by The Immolator
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

"Sliding downwards, you're the batter/That's what they say, 500 up/On the ladder"  — Sloan.

Before you die, you read The Ring. My name is “The Immolator” Calum Macbeth, and I like to hurt people.

I guess it was about 15 years ago that I first picked up a copy of Pro Wrestling Illustrated. My first reaction was probably “Who the heck are these guys?” Page after page of wrestlers I had never seen or heard of. My second reaction was to spend far too much money over the next several years on PWI and its sister publications like Inside Wrestling and The Wrestler.

It’s easy to forget that it was only a couple of U.S. presidents ago when wrestling was a one-hour diversion on Saturday afternoons, when WrestleMania was in its infancy and you waited a couple of months to rent the videotape. When lucky bastards were able to shell out 250 clams for a 1200-baud modem for their Commodore 64s. Now, we’re all smarts. We log onto Online Onslaught or other, lesser websites to learn all the latest conjecture, rumour, borderline slander and the occasional fact about every wrestler in every federation in every corner of the globe. Myself included.

I bring this up because I had the occasion, for the first time in a few years, to pick up a copy of the infamous PWI 500. Mind you, it took forever to track down a copy. The shelves aren’t exactly teeming with wrestling literature like they were just a couple of years ago.

This particular issue has much more relevance to me than before. It’s been about five years since the order of the wrestlers in the 500 mattered to me (Dean Malenko, Number One?). I’ve always been more interested in scanning the wrestlers ranked 200 and below to see if I recognized any names from the past (Hey, Demolition Ax, still going strong at #275!).

This year’s different. This year, the PWI 500 is more like a dossier. Floating around the lower regions of the list are people with immediate relevance to me. Prime example: #293, Vance Nevada. Yessiree, there’s my current trainer, with a swell photo to boot. Or, consider #269, Adam Firestorm. I refereed one of his matches, and at some point, if I’m fortunate enough, he’ll be kicking my ass all over Bridgeview Hall in Surrey, B.C. in the not-too-distant future.

Besides people in NWA-ECCW, there’s a number of indy Canadian wrestlers for me to read up on, like #380, Eddie Watts. There’s a guy that’s been around and could give me some guidance if I ever work with him. And, trawling down into the late 400s, I can check out some of the relative neophytes and see how I compare. Let’s see… #475. Japanese Pool Boy.

Yikes.

Looks like ol’ Calum Macbeth has his work cut out for him.

Peace.

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