Grounded Greenhorns

Back in May I bestowed upon you an epic two-part piece on the up-and-comers of the WWE titled "The Greenhorns of Grappling". Mass hysteria ensued after it was published, and rightfully so. You may be wondering why I'm tooting my own horn considering I was not 100% accurate regarding how each of the wrestlers would fare in the months following that column. But really, if any of you claim you knew how it would turn out for each wrestler all along, you're lying to yourself you jerks.

All kidding aside, I look back on the two-parter and I can't help but wonder what I was thinking at the time. Did I really call Matt Hardy a "greenhorn"? Why wasn't Dolph Ziggler in the column? And MVP in the top 3? Really? I don't know, maybe I was heavily under the influence of [insert type of alcohol/drug here, your guess is as good as mine], or maybe my own personal preferences of wrestlers got in the way.

And look, even if I was wrong about half the people on the list, I stand by my assertion that each and every one of those guys still has a chance to make something of themselves in the industry. But for whatever reason, they're either no longer employed by a major wrestling company, no longer getting a push that makes sense, or they just couldn't put the fucking booze down and stop their pot-belly from growing (I'm looking at you Matt Hardy).

So let's do this. You thought that last two-parter on the Greenhorns of Grappling was epic?

(crickets)

...


(moar crickets)

...


(now-bored crickets)

No? Just me? Well fuck.

Either way, brace yourselves for an actually-epic ten-parter on the Grounded Greenhorns of Grappling, a series dedicated to each wrestler of note in my original two-part column. Not only will we be discussing what could have been and what still could be, but also what has gone wrong, how it went wrong, and most importantly, why it went wrong.

Now now, for those of you who have just about had it with greenhorns/schmeenhorns, fear not... this won't be the only thing I'll be writing here in the coming weeks. Intertwined with this series will also be my not-so-regular posts! And soon enough I'm also hoping to finally get a hold of XHeadlines' webmaster (HI JACOB SPADES!!! CALL ME?!?!?), to get back to those podcasts we were once knocking out of the park.

And now I've painted myself into a corner - I really can't come up with an ending other than the cliche'd "Stay tuned". So, ummmmm...

I'm Ron Burgandy. Go fuck yourself San Diego.