The Awesome Era

The referee's three-count ushered in a brand new era in the WWE last night, as The Miz successfully cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase on WWE Champion Randy Orton! Enter the Awesome Era, which, in my opinion, is going to be truly awesome. Anyone looking for a picture-perfect example of hard-work personified need look no further than Mike 'The Miz' Mizanin.

I still remember the good ol' days of 2004 (holy crow, I did NOT realize it was so long ago...), in my mother's living room watching the $1,000,000 Tough Enough competition, and telling her to come check out the Big Show slapping the piss out of all these young, green WWE hopefuls. She was disgusted, and got mad at me. But I digress. One of those hopefuls was Mike Mizanin, already rocking his monicker of 'The Miz'. The guy had charisma, that's for sure, but he was definitely not in physical WWE shape, and certainly didn't possess any outstanding professional wrestling ability.

He, along with many others, was man-handled by the 500-pound Big Show, degraded by an irate Kurt Angle, made out with Mae Young (worst of all?), and went through extensive physical exertion only to be runner-up to the walking embarrassment that was Daniel Puder. He was eliminated from the competition, but far from defeated. The saying goes, "if you want something bad enough, you can get it" and The Miz is living proof.

He was eliminated from Tough Enough on December 16, 2004, but had made a lasting impression on the WWE. He worked his tail off under a developmental contract for close to two years, before making his WWE debut on Smackdown! on April 21, 2006. And from there on, we witnessed the non-stop growth of a young man who is without a doubt going to comprise the young talent that will be the future of this business.

For the most part, Tough Enough is completely despised by the men and women in the WWE locker room. Reason being that they all had to work their ass off wrestling on the independant scene in order to catch the eye of the WWE, and these guys are given a golden opportunity to compete against FAR fewer individuals, win a million bucks and be invited into the WWE. That's why despite the opportunity, most of them don't last (see Daniel Puder's appearance in the 2005 Royal Rumble, where he got the shit chopped out of him by Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Hardcore Holly, before being dumped over the side of the ring like a corpse, never to be seen again).

It's the guys that truly want it who will make it in this business, and it was obvious that The Miz wanted this more than anything. I mean, how amazing is it that in 2004 Mike Mizanin lost the Tough Enough competition to Daniel Puder, who didn't last a week in the business, and now, six years later, The Miz is the face of the company: the WWE Champion. I never thought I'd be able to sensibly use the words 'Cinderella' and 'WWE' in the sentence, but it seems appropriate now.

Way to go Mike, you are one of the few (lately) who TRULY deserve to have that belt around your waist, and you've convinced someone who has lost interest in the current product, to tune in once again. The company is in good hands. Scratch that, it's in AWESOME hands.

The Gems

I just re-organized my DVD collection. It was horribly unorganized since being unpacked from boxes when we moved in to the new apartment. I feel better now. I don't care what people say, I friggin' love my DVD collection, I'm proud of it. It's a product of about seven years, and is still growing. I'm sure an impressive amount of money has been dumped into it, and some DVDs I had to look high and low for, or even pay an outrageous price for.

But the bottom line is, NO GARBAGE in my DVD collection. Only the best of the best get in there. Some DVDs I bought actually just for one single match, or one single moment, just to have it captured forever. So without further ado, world, meet my DVD collection:


I feel like maybe it's not really all that impressive, but it's a work in progress. From top left to bottom right, it's organized alphabetically in these groups:

- WWE produced Superstar DVDs
- Independant 'Shoot' DVDs
- WWE PPV DVDs
- Miscellaneous WWE DVDs
- Other promotion DVDs (TNA, ROH, PWG)
- UFC DVDs (there's like five, relax)

I'll run down a few of my favorites, the 'gems', if you will:

Wrestling with Shadows: How embarrassing, I just realized this DVD should not be up there, as it's not WWE produced... Regardless, this DVD is amazing. It's a product of Bret Hart inviting a camera crew to follow him around as he wrapped up his run in the WWF. It gives an unprecedented look at what goes on behind the scenes in the WWF (back then), and one wrestler's issues with "the boss". Gives an incredible, can't-see-it-anywhere-else perspective on the 1997 Montreal Screwjob. Love this DVD.

Breaking the Code - Behind the Walls of Chris Jericho: Jericho's first DVD! This is the first DVD of it's kind that the WWE has released in a long time; an actual documentary. Gotta love this DVD, Chris talks about growing up in Winnipeg, and going through CreComm too! Not only is this a great DVD for wrestling fans to grab, but it would interest anyone from Winnipeg as well. I love what Jericho says on how he wants to go out; "Getting dragged kicking and screaming out of the ring, begging for mercy from whoever it is that fires me, and never be seen again; that's how I want to go out. Yeah, I don't want any hero's goodbye, or a big send off, I don't want a retirement ceremony, that's not how I'm built. I just want to disappear into the sunset, and have people go 'man, that guy was a jerk wasn't he, wow... we're glad he's gone."

ANY Shoot DVD: I love ALL of my shoot DVDs. Basically what it is, is when a wrestler (or two) sits down with someone, and it's just a two (or so) hour long interview. Usually these happen when the wrestler is no longer with WWE, so they can spill all the beans about what happened in their time working with the WWE (or other promotions). It's completely unscripted, genuine, and gives an awesome look at behind the scenes in wrestling, and what the guys are really like.

WWF Million-Dollar Tough Enough: Produced by WWF & MTV. 'Nuff said. This was the first Tough Enough competition, that combined a contest to win a WWF contract, and living together 'Big Brother' style. It's an awesome combination of reality-show and professional wrestling. When I think of this DVD, all I can hear is Taz: "If you got a question, it BETTAH be a good one, because if it's a stupid one, I will kick your ass."

I wish I could talk about every single DVD in that case, because I love them all, but I won't put you through that. With the addition of Chris Jericho's new DVD, I'm officially out of room in the bookcase. Time to start thinking of upgrading. Sometimes I wonder how much my collection is worth, and if I'd ever sell it, but surprisingly I think it may be one of the only things that is "priceless" to me. I mean, I'd sell it for a million dollars and then buy it all back, but you get what I'm saying.

Next blog post will come AFTER October 23rd, which means it will be a review of the WWE Super(house)Show that will be here on that evening! I'm bummed that Sydal won't be there, but it's still going to be awesome! I might actually be more excited for Nikki to see it, since it's her first WWE show. So yes, next post will probably be Sunday, Oct. 24, after the show. Looking forward to it!