Once again, I'm sitting in an airport with some time on my hands, so I may as well use the time to update the site. It's Wednesday afternoon, October 23, and I am in Raleigh, North Carolina. Last night I wrestled in my hometown of Memphis at the Pyramid, during the Smackdown taping. Well, I didn't exactly wrestle during the Smackdown taping, I actually wrestled "before" the taping. I had a "dark" match with a young man called "Red Dog." He is the real life husband of WWE Diva, Jazz. I have seen him around before and I think he is trying to get a contract with the company, (who isn't) He is a pretty big guy. Maybe 275lbs, and I thought we had a really good match. Red Dog impressed me and I think the agents liked the match as well. The Pyramid wasn't exactly "packed," but the crowd was very vocal as usual for my match. I really appreciate the fans in Memphis. They have treated me so well over the years. It's always fun to get a match when the WWE is in Memphis and I gotta thank J.R. for always thinking about me when they come here. I also did what we call a "precondition" video to show to the audience before a match. They wanted to make sure Tajiri got a good "crowd favorite" response from the Memphis fans, so right before his match, he and I were on the big Titontron screen. I told the fans that Tajiri was my friend and that I had just given him his first dose of Memphis' own, Jerry Lee Lewis! At that point, Tajiri broke into song, and delivered a spirited rendition of "Great Balls Of Fire!" It was really pretty funny and the crowd seemed to love it. When he walked out after that, the crowd went nuts. Instant "Good Guy!"  After the show last night, I just had time to go home and repack my bag, because I had to leave my house at 4am to catch a 5:10am flight to Atlanta and then on to North Carolina. I got over here at about 9:30am and had to be in a lawyer's office at 10. I was through with what I had to do by 11:30am and the whole thing was pretty much  a wasted trip. My flight home is not until 7:30pm so I am just killing time until then. I may tell you all about this crazy North Carolina legal situation someday, but right now it's too stupid to even talk about. I will get back to Memphis at 8:30pm and then I have a softball game at 9:30 tonight. Thank goodness, after tonight I have a few days off where I don't have to travel. The next time I have to go out is to Detroit next Monday for Raw. OK, I guess I have avoided the inevitable for long enough. I guess I have to respond to my many e-mails and questions I have gotten since last Monday's Raw and the infamous "HHH Video." If I've been asked once, I've been asked a thousand times..."What did you think of it?"  "How could you laugh at that?"
"What was Vince thinking?" or, "What was Triple H thinking."  And a few people even said, "I thought the only thing wrong with it was that the car trunk came open at the end!" Well, let me see if I can put my thoughts about it into words. Now I know that some people are claiming to be so offended that no explanation will help, so to those people all I can say is, "I'm sorry that you feel that way."  Let me just say, right off the bat, neither J.R. or I saw the video before it aired. Vince did sit us down in his office beforehand, and tell us pretty much what we were going to see. When he told us what was on the tape, I asked what he wanted our reaction to be after we saw it, and that's when Vince said what he usually says..."I want you guys to react just how you honestly react when you see it...I don't want to tell you how to react, just do and say what comes natural." Well, I must admit that no amount of describing what was on the tape could ever compare to actually seeing it for the first time. And especially seeing it for the first time as it aired "live" to the world! A lot of different thoughts were going through my head while I watched it. Of course I thought it was "pushing the envelope." It may have pushed the envelope right off the table. Of course I knew many, many fans were going to be turned off by it. And I knew Vince knew this as well. I also knew J.R. and I were going to be expected to do our part to "sell" this video to the fans when it was over. I knew that we were going to be walking a tightrope in the fact that some people were going to be OK with it, while other people were going to absolutely hate it. I already knew Vince was "OK" with it, because if he had not been, it would not have aired. As I watched it, I must tell you that my feeling or reaction changed a couple of times while I was watching it. At first I felt very uncomfortable, and wondered why we were doing this...then I started to see some humor in it...then at the end, with the "I screwed your brains out!" line, I felt it was all intended for shock value. I mean, that was a pretty strong line along with the graphic footage of a handful of "brains." If that was meant to get people talking, it worked! Long before most of us were born, back in 1939, a line was uttered at the end of arguably the most famous movie of all time that was meant to