by The Immolator
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

"In my life/Why do I smile/At people who I’d much rather/Kick in the eye?"      — The Smiths

The Ring’s the thing. Immolator here, the man who pours gasoline on people and lights them on fire until they are burnt to a crisp. Figuratively speaking, that is. 

As I write this, a program alternately called “Ultimate Professional Wrestling” and “Ultimate Slams and Jams” is on ESPN Classic. A friendly tip from the Immo: if you’re going to use canned audience noise, make sure you edit out the sounds of phantom bodies hitting the canvas. On the other side of the spectrum, Hercules Kelly v. Luis Ortiz is on now, with no audience sound whatsoever. Ai ya, as we say in China.

Calum Macbeth made his official debut Saturday night… as a referee. At the top of the card at the House of Pain, I was introduced as “Jason The Acceptable,” but told the announcer, Terry Joe Silverspoon, that he was mistaken. I introduced myself, said I came from a long way away to wrestle, but instead got handed a referee’s licence. Then I gave Silverspoon a special gift: a three-pack of Ivory soap. And on the night went. I took my first ref bump that evening. While trying to count a pin on Aaron Idol during his match against Gorilla Marilla, Sweet Daddy Devastation pulled me out of the ring and socked me one. Down I go. When I got to my senses, I called for the DQ, went back into the ring to admonish that disrespectful malcontent… and got a spear for my troubles. Oof. Fortunately, being in better shape than your garden-variety ref, I was able to struggle to my feet after a couple of minutes and continue my officiating duties, sore back, ribs, and all. Of course, I made sure to point out how miserable the night’s events were making me.

Y’see, it became clear to me that I needed to simplify the gimmick a bit. Since I’m no Jushin Liger or Chris Benoit in the ring (yet), what can I offer? What kind of character can I provide to tell a story in the ring? Well, how about The Most Miserable Sod on Earth? And there you have it. Calum Macbeth is, simply, a miserable bastard, and he has a short fuse, one that lasts right up until the point where either I lock in my Celtic Cloverleaf finisher, or the point where I lose and go ballistic. I expect much more of the latter in my early career. Such as it may be.

The halfway point in my series of 50 lessons has been met. Lesson 25 was this past Tuesday with Disco filling in as trainer. Student-wise, it was just myself and Chris, the new guy, so we got lots of extra attention. We started off with arm drags. Lots of arm drags. Japanese arm drags. Mexican arm drags. I ended up with bruises all over my left bicep, which is near where you get hooked and thrown during an arm drag. Part of the reason for the bruises, I think, is because I was wearing a shirt, and I was getting some nasty “Indian rope burn” effect during the arm drags. Memo to myself: tank tops.

Next up, we worked a drill where we were to complete a series of moves: Shoulder tackle, drop down, leapfrog, hip toss, arm drag. I must have been seriously oxygen-deprived by this time, because I kept trying to hook the right arm during the hip toss instead of the left arm. My brain was still thinking about throwing my opponent, and I kept messing up, even though I knew plain well what I was supposed to do. It was a strange sense of helplessness, being out of control of my body. After taking a break, things went better.

With just the two of us there, I was able to request some moves to learn. Right at the top of my wish list: suplexes. Chris is in fantastic shape, and was willing to try taking the bump. Brave man. After a week or so of lessons, he is sore in places he didn’t know he had places before. So we chose two “safe” suplexes: the standard suplex, Bret Hart-style (i.e. not elevated), and a special request of mine, the cradle suplex, aka fisherman’s suplex, aka Perfectplex. I put “safe” in quotation marks because I still almost dropped Disco on his head. My suplex came out more like a brainbuster because I didn’t give it enough oomph. He was kind enough not to rip my head off in response. Possibly because he had already given me a wicked chop earlier in the lesson. My chest looks like the Andre The Giant T-shirt with the red handprint on it.

We also went over a couple of submission holds, including another request, the cross-face chicken wing. Perhaps by now, if you’ve read this column a while, you know I’m stealing all the moves I can from a certain class of mat wrestlers. Ted DiBiase. Curt Hennig. Bret Hart. Dean Malenko. Jake Roberts. And, yes, Bob Backlund. When I do a move from their repertoire, I seem to do it with more smoothly. Perhaps, in my mind, I want to hit that Perfectplex more than I want my clothesline or back elbow to look good. That is something I will have to address. Every minute detail should look good. No, not good, great.

I have 25 more lessons to go. At the rate I’m going, I can see myself well on the way to being the Miserable Master of 1,007 Holds. Just, oh, 950 to go.

See you at Capri Hall in Vancouver on Friday. What, you’re not in town? Oh. Well, next time. Until then…

Peace.

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