A Moment Of Clarity.

So. I sat. Bottle in one hand, cable bill in the other. Monday Night RAW blaring inanely (is there any other way to blare?) in the background. I tallied up the costs. Basic cable. On Demand. Pay-Per-View purchases. And, god help me, I even contemplated dropping another ten bucks a month for WWE 24/7. I dropped both bill and bottle (the slow glug of sauce hitting hardwood tapped out a gentle rhythm), put my head in my hands, and wept.

My family fortunes were drained. My once-vast real estate empire lay in ruins. The yacht, in flames, slid beneath the icy waters of the Willamette (which, I suppose, quenched the flames. I wouldn't know. I was at home, drinking and crying and watching wrestling, remember?). What had I become? WHAT HAD I BECOME?

More to the point, what had WRESTLING become? RAW was a shiftless morass of (sports) ENTERTAINMENT, a resurgent Eric Bischoff riding roughshod over my cherished Warzone. ECW, once the brightest gem in the wrestling heavens, had become less than a ghost of itself, gleefully hoovering up whatever pitiful crumbs Vince McMahon let fall from his never-ending Shit Buffet. Smackdown, tragically, remained Smackdown.

Even my beloved TNA had forsaken me. "Bound for Glory" mired itself in mediocrity, and with Vince Russo at the helm, the course seemed set. TNA would gradually squander all that made them beautiful, hitching themselves to a surgically-reduced God Botherer and a pilled-up lunatic with a death wish. Even the LAX/Chertoff feud had ended, giving way to an unpromising dust-up with a pair of underperforming gay cowboys.

In this flat gray landscape, so destitue that I could no longer buy brandy, was I seriously considering spending MORE money on wrestling? It seemed that I, or perhaps the world, had gone mad.

I lifted my tear stained face, and looked to Monday Night RAW for what cold comfort it could offer. There, John Cena railed against his new foil, Kevin Federline (Ay! Mi Estomago!). He discussed experiencing a "moment of clarity." Then and there, I had my answer.

No more cable. No more On Demand. No more PPV. No 24/7. Cold turkey. If I must howl my critiques into the void, then Smackdown would be my muse. It was free. It was two hours long. It was not really THAT much worse than RAW or ECW.

I felt a tremendous weight lift, and the sun (metaphorically) appeared through the clouds. My life gained a monastic focus and simplicity. I was filled with a burning creative drive, a sense of righteous purpose. This was a wise thing I was doing. I felt saintlike. I felt Christlike. I felt like (rapture of raptures!) STING.

There you have it, gentle reader. My Road to Damascus moment. From this point on, Arabian Facebuster will be a leaner, hungrier beast. We will give you the finest wrestling coverage that No Money can buy. FREE WRESTLING FOR A FREE WORLD!

Except for TNA Impact!, which the Facebuster staff will be watching at The Barn in North Portland every Thursday. Oh, and we're buying the ECW Pay-Per-View, too, but that's the last one, EVER. I PROMISE.