EVERETT — Lick my socks, Batista.
Your father wears ballet slippers.
Wanna piece of me, punk? Name the place. I’ll remove your spleen and mount it on my mantel, next to my fifth-grade spelling-bee trophy.
Oops. Sorry. A representative of the media is supposed to be coldly objective and report the facts.
Yet, objectivity is difficult when felonies happen before one’s own eyes, behind the hopelessly inept referee’s back. When a pro wrestler such as Batista, whose shoulders are the size of canned hams, goes off and slams poor little Shelton Benjamin outside the ring onto the concrete floor and pins him by sitting on the kid AND illegally pulling on the ropes for extra leverage, it becomes too much to bear even for the most impartial observer.
Cheater. Booo! Hiss!
And if that weren’t enough, the 6-foot-5, 270-pound, heavily tattooed Batista later illegally entered the ring and harassed Edge enough so that the hated Randy Orton could brain Edge from behind and pin him to retain his WWE Intercontinental Championship.
The injustice of it all. It’s an outrage.
Yes, Vince McMahon’s Tour of Higher Morality Through Eye-Gouging came to Everett on Sunday afternoon, revving up a half-filled Everett Events Center into such a frenzy for three hours that 12-year-olds were moved to spill more caustic obscenities than Dennis Rodman.
Fathers could be seen hoisting their toddlers on their shoulders and giving the one-finger salute with both hands at some of the more emotional times. One attractive young woman was escorted out of the arena for flashing Orton as he walked down the runway to the dressing room.
One woozy, beery patron announced to anyone who’d listen that he was turning 30 in a few days, "so I’m out to get hammered right now."
Maturity milestones aside, this was WWE’s RAW at its best. It’s the same RAW that has more viewers than Monday Night Football. It’s the same RAW that inspires rotund, drunken, shirtless, toothless fans (not to mention their husbands) to shell out as much as $50 for a seat close to the action.
Actually, that may be an overstatement. Most wore shirts.
Anyway, what in-your-face action they saw.
They saw Chris Benoit keep his World Heavyweight Championship by making the 7-foot, 326-pound Kane quit by applying his feared Crippler Crossface. This delighted the screaming spectators, many of whom were shocked and appalled when Kane flaunted his eerie obsession with the lovely Lita when he demanded Lita give him an answer in 24 hours to some vague but obviously unsavory request.
Such romantic trysts add a little spice to the everyday body slams and pile-drivers.
"It’s kind of a soap opera," said Ed Bacon of Granite Falls, a follower of pro rasslin’ for much of his life.
For instance, Trish Stratus, a Pam Anderson clone, stunned the wrestling world by eschewing good-guy Chris Jericho for the hated Christian. More puzzling is why Stratus stays with Christian after some savage beatings that followed several verbal spats.
Stratus riled up the crowd by calling Everett "a crappy town" and the audience "a sea of losers." That was before Lita came in and pinned Stratus in a match not scheduled on the original card.
Women wrestlers, in fact, give the predominantly male audience the same reaction as a ringing bell did for Pavlov’s dogs.
Victoria, a luscious brunette who sashayed into the ring wearing the Women’s Championship belt and little else, won a four-way match when she pinned Gail Kim, an equally stunning diva who wore shiny leather tights.
The testosterone-adoring crowd loved it when Jericho beat Tyson Tomko in a 15-foot cage match and dropped an interfering Stratus on her bleached-blond head. They howled when an undersized Matt Hardy quickly dispensed with A-Train, a menacing, bald, 380-pounder with three studs in his lower lip and an apparent desire to set the world’s record for back hair.
Sure, they know the matches are staged. But that doesn’t stop anyone from loving the Benoits, the Roseys and the Hurricanes of the world.
But the spectators, many of whom spilled more beer than they consumed, were equally livid at the sinister antics and galling references to things they deem important and worthy of love. No one much liked Val Venis’ supposedly seductive swaying of his muscular booty. They lustily booed when Christian spewed unprintable remarks about Everett. They spat verbiage that would make Howard Stern blush when Chuck Palumbo said he was "too good for this town."
Worst of all is the blatant cheating: the smug, gloating bad guys who get away with using everything from concealed brass knuckles to folding chairs. And the refs, who are supposed to be impartial, but obviously are in the bad guys’ pockets.
It’s all shameful. They’re all in it together. Every last, spineless one of them.
It’s an outrage.
It really is.
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