Last Waltz
05/23/02
I don't know if Cubs posted anything on the main page, but in case you
haven't heard the news, I'm not going to be providing content for TCF.com
anymore. It's a decision that's been building for a while but pretty recently
came to a head. The reasons?
1) Lack of time. Ah yes, the old standby. A new promotion at work and a
potential return to school mean that there just aren't enough hours in the day
to sit down and write something worth reading. To do otherwise, opting to churn
out substandard material, is ultimately a disservice to you, Cubs, and myself as
well. That's half the reason.
2) The WWE's suckiness: And here's the other 50%. I've just grown so
disenfranchised with the WWE lately-the aimless booking, the plummet in match
quality, the repeated fumbling of can't miss angles; the list goes on and on.
And if the product's not fun, then writing about it isn't fun. The Judgment Day
preview took forever to produce, mainly because I wasn't interested in any of
the matches. It really felt like a chore. And if it's a chore to write, then
it's going to be a chore to read, and who does that benefit?
I know that I don't write solely about the WWE. There's lots of lucha, puro, and
indy in something like Movers and Shakers. But the WWE is what got me interested
in wrestling all those years ago, and I still probably watch more WWE
programming than any other wrestling. And when that product suffers, you're
interest in wrestling overall suffers. Don't fret; Vince McMahon's bumbling will
never kill my love of wrestling. Not in a million years. But I'm at the point
where I don't have it in me to write about wrestling anymore.
What does this mean for you, the reader? Probably not a whole lot. At worst
you're thinking "Huh. Too bad, I liked reading his stuff." (Actually,
at worst you're thinking "Good riddance!"). No one's wailing and
gnashing their teeth over this, and nor should they. I'm not going to pull a
Luke Johnston and disappear off the face of the earth. I'll still be at the CMLL
Rulz board talking lucha every Saturday (and Sunday, if I ever remember). I'll
still be at Seadawg's Delphi forum and the In This Very Ring ezboard. E-mail
will forever be open if you want to drop me a line.
Since I came on board I did 24 Single Files, 8 Movers and Shakers, 14 PPV
previews, 2 house show reports, 1 RSPW awards article, and 2 Cartoon Network
reviews. That's a good amount of material, and I'd like to think what I wrote
was a bit different than anything else you could find on the 'net.
I really have to give big props to Cubs, who was nice enough to let me join the
site back in February '01. He always posted my stuff almost immediately, and
never once altered the content of what I sent in. Even though I never met him in
real life, it's a safe bet that he's a really cool guy. And no one (and the Rock
means NO ONE) recaps TV better than TCF.
Bigs ups to ma homiez Tan and Albert too, who both rule but really need to both
write more, dammit. Tan started the immortal CMLL Rulz thread, so his place in
the annals of wrestling on the Internet is secure. As for Albert, well, whenever
I think of the time he butchered this wannabe's awful tryout article, well, it
brings a big smile to my face. Trust me, you had to be there.
Lastly, if you ever read one of my articles and sent me feedback, thank you most
of all. You made all the hard work worth it. Now, in the words of the immortal
Jesse Camp, I'll see you around.
[Hey, does this mean I don't finish last in PPV predicting?]
Joe Gagne
bwo@infi.net