Yesterday I headed over to Wizard World in Philly for the second time ever, but the first time as a regular guest. You might remember that Frank and I headed there about two years ago trying to plug Shamoozal.com. We were so under prepared for that event, with only a handful of flyers, some tiny character cut outs, a “Shamoozal” yellow table cloth, and a laptop that only ran for about two hours a day to actually show our shorts. Oh, and the stickers we wanted to hand out didn’t come until AFTER that weekend… and I’m still stuck with about 500 of the things all this time later. This year was all about just enjoying the show, which I didn’t have much of a chance to when we were trying to sell people on typing in our URL when they got home.

Wizard World isn’t really my thing since I’m not really into comic books. That is essentially the bulk of the show, a way for collectors to buy MORE comics and more toys. I love toys, but I chose not to look at them this year since I’m in the process of figuring out what to do with the current toys I already have. The good thing is that there is enough other stuff to still make it an interesting trip. For instance, getting to meet the friendly Newgrounds staff, the always great B-List celebrity alley, the more grass roots Artist alley, and of course lots of video game stuff. Oh, and plenty of cosplay and Jedi too.

This year the Newgrounds guys had a huge booth in the front of the show floor with lots of goodies to buy and several of their popular artists chatting it up and doing commission work. I introduced myself to Tom Fulp, the creator of Newgrounds and he seemed like a really nice and down to earth guy. It was nice being able to chat it up with him. I also had the chance to meet the extremely popular Egoraptor, which was a really fun encounter. Frank and I spoke with him for a bit about the show and Newgrounds in general. He’s a really nice guy and is about as quick witted as you’d expect. I also met Steve V (SardonicSamurai) who was also a really nice guy. There were a bunch of other regulars there that I saw but didn’t actually get to speak with like Swain, HappyHarry, and Tomamoto. To be quite honest, it was actually a really overwhelming moment for me because there were so many people there. What I can say is that is a pretty tight group and they came from all parts of the US to be there, which is pretty impressive and shows they’re dedicated to the brand that Fulp created. Pretty cool stuff, I look forward to running into those guys again and hopefully spending a bit more time with them.

UPDATED AT THE BOTTOM IN BOLD at 2:08PM

There’s a lot of people who don’t watch professional wrestling. But there’s also a lot of people who do, which is apparent by the sold out crowds at arenas all over the world. I guess not so much now as maybe 90s through early 2000s but somehow they managed to keep me aboard through high school, college, and still now as an adult in the working world. If you watched it in any of those eras you might have heard of a guy named Chris Benoit. He was never really the top guy in any federation. He was small in height but made up for it in a very technical style that would keep you interested in his matches. I was always a fan. He could wrestle the big guys and the cruiserweights and actually help them to put on terrific matches.
Of course I didn’t know the guy personally but I’ve watched enough wrestling specials and heard enough shoot interviews to honestly say he was a good guy. He was a teacher to younger and even veteran wrestlers. When I went to Royal Rumble in Philadelphia a few years ago, I actually rooted for him to win against the Big Show to go to the Main Event of Wrestlemania XX. I was there when he won that shot. Then a couple months later, he won his first and only World Heavyweight Championship as the underdog in a match against 2 future Hall of Famers in Triple H and Shawn Michaels.

Listen, I know wrestling is a male soap opera. It mixes planned storylines with athleticism. Yes, they know who is going to win each match. But unless you’re over with the crowd then they’ll never give you that opportunity. You cant just walk into the ring acting like an asshole and win matches. Management and fans have to see something in you in order to give you a “push”. Benoit has been in the business for over 20 years and won all kinds of different titles and big macthes. You don’t last that long on a television show and win titles unless you’re pretty damn good. Like I said, I’ve always been a fan.

If there is something that will always blow my mind, it has to be old WWF interviews, especially any interview dealing with Hulk Hogan or Macho Man Randy Savage. When the two of them do an interview together? Forget about it, it’s absolutely insane. The following video is so important, that I feel it needs to be analyzed, second by second.

The first thing I want to point out is that I love that Macho Man is called “Madness.” Is he the only wrestler whose nickname has a nickname? He seems to have as many names as Apollo Creed. Anyway, the most important scene to point out is the opening. We see Macho and Hogan come in, hands up, fingers shaking and wiggling,

“We really don’t now what we’re dealing with here man.” Proclaims the Hulkster.

I’m a big fan of the Nintendo 64 professional wrestling games. It helped that I was really into actual professional wrestling at the time and it’s almost embarrassing to say I still watch it today….. every week, many times a week. Anyway this post isn’t about wrestling on TV; it’s about the N64 games that I spent many a day playing with friends when I was younger and even today. I guess it all started for me with WCW vs. NWO World Tour.

It came out in 1997 and was put out by THQ. Asmik Ace and AKI produced the game. The grappling system and easy, basic controls were what made it enjoyable for gamers (which were probably mostly wrestling fans like myself). It didn’t have many “extras” besides just the usual single, tag team, and battle royal matches. The game was big into the whole NWO angle that was airing on TV at the time. So you had your usual WCW wrestlers and then the bad guy NWO wrestlers. They even threw in some Japanese guys to spice things up a bit. Usually if you picked one of those guys, it was because you liked to laugh at them. Who seriously wants to play as Sumo Jo or Kim Chee? It was a fun game but it was only in the beginning stages of evolution.