Hello MCW faithful,

 

It’s Phil Gordon and it’s been a minute. Let me quickly take you on my MCW journey. I was there on night one back in November 2010 and let’s just say it’s a night I’d personally like to forget for the most part. The show thankfully was a hit with the paying audience and I think for those who wrestled. I tried to put too much on my plate and didn’t prepare accordingly and therefore the quality of the show suffered a little bit. I of course was devastated as I had been waiting for an opportunity like this for many years. I would hang on with MCW for a couple of more years doing whatever job was needed that included a crack at play by play commentary. It seemed like whatever I did or did not do I would never shake the reputation of being the shitty ring-announcer who tried ringing the bell and taking care of music on a subpar sound system from Immortal night one.

I make no excuses for what happened back then but I will say I was kind of going through it personally and my heart and energy were not in the right place. I would step away from the promotion around 2013 and not return for about another five years. Ironically consistent errors of somebody else would bring me back into the fold. I had this idea in 2018 that I was going to start my own videography hustle and what a perfect way to start by shooting indy wrestling. I was having dinner with Nicky one evening and I pitched this idea towards him. He said he would think about it but he already had a guy, but he wasn’t sure if he’d last. He then proceeded to tell me one horror story after another about this individual’s shortcomings and then one faithful day I watched a couple of the shows filmed by said individual and I just put my head in my hands. I convinced Nicky to bring me on board and that his problems being caused on the technical end would go away. Guess what? They did. I became the videographer / interviewer for the promotion at Immortal in December 2018 (that experience will likely become its own Grand Slam column one day). That would morph into the Youtube exclusive MCW Magazine Show that had a solid two year run and would transition me stepping away from the videography to doing doing play by play commentary…and would turn into live commentary alongside Nicky and Mr. Atlantis…where we sit present day.

 

As I wind this down I will be ending with a quick commentary on three things I like about today’s business and three things I don’t care for. I will try to keep them as short as possible and encourage comments on the social media of MCW for you to weigh in. Before I make that turn I’d like to end off with this. My overall lesson in my history is that if you are just starting out don’t bite off more than you can chew in order to impress the brass. Also, for the love of God don’t think you can get by form ‘winging it’....preparation is key in wrestling…no matter what your role along with anything else in life. What I also learned though is that if you do hit a rough patch (in most instances anyway) you can be given a chance to redeem yourself. 

 

There are stunning exceptions to this rule that I won’t get into right now but it’s one thing I love about the business as a whole. As long as you’re humble, respectful and willing to put in the work, that second chance is a given in just a matter of time. Out of the personal calamity that was night one in 2010 for me I do carry a cherished memory. I was out front of the Dunsdon Legion waiting for my travel partner to pack up so we could leave. I was sitting there forlorn and a gentleman came up to me and told me not to worry and that everyone has a rough go once in a while. After what felt like nuclear missile level of heat from everyone that evening…this was a breath of fresh air and helped me feel somewhat better in the moment. This individual’s in-ring career is winding down and they are no longer involved with MCW. But I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Outlaw Scott Chase for those kind words. They went a long way and we would have fun crossing paths and working together in the distant future. To me this is a shining example of what’s good in the business and I will now share my brief thoughts on today’s industry as a whole…both the positive and the negative:

The Positive:
1) Abundance
What a truly wonderful time it is to be alive as a wrestling fan. Promotions, indy shows, podcasts, writers, conventions, perspectives ...there is so much choice that it’s awesome. There is a downside to this which I’ll explore but it is way more positive than negative. Whether you work in the business or you’re a dedicated fan…the industry as a whole is alive and healthy. I got into indy wrestling in the early 2000’s when there was little to no choice and it was tough. Getting involved in one way or another has never been easier. Also, if there are any of these outlets you don’t like...just connect with the ones you do. Life is short, nobody really cares.

2) The Return Of The Babyface

Earlier I mentioned the Outlaw performing the act of a babyface when interacting with me after a rough show performance. When he passed through the curtain he was a tremendous heel but just as good as a babyface, especially when he played the hometown card. In today’s wrestling, especially the major promotions, something is happening that wouldn’t have been thought possible a while back. The true white meat babyface is back. It seemed like in the nWo, ECW / Attitude era that the most popular stars had to act like villains to get cheered. The art of building babyface sympathy has come back. Yes, the modern face has a bit of an edge and an attitude but there are connections with the fanbase that are being made that were never thought possible twenty years ago. 

 

Whether you like them or not Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and others are connecting with fans in ways never imagined and are beloved on a whole different level. Even John Cena who drew a lot of ire his entire babyface career has worked his way to an eventual babyface turn before the end of the line. The good guy / gal has made its triumphant return. To end with a local shoutout, Rip Impact has been an overwhelming fan favorite in MCW for fifteen years…a feat to never be equalled.

