Well, another year has passed in professional wrestling, and a first year for the As I See It column on Pro Wrestling: Between the Sheets...
Some of the items we’ve discussed in As I See It in 1997...
* The career of Terry Funk...and how lacking in “smarts” those who consider themselves too smart to appreciate the career of this legend really are....
* Changes... not for the better in ECW, with such things in the last 18 months as “the crucifixion angle”, the use of worked (and all too real) drug addiction to create “hot TV”, the fallout from the Eric Kulas incident, physical altercations between fans and workers (and each other)... near-riots in and out of the ECW Arena ....and memories of the times when ECW was truly special...
* The spread of similar fan violence to WCW and repeatedly to the WWF...
* The various adventures of “The Original King of Swing” Stevie Richards...
* Thoughts on the end of the USWA/Memphis territory...
* The retirement of Arn Anderson and some memories of his career...
* The death of Fritz Von Erich and the legacy of the Von Erich/Adkisson family..
* The Brian Pillman story, and my call for drug testing in the business...
* The Bret Hart doublecross, and the disgusting behavior of some Titan employees that resulted from it...
Then there were the personal stories of individual crisis, tragedy, and triumph... and some updates:
* The crisis of my friend, WCW referee Brian Hildebrand, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer earlier this year. Brian is recovering, and anticipates returning to WCW in-ring in March 1998 after final chemotherapy...
* Remembering WWF referee Joey Marella who left wrestling, and his friends, far too soon on July 4, 1994...
* The personal campaign of abuse by ECW toward a long-time loyal employee; and more importantly, my friend Kathy Fitzpatrick...then her winning out over an addiction to painkillers and sleeping pills that resulted in large part from that abuse... An update: My friend won out, and is happier than she’s ever been...hopefully due in part to the love of her friends, but even more so due to her own considerable courage.
* Sherri Martel...her defeat of her own addiction...then her marriage and happiness in 1997.
As I said when I first wrote this column...I intended it to be both commentary on and a reporting of the human side of the business...Hopefully I’ve succeeded somewhat.
Here’s hoping that 1998 brings us more excitement IN the ring, and less need to report on what’s going on OUTSIDE the ring...AND here’s hoping that there are more stories of triumph..and less of the tragedies that 1997 has seemed to bring us all too frequently..
Until next time, in 1998...
Bob Magee is a columnist for Pro Wrestling's Between The Sheets - for comments or opposing viewpoints please e-mail to magee@uscom.com