have similar shock value. In "Gone With The Wind" when Scarlet asked Rhet, that if he left, where should she go, and what should she do. And in a line never before heard in the world of cinema, Rhet replied, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!" Those eight words shocked the entertainment world and set it on it's ear. People were talking about that line all over the world, because, at that time, no one had ever said a cuss word in a movie, much like I don't ever remember seeing anyone crawl into a casket and pretend to have sex with a corpse. Most of those people watching Gone With The Wind were appalled and shocked, much the same as fans today are over HHH's video, but they talked about it. And you can never underestimate the power of "word of mouth." Movies today are still made or broken by word of mouth. That's what I believe this skit was all about...generating word of mouth. And I believe Vince is of the opinion, as many famous people are, that there's no such thing as "bad publicity." As long as they spell your name right when they talk about you, let them say what they want. I can honestly say that when the video was over, my general impression was that it was funny. I tried to look at it as what it was supposed to be if you didn't know everything is a "work"....if you didn't try to overanalyze everything. What it was supposed to be, if you were a fan who believed in wrestling, was a bad person...Triple H, dressing up like his opponent and staging a scenerio, that, when shown to the fans, would be intentionally in bad taste and would result in great humiliation to his opponent, Kane. That's the real "storyline." If you are not a "smart mark" or if your'e just a casual fan, that was what the video was, plain and simple. It was intended to make people think, "What an a**hole that Triple H is, that he would go to such great lengths to embarrass some poor guy like Kane....Why, I want to see Kane kick Triple H's butt now!" That's the storyline if you can still watch wrestling for the fun and entertainment of it. So that's how I tried to react to it. I tried to imply that it WAS in bad taste, but that's what made it so good. Because Triple H is good at being bad! I also thought that if I laughed at it, in a sense, it might take some of the edge off of it to some fans. That they would suddenly "get it" and be amused as well. I looked at it as similar to the "Kiss My Ass Club" we had awhile back. That was some envelope pushing at the time. A grown man, exposing his bare ass and having another man actually kiss it on national television...I don't think I had ever seen that done before. It shocked alot of people, but to me it was genuinely funny, and so I laughed my head off on commentary and I think that helped to make those episodes enjoyable...for most people. I have already gotten people e-mailing me saying..."Now you can't say 'lighten up' about this one, King" or "This was the worst thing ever on television and Raw should be taken off the air!" Well, to those people, I do say...."Yes, lighten up! This is freakin' television folks. It ain't called the "idiot box" for nothing. Don't take stuff you see on television so damn serious. You'll have a stroke! You'll get all stressed out. Some of you people need to go out and buy a dog...name it "sense of humor," and then you'll have one. Remember, if it ain't the news, it ain't real. (and I'm not even sure about the news) So don't have a cow about it! I don't know of any other television show on earth where when you watch it and you see something on an episode you don't like, you scream, "Fire the writers!" "Kill the owner!" Look at tv shows like "Friends," or "Seinfeld." On those shows, the characters are given credit for being funny, and they are the stars of the shows. I mean, is Kramer funny, or is it just the material the writers of the show write for him?
Well, to me it's both, but I don't ever bother to look at it that deeply....I just say, "Kramer's funny." But not on WWE television....we can't just say, "Triple H is a real jerk for doing something like that." Oh no, we gotta dig in there and say, "Who wrote this crap?" Well, to me, that takes all the fun out of the business. And yes, it is a business, but it's a fun business. It's a business where the wrestlers should be focused on and not what goes on behind the scenes. You gotta know that knowing everything that goes on behind the scenes spoils the fun of things. Didn't we all learn that with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny? Or especially with the "Wizard Of Oz." All I'm saying, in the famous words of "The Wizard" himself, is, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" Watch what's out front, on the screen, and have fun with it. If you can't have fun with it, then just don't watch! But whatever you do, don't worry yourselves to an early grave over wrestling....it ain't worth it.  OK, I've said my piece....and now I don't even have time to tell you all the juicy, "behind the scenes" details of my personal life! I'll have to get back to you on that....Later!