The Ivy League Archives : July 24, 2002

TRIBUNE ARCHIVES

July 24, 2002

"All the world's your ashtray, I'm just your Marlboro.
Light me up and butt me, you're Sick and Beautiful."
- Artificial Joy Club, "Sick and Beautiful"
It's a fact of nature, and of life - when you're number one at whatever it is you're doing, there will always be pretenders and imitators that can't match you, so their primary goal is to tear you down to their level. It's not personal - usually - it's just nature's way of allowing inferior people and organizations to cope with being second- or third- best.

It's a massive pain in the ass. But it's something I've become accustomed to in the past seven years.

Yeah, seven years. It's not my fault I entered this business at the top level and always kept a link there. From the EFW to the AWA to HEW to TCW to the WoW to the MWC and EWI and everything in between... the CSWA is where practically every wrestler I've come across has wanted to end up. Of course, some of the ones that made it weren't able to keep up, and they left, undoubtedly with bitter memories of how the "big- time" chewed 'em up and spit 'em out.

Like our very own Ego Buster, CSWA superstar Dan Ryan.

I'm sorry, he's not a CSWA superstar. He's a GXW superstar. GXW Unified Champion. GXW flows through his veins. He found his fame in the GXW and he'll be GXW until the day he dies.

Of course, he wants to wrestle for the CSWA, so he is a CSWA superstar. You see, it goes like this. If Merritt contacted Ryan and said "Come wrestle for the CSWA," then Ryan wanted to be here based on his acceptance. If Ryan contacted Merritt and said "I want to come wrestle for the CSWA," then Ryan wanted to be here based on his initiation of the interest. Either way, Dan Ryan is a CSWA superstar and proud to be one.

If the scuttlebut is to be believed, with Dan Ryan shoving the GXW Unified Title down all our throats, and whether it's true or not, someone trying like ALL hell to convince the CSWA that Mikey Plett is a 'mole' of some sort - we appear to be headed for some kind of conflict with Global X-Treme wrestling.

Why? Because the GXW wrestlers all want to be CSWA superstars. Even though they'll deny it to their last breath.

Think about it. None of the CSWA's current superstars are in the GXW right now, threatening Dupree and Zieba, proclaiming the CSWA to be the superior organization. There's nothing to be gained by that. Enough people know that the CSWA is the top wrestling promotion in the world simply by watching our programming. Apparently, the GXW's ratings must be slipping just a bit, since they need to send their champion to Greensboro for more than their usual 1500 fans to know what his name is.

Why else is he here? To proclaim the superiority of the GXW? Newsflash, Ryan... you haven't convinced anybody. Your very presence here in the CSWA tells me you haven't even convinced yourself. If that Unified Title you carry had any kind of credibility, why would you even want to be anywhere else?

Yeah. I thought so.

Are we going to see more GXW wrestlers in the next few weeks, looking to become CSWA superstars? I don't know, and quite frankly, I don't really care. There's precious few wrestlers in that place who have what it takes in the CSWA. Paul Dumont? The man who tried to be HBK 2000 and mean it? Kendall Codine? Handed the ball in the CSWA and he stood there with his thumb up his ass until Merritt told him he wasn't allowed to play anymore. Gemini? He came, he saw, he attacked me, he pussied out. Hell, the Dark Carnival were stripped of the Unified Tag Team belts because they defended them on GXW/EWI television. Apparently, their own tag team belts aren't worth the gold paint that's chipping off 'em.

For that matter, look at the majority of the CSWA's top card, most of whom have wrestled for Zieba and Dupree in the past. Evan Aho - former Champion, left the place behind. Eddy Love - former Champion, left the place behind. Steve Radder - former Champion, left the place behind. Even Eli Flair, so much heat still on him for dropping the EWI as its World Champion... even though it was the best thing to ever happen to that place. When Eli Flair, an actual somebody, held the EWI World Title and dropped it along the wayside, it got more people talking about the place than had actually heard its name before. They like to claim he ran.

From what? He'd already beaten everyone the place had to offer. Even Gemini, his biggest detractor... Eli made Gemini tap out with his head shoved into a toilet bowl. And the truth of the matter is that Zieba and Dupree could offer Flair neither the competition to make his World Title reign interesting, or the money necessary to keep him around to make the scrubs look good.

I suppose the GXW isn't all bad, however.... they're the wrestling promotion where Kevin Powers could finally breathe again. It's where he stopped choking, at least.

Business is a dirty word. But so is jealousy.

This is Ivy too.