I Hate Eric Young

I'm sure I'm going to get a ton of heat for this one. I don't care. I need to get this off my chest.

I hate Eric Young.

Last Thursday, I was watching a truly painful tag team match on iMPACT in which a pair of comic relief jobbers made Generation Me look like idiots and beat them in under 3 minutes. It was at this point that I just threw up my hands and said aloud, to an empty room, "God, I fucking hate Eric Young!"

Eric Young has had every wrestling gimmick known to man. The less heelish member of Team Canada, underdog babyface under the thumb of an oppressive heel, Super Eric, Frontline cheerleader, leader of World Elite, lapdog for the Outsiders, about a million other things, and now brain damaged tag team partner and 'love interest' of Orlando Jordan (SHOOT ME). The writers have repackaged this guy over and over and over again, and every time it gets harder to accept. How many times can you completely change a character before it's just not credible anymore?

Believe it or not, there was a time when I found this guy entertaining. Back when AMW were catching him in the drug store buying condoms or whatever it was -- that was funny. I often got a good laugh out of EY's antics back then. But that pretty much came to an end the night he put on a ludicrous superhero costume to give himself the confidence to battle "monsters", Fat Reign & Rebboj (that's jobber spelled backwards, you know).

Ever since then, my opinion of Eric Young could be summed up in 6 words: Get this idiot off my television!

I know a lot of people inexplicably like Eric Young. I know I'm probably in the minority here. But I'm sorry... this guy is not funny, he is not entertaining. He's an admittedly charismatic wrestler, whose character has been completely destroyed by his gimmick being changed so many goddamn times that I just can't take him seriously anymore, no matter what he does.

And don't even try to argue this with me. Don't tell me how great he was as the leader of World Elite. Sure, he may have cut some good promos during that time, but it didn't matter. I couldn't buy into him in that role at all. The whole time, all I could think was why the hell people like Homicide and the British Invasion were being lead by a man who, not that long ago, was scared of his own shadow and ran around in a superhero costume, trying to form his own Justice League team with Sharkboy and Curryman.

Besides, if World Elite was so awesome, tell me, how long did that faction last? Hmmm?

But I'm not going to recall every single asinine gimmick this guy has had -- that would take me a week. Instead, I'm just going to talk about his latest affront to the intelligence of wrestling fans everywhere. The reason for Eric Young's most recent bizarre gimmick transplant is that he fell off the ring post during a match, hit his head and supposedly has brain damage, which is why he's acting so strangely.

Odd... he never needed an excuse to act like a jackass before, so why start now?

Please explain something to me. When your main event angle, for the last several months, has involved Matt Morgan preaching about the serious dangers of head injuries and wrestling with concussions, and trying to persuade Ken Anderson to not wrestle with such an injury until his doctor has medically cleared him, why in the name of God do you, on the same damn show, have Eric Young wrestling with a he's-crazy-because-he-hit-his-head-and-has-brain-damage gimmick, played completely for laughs?

Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this? Not only does it totally undermine the seriousness of the Morgan/Anderson angle, but it makes Eric Young look like a fucking idiot (not hard to do at this point) and TNA look like a bunch of irresponsible morons for allowing someone to wrestle in this condition. Where are all the mentions of Chris Nowinski's Sports Legacy Institute when Eric Young is on the screen? Shouldn't people be more concerned about Eric Young than Ken Anderson? After all, Eric has been working with a head injury for months while Ken wisely took time off to recover, but for some reason, no one sees anything wrong with Eric wrestling like this while, if Ken gets within 100 ft of the ring, alarm bells go off.

Then there's the world title belt. Eric somehow found the old world title belt in the trash and pulled it out. Let's not even bother wondering why Eric was rooting around in months-old garbage, OR why these writers think it's a good idea to rehash YET ANOTHER old WCW storyline (Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the TV title); you'll make your ears bleed trying to figure that out.

Instead, let's focus on the fact that TNA took what was once the most important championship belt in their company and gave it to the brain damage guy, ensuring that that championship belt will NEVER have any credibility or be taken seriously EVER again. Because, believe me, there is no way that's going to happen after Eric Young has worn it and called himself a champion when all he did was fish it out of a dumpster.

When the day comes that Jeff Hardy loses the world title and TNA finally ditches that gaudy, ugly-ass Divas butterfly belt they gave him, they need to create another new world championship title belt. A completely new one. God knows they can't bring the old one back. It wouldn't mean a damn thing now, not even if Kurt Angle wore it.

So with one gimmick, Eric Young has destroyed any chance of the main event angle being taken seriously and killed any prestige the old world title belt might have had left, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that TNA has no respect for their championships and treats them like meaningless props.

Also, him being there is giving Orlando Jordan a reason to be on television. Fuck you, Eric Young.

I am sick and tired of this guy. His shtick is played out and doesn't belong in a company that claims to want to take itself and pro wrestling seriously, a company that Hogan keeps saying is, "All about shooting, brother!" Call him TNA's answer to Santino Marella if you want, but there's a big difference between those 2. Santino is annoying, yes, but he's also occasionally funny -- Eric Young is just annoying. That's what I think anyway.

So let it be known to all who read this: Here is a man who has had all he can take. Here is a man who will no longer tolerate Eric Young, his stupid, never-ending comedy segments and his revolving door of asinine gimmicks.

I was thrilled the day I read that Eric Young had left TNA and cussed like a sailor for hours when I read that he changed his mind and had resigned after all.

Eric, I don't find you funny. I don't find you entertaining. I don't like you. I don't care about you. I used to. I don't anymore. I don't care if you call yourself a champion because you wear the discarded title belt that Jeff Hardy wiped his ass with. I don't care if your next gimmick after the brain damage thing is a murder/suicide angle playing off the Benoit tragedy that management thinks will be awesome because it will create controversy and be a great publicity stunt. If you and Orlando Jordan get married in the ring at Lockdown and adopt a bunch of Asian crack babies, not only will I not watch it, I will never order a TNA PPV again out of protest.

Eric, please just go away. Go away and never come back.

And for the love of God, take Orlando Jordan with you.