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"...ROH is only the smarks choice because out of the big 3 it is the least promoted and publicised. It makes them feel like they are in the know which is very important to a smark." -Stephen Mitchell in response to "The Truth about Ring of Honor" by FJ Parlan

This brief sentence pretty much laid out everything I feel about most of the IWC. I realized that like most everything else, wrestling has become a battleground between fans, particularly those who are "mainstream"(WWE), "underground" (ROH), and in between those two (TNA). As a simple analogy for most people, I'll relate this to music: whenever you have something that suddenly dominates a certain genre or skyrockets in popularity, essentially becoming pop-culture or pop music, you suddenly have a violent backlash of people who, without any reason, feel that they are being forced fed imagery and sounds that they used to but no longer like, and now it can no longer be considered "of the people." But the fact of the matter is, when something does blow up like hair bands or crunk music or boy bands or disco or anything like that, it's because "of the people." The fact is, the WWE is and always has been "of and for the people" and if it wasn't, quite frankly it wouldn't be in business now would it" But back to the point at hand, those groups who suddenly rebel against pop-culture suddenly develop their own movement, a movement that is more "pure", more "simple", a movement that goes back to the so called "basics." I put everything in parentheses because to be honest the majority of these are simply novelty appeal, and sooner or later the novelty disappears and all you have left is a broken down bandwagon left in the dust of the next bandwagon that everyone jumps on.

That's what I feel when I hear people talk about ROH, that's what I feel whenever I hear about Dave Meltzer and WON, that's how I feel whenever I read these columns on OWW. Now I'm not going to split hairs here, but to be quite honest with you, the primary reason I use this website is for the wrestling profiles. Sure, I'll read an article from time to time and hell, I'll even respond to a few, but it ALWAYS surprises me how these people this know-it-all attitude like they're suddenly the premiere source of wrestling information. Sure, I'll admit that WWE has been sucking for the past few years, but suddenly jump on its back like it's a dying horse and try to flog it to death is not going to get anyone anywhere. I understand that majority of people are burnt out on the product, but it's not like it's not trying to change. I'm not a WWE mark, but I am a wrestling fan. I'd rather enjoy watching a match on TV than concern myself with backstage politics that I really have nothing to do with or directly affect me. Oh, and I guaran-damn-tee the majority of you smarks who claim to hate sports entertainment were probably some of the biggest marks of the WWE when it was the underdog and during its Attitude Era.

The fact of the matter is, I guarantee that once ROH or TNA starts to blow up as well and becomes the next ECW and WCW respectively, I have a feeling we all know what's going to happen. So stop all the hypocrisy and quit jumping on bandwagons, because inevitably you're going to end up forsaking them when things look rough and start they start to crash and burn. Now I know I'm probably writing this to an audience that refuses to hear what I have to say, but let's be real about this: TNA is not going to succeed very much in front of a national audience unless they A)start touring A LOT more with house shows, B)start doing tapings at venues besides Universal Studios, and C)get the money to do all of this by the end of 2006 to the middle of 2007. I say they need to do this soon because WWECW, which is trying to edge out TNA, is already on the road. Now whether or not ECW even succeeds is a whole other question for a whole other time. If TNA really wants to become a contender for the WWE, they're going to have to be able to compete with the WWE on a financial level. That's one of the things that made the Monday Night Wars so interesting, seeing which company could gather up enough money to top the other and to see who could lure away the top stars with biggest, most outrageous contracts. I don't know what ROH's plans are. If they're trying to go national and get a TV deal, fantastic, more power to them; but you have to consider once again the money issue. Like any other sport where you sign and use pro athletes, there's always going to be a salary cap, and just like any pro league there's going to be the minor league. That's more or less what ROH is: the minor league. Have you ever heard of a wrestler in the independents turning down the opportunity to make more money with the WWE" And if you say AJ Styles, you're wrong, sure he turned down the WWE, but that was because he wasn't going to make more money. The point is, the wrestling community -and not the INTERNET wrestling community- calls the WWE the big leagues for the reason.

In conclusion, smarks are simply those spoiled kids you met when you were little who were snobs to everyone else because they thought they knew everything and liked to correct people when even the tiniest mistakes were made. In reality, no one really like them because they really just made a fool of themselves by proclaiming to be an expert in something that was either not real or absolutely none of their business; thus, no one ever really took them seriously. So to those of you who do get upset by what I have to say, that's really too bad; I respect wrestling fans but I hate people who criticize guys for things like workrates and ring psychology when they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about and probably couldn't carry a match if their life depended on it. Why don't you stop telling wrestlers how to do their jobs; they are where they are (in the ring) and you are where you are (spending every waking moment in front of acomputer) for a reason.

by Trae Iafeta..