ROH Fightin' Words October 7th

Fightin’ Words
By Mike G

After editing two 2001 issues of Wrestling World magazine, I got called into the publisher’s office. He was not pleased.

“You’re putting porn stars on the cover of America’s most respected wrestling magazine,” he yelled. “What do you think you’re doing? We’re already getting complaints about your Metal Maniacs magazine. I get letters telling me you’re spreading the word of Satan, for Christ’s sake! What the hell, Mike?”

“First of all,” I countered, “half these bands only pretend to be Satanists. It’s show biz, man. No big deal. And as far as Wrestling World goes, sales were tanking. We needed to get with the times. That means blood and boobs.”

He was not impressed.

“I’m the only boob around here because I’m going to let you continue but cut the shit. I want the next issue to be more respectful. Now think of a theme and go do it.”

I couldn’t think of a good theme no matter how hard I tried. So, I came up with a “Special Double The Action Tag Team Issue.” Still, since sales had been good for my only two issues so far, I put a banner over the logo that said “Now More Extreme!” and the bloodiest color picture I find next to it. It didn’t matter that I had never heard of Brian Blair, he was a bloody pulp and thus on my cover.

I had a full-page color pin-up of a disgustingly bloody Ian and Axl Rotten on the inside front cover facing the contents page which I filled with more bloody pictures.

Other pin-ups included Tammy Sytch, Rob Van Dam, Sean O’Haire and a ridiculously gory shot of the XPW’s Supreme and Kronus on the back cover by Dr. Mike Lano who, obviously, attended to them after the shot.

Such tag teams as Edge and Christian, The Hardy Boys, The Dudley Boyz, Harlem Heat, The Acolytes, FBI (Full Blooded Italians) and Kronik were profiled. We had interviews with no one.

I wrote an editorial called “Does Anybody Have The Right To Censor?” which featured a shot of Terri Runnels showing her tits. (At the time, the WWF had an angle wherein Stevie Richards was waging a heel crusade of censorship.) On my Editor’s Page was a shot of The Blue Meanie putting me in a headlock and Bubba Dudley appearing shocked reading my magazine.

We paid tribute to Yokozuna who had recently died.

We covered independent wrestling in the heartland with the headline “Blood Flows In Ohio.” The pictorial featured a table being set on fire in the middle of the ring during a barbed wire match. Such aging grapplers as The Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Tito Santana and George “The Animal” Steele saw action. The star of the night was Chris Candido.

Our heel column by Stately Wayne Manor, “Stately States,” ran with my intro that read, in part, “I think we all agree this guy’s a jerk and a blackmail artist. Because he has found out certain things about my past that I would rather not have revealed at this time, I am put in the position of publishing his loathsome column.”

As soon as I put the mag to bed, I flew out to Hollywood to interview Rob Black and his XPW stable.

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