Frenchy's Rant

During the long and boring flight to Iraq for the Tribute to the Troops show last December, Abi, one of the WWE backstage audio crew, decided to get smart with Vince McMahon – never a good idea. I can’t even remember what Abi said or did, but when he did it, Vince just looked at him with an evil grin and said, “OK smartass, now I owe you one.”

(Full disclosure: Sitting right there and being just as bored as everyone else, I just might have had something to do with instigating Mr. McMahon’s reaction to whatever it was that Abi said, but I can’t really remember…)

And that was it. Nothing happened for months, but every now and then, Vince would remind Abi about how he ‘owed him,’ sometimes walking up behind Abi and smacking him, saying, “Don’t forget. I still owe you. And that little smack wasn’t it.”

Tuesday night in Boston, Mr. McMahon decided it was finally time for Abi’s payback. There is a sort of unwritten rule in the WWE that states when you are in your home town, chances are good you might end up being embarrassed somehow. Abi, a former native of Boston, was a victim of this unofficial policy.

Without giving away too much of the plot of the show (airing Friday night at 8 PM on the CW network, for those interested in watching this very public humiliation), the first scene of the show is a gigantic Punjabi wrestler called The Great Khali in the ring with a bunch of other Punjabis dressed in festive costumes. The Great Khali is offering gifts to the Big Show before their big match at the next Pay Per View. Well, during rehearsal, Mr. McMahon had an idea, and sent people backstage to find Abi. When he showed up at ringside, Vince told him that they needed one more Punjabi in the scene to actually deliver the gifts – some water, some scotch, a live chicken and a live goat – from a table in the ring to the Big Show, and since he’d fit right in with the scene to ‘Get the hell up in the ring!’

Payback is a bitch, as poor Abi can attest. At that point, you have two choices, do it, or start looking for a new job. Abi was a good sport, and took his punishment like a man – like the Great Punj-Abi Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man that is! Abi figured that he’d just have to suffer the ridicule of rehearsal, and that would be it. But it went farther than that. When Vince asked the show’s producer what he thought about Abi’s performance in the rehearsal, his fate was sealed.

“Well, to be honest, I think it’s perfect! He looks like he’s straight out of Central Casting, and even better, if one of the microphones breaks during the scene, he’d be right there in the ring to fix it. Let’s put him in costume and have him do the show!”

And the rest, is history, very embarrassing history.

The rest of the pictures from this excellent rib can be found here.

Time to get this off my chest.

I hate my hair. I’ve been sick of the way my hair looks since the day it sprouted. Some people say “Oh, you have such nice hair.” Those people are called liars. The very few times I go hatless, I either looked like Eddie Munster or like I am being electrocuted. Thus, my impressive collection of skull covers. At last count I think I own seventy baseball hats (yes, most of them are versions of the same old Zildjian baseball hat, I never said I have fashion sense either…)

Today, after a particularly frightening hair day, I’d had enough. It was time to take a stand against the wild alfalfa covering my scalp. So I grabbed the buzzers and the shearing began.

The result?

The ridiculous beard is next to go.

April 6, 2008

LONDON (AP) — Passengers faced more travel misery at London’s Heathrow airport on Sunday after heavy snow and continued baggage-handling problems led to further cancellations and delays.

The airport operator, BAA, said that 185 flights into and out of the airport were canceled Sunday, mostly due to snow and ice. The weather wrecked efforts to finally run a full schedule at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, which opened with great fanfare on March 27 but has been plagued by troubles since.

Heavy Snow? Ice? In APRIL?!? Great.

The WWE heads to London next week for shows on Monday and Tuesday at the O2 arena. I’m flying into snowbound Heathrow on Thursday, and if that isn’t bad enough, I’m also mixing the shows, which means *HORROR* I’ll have to actually work, instead of enjoying my usual company sponsored European paid vacation. The pubs will be losing money on this trip.

To make matters worse, Abi and I have rented motorcycles in London (at an exorbitantly marked-up price thanks to the incredibly shitty exchange rate) with the plan of riding from London to Scotland after the UK RAW and Smackdown events conclude. I’m sure by then the weather will be MUCH better – oh, say… about five hundred miles north of London, right??

Once again, I’ll take the blame for weather woes. I should have known better than to rent the European version of my bike at home, the Yamaha FJR – which, after the debacle that was the Blue Ridge Parkway ride has become my current version of Stormbringer.

Maybe we should have rented snowmobiles instead.

The previous post was dumb, lame, cheezzzzy and silly, but it had to be done.

April Fools!!!

Never Fear! The Rant rants on!!

Thanks to the exactly three people that asked me about it, including my Mom.

Thanks to Tina for the one and only comment. No need for punching. Violence never solves anything, maybe you’ve been around the WWE and wrestling too long?

Hmm…. With such a low comment rate, maybe I should just retire this stupid blog after all??