of his generation, if not of all time, simply because every aspect of his work is crisp, amazing, and -- for lack of a better term -- real. He works because he feels real in every aspect, and he exposes his own human doubt. Instead of seeming like a cocky caricature or an elongated superhero, he is merely human.

Michaels noted in a promo cut to build the Mania 26 match, "If I can't beat you, Undertaker, I have no career." And this is where the tragic aspect meets itself. Shawn is entirely obsessed with breaking the streak, almost inhumanly. The storyline setup could be made into something silly, but Shawn's acting shows that even with all of the titles, the achievements, and the success he has had, he is not satisfied. The streak could mean anything, because Shawn's lack of satisfaction and insecurity speaks volumes.

Even without a long speech, that last line is tragic. This is why Shawn is so good when he has to express something that is not heavyhanded. Early last year, WWE fans were told that Shawn Michaels was "broke," a desperate effort to play off the circumstances of the economy. But that did not work because no one buys Shawn as poor. However, Shawn never seems comfortable about his own career. In real life, he was an asshole for a good part of said career and arguably only became a star because of underhanded behavior. This did not stop the quality of work he brought to the ring, but he has had to overly apologize for his past transgressions. So him being uncomfortable about what he has accomplished over what he feels he "hasn't" is an emotion that can be bought. Shawn isn't an everyman, but he is human.

Moreover, his opponent is a man named The Undertaker. Ralph Ellison even couldn't write blunt symbolism like that. It is like the also blunt symbolism that humanity can never overcome the supernatural or a power bigger than themselves. In this case, it is a man who revels in being "undead."

There is only one way for this match to end on Sunday, Shawn has to lose. It may not entirely be the coda to a career (this is pro wrestling where retirement stips tend to be like Michael Jordan retirements), but it is the story that has to be made out of this. After all, we all one day are going to rest in peace.

Anatomy of a Match: Vladimir Kozlov vs. Ezekiel Jackson

This will likely be posted by my dear friends at Kick-Out!! Wrestling sometime soon, but I thought to post it here because I wanted to correct a few errors in present/past tense and because I am lazy and don't write much.

While the date of this entry makes the history of this and when this occurred completely obvious to the usual fans of this site, I feel a need to explain this for the rare chance that ten years from now, someone needed the proper context for a bad match between two hosses. One night before January 5th, 2010, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling managed to make a show much like the TNA of old and yet one that still stunned wrestling fans into believing in competition. While criticism grew beyond tired for smarks in noting the staleness of WWE's programming, they began to have a point. No match on Monday Night Raw was better than TNA Impact's main event, and Raw also took away its best performing heel and had a rising star leveled one more time.

Meanwhile, ECW, the third brand of WWE, had been criticized as highly irrelevant. Similar to how the worst criticism of wrestling could be to be considered boring, the worst type of criticism to a wrestling show is to be considered irrelevant. Even with potential stars of tomorrow like Yoshi Tatsu (time will tell, of course, if he got big or if he became the next Funaki), the show felt bogged down by luminaries like Vance Archer and Abraham Washington. And on a show that was mostly entertaining, ECW had the need to produce potentially the worst match of the decade.

The logistics of a feud between evil foreigner Vladimir Kozlov and really big black dude Ezekiel Jackson are superfluous. It is also superfluous to mention that Kozlov was the evil foreigner babyface and Jackson the heel due to siding with uber-heel William Regal, who naturally has no hand in this match, either. It is more superfluous to mention that these two met in two previous matches, one on ECW that lasted two minutes and produced the purpose to side Regal with Kozlov, at least attempting some sort of storyline purpose. The second match was surely to finish the feud. So naturally, they needed a third match.

Jackson and Kozlov was an unmitigated failure in all extents.

Being the third confrontation, no human on earth would want to see these two meet again because they had already found out the answer to“What would a match between these two big bastards look like?” Kozlov had no change in his mannerisms, essentially making the match into heel vs. heel, which no wrestling fan ever really reacts to unless it is of top stars they want to cheer. (As of note, Jackson and Kozlov were jobbers to the stars of the third brand at this point, losing to tag teams featuring Shelton Benjamin and Yoshi Tatsu.)

Zeke was green to the gills at this point, being that he'd only really wrestled for less than a year on television. Kozlov was legendarily bad to smarks, being that he became infamous for a match he had on pay-per-view with Triple H in 2008. Many a rant had been made on his apparent lack of talent in the year after, until he was shipped to ECW in 2009 and it was an afterthought that he was even on the roster. Needless to say, neither man had the ability to keep a sense of intrigue in the match.

Moreover, it failed in the extent of time and crowd reaction. A bad match usually makes minutes feel like hours. A six minute match between the two felt like days, as the silence of the crowd made all the more obvious the disappointment inside the ring. Chants like “We want Regal” echoed from the halls as brief shots showed the 41-year-old veteran yelling things like “Finish him!” A brief chant of “USA” bellowed, more hilarious because Jackson hailed from Ghana, Regal hailed from England, and Kozlov hailed from happy Russia. And also because Kozlov was the babyface.

One night after facing a show that was not entirely good, but still entirely relevant to the wrestling world, WWE responded in kind by putting on a mostly good show, and yet failing because someone booked Kozlov vs. Jackson again. The sorry taste it left this wrestling fan was a bit much. I most likely watched a lot of wrestling since this point, and I hopefully never saw such a stinky encounter again. Hopefully.