3) Less PPV Matches
If you’re only consuming WWE you may not mesh with the term PPV anymore, but you get the idea. I believe when putting a card together less is more. WWE has had to pivot to this with starting two night events. You can’t pull this off if you have ten or more matches on a single card. You will burn out your audience. Some WWE PLE’s have had a whopping FOUR matches and have been great. Even MCW has cut back the number of matches per show. In my humble opinion the quality goes up when you have less matches. AEW just recently did the longest PPV of life with All-In Texas but the main card only had eight matches. Three more matches were on their pre-show and that is something they should follow from WWE and eliminate the pre-show fluff. I am hoping this trend continues because these big shows are NOT a participation trophy. They are spots to be earned by the best of the best. Wrestlemania for many years started to feel like said participation trophy as they wanted to get as many people on the card in as many matches as possible. Hey, it likely gives you a happier roster as more are getting paid but it dilutes the quality of the show. Here’s to more bigger shows standing out.

The Negative:

1. Carbon Copy Matches

Is it just me or do a lot of matches just feel the same? With as much talent with as many different styles a lot of big matches are getting a similar feel and I don’t like it. The same dives, the same table sequences, the same false finishes and finisher kickouts. This is something I can do an entire column from but I will only call out a couple of examples. Even though improvement has been made over the years it seems like every big man has to fly. Athletic freaks like Brian Cage and Apollo Crews began to not really stand out at all because they were doing aerial moves everyone else was. The musclehead who can fly lost its luster because they and so many others are doing the same thing to impress the fans. 

 

Cage for a point had G.M.S.I. (Get My Shit In) on his trunks. It’s showing many want to cram in as much as possible at the price of sacrificing a good story in the ring. I will also mention that the recent Orton/Rhodes match in Saudi Arabia was one I found disappointing. It popped the fans and set the stage for what I’m sure will be an epic feud down the line but it was just one finisher kickout after another and it felt very paint-by-numbers to me as it’s been overdone. One of the strongest assets of Bret Hart was that in the ring he had you believing he can beat his opponent by several ways…because he won big matches in several different ways. I could go much deeper on this but I’ll stop here for now.

2) Clickbait

Now I’m about to contradict myself. I talked about the wonderful abundance of choice in today’s wrestling but here is part of the downside. Some corners of the internet. I think this part of the ‘fanbase’ and ‘journalists’ may in fact be partly to blame for a lot of these matches looking similar these days. There has been this long time conditioning that you have to cram in as much as possible (G.M.S.I.) to have a 4 or 5 star match in the eyes of these losers. But that’s not what I want to focus on here. Certain ‘outlets’ on Youtube and the internet are constantly manipulating their headlines to get people to ‘click’ on their content to find out they got swerved. This is a pitfall of the digital world that many sites and blogs are competing in an overcrowded space. But it’s getting a little ridiculous…pretty soon we will be seeing headlines like ‘CM Punk spits out coffee in catering ...unhappy with creative role and asking for release’. What I mean with this absurd example is that whenever a freaking conversation or disagreement happens backstage it gets blown way out of proportion most of the time. In my fictitious example the coffee just likely tasted bad but some keyboard warrior will spin it their own way to get attention. 

 

As a member of MCW I haven’t spent much time in the locker room, but I’ve witnessed some heated arguments and guess what it’s a locker room full of egos and differing perspectives. Not everyone will be fully in agreement and get along 100% of the time and these keyboard warriors are exploiting that for clicks on their ‘brand’...pathetic. Backstage drama happens and sometimes in a big way. But please writers, just stop trying to create headlines out of hogwash. Those of us with self respect are getting quite sick of it. 

P.S. and make sure you repeat after me:
Fantasy booking is NOT journalism!
Fantasy booking is NOT journalism!
Fantasy booking is NOT journalism!

 

3) Creepy Dudes

One positive of the industry, especially at the independent level is that with the power of the internet and some courageous women the business has thankfully weeded out a lot of creeps and predators. As much as I sounded off on the internet in the last point, one huge positive is that it is making people think twice about making questionable decisions and holding them accountable for such abhorrent behaviour. We will likely never fully weed all of them out but we can do the best we can and lately though there has been another problem. Male wrestling fans. What I’m about to say only applies to a small percentage of the fanbase out there but it needs to be addressed. Most of this is happening to female talent in the bigger promotions but there has been an alarming increase of male fans just being plain creepy to the women wrestlers. Whether it's from posting certain angles from matches on the internet, to crossing boundaries at conventions or the more serious and extreme cases of stalking and harassment. It doesn’t always happen to the ladies either as I circle back and recommend the clip of Jim Cornette last year saying that he was taking his mother in law to the doctor and was confronted by an unannounced fan who drove all the way from Virginia Beach to just say hello on his front lawn. 

 

Regardless of the gender this is not okay by any standards but in order for the business to grow we need the women to feel safe. The last several WWE shows I’ve been to I’ve seen a lot more women and young girls in attendance and I think that is awesome. Same goes for MCW and if this trend is to continue certain male wrestling fans need to learn some respect and boundaries. This is an issue much bigger than wrestling but it still applies and with that this concludes the return of Phil Gordon’s Grand Slam. All comments are welcome and so long until next time. 

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- Phil Gordon

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