The Next Member of... The Spirit Squad!

[This week on The Swerved, I look back on an article I posted for The Armpit in May of 2006. When I first heard about WWE introducing a stable of five male cheerleaders on RAW, I didn't immediately shoot down the idea because stranger things have worked well in this world before, such as The Nitro Girls or Deep Fried Macaroni Salad. As in real life, I'm not so quick to outright attack or praise a concept; I base my opinion upon exposure to it.

When The Spirit Squad debuted, it was a little underwhelming. The gimmick was what I expected, but they were just obnoxious, enthusiastic guys with pom-poms and not much else, so they didn't stand out to me. Their first matches weren't great either as their movesets were basic and didn't exactly fit their characters. Eventually, when they started showcasing athletic double- and triple-team maneuvres, and performed their own distinctive dances in pre- and post-match celebrations (Mitch scooted across the ring on his buttocks, Mikey did the Vogue Dance, Johnny did a Michael Jackson impersonation, Nicky did something I don't recall, and Kenny adjusted his headband), I felt goosebumps. Once I saw such visions, I remember thinking to myself, "This could work."

The following article was actually one of my more popular articles for The Armpit. At the time, I didn't think it'd get a response of any kind, but it did. It's a personal favourite of mine, along with the DX article that was arguably my most popular piece. I'll get to future special editions later, but for now, let's take a look at my past bid to become... ]

The Next Member of... The Spirit Squad!

KENNY! (Headband!)
JOHNNY! (Spinning Kick Thing!)
MITCH! (Backwards Dance and Megaphone!)
NICKY! (Girlish Scream by Kerwin White's Caddy!)
MIKEY! (Hells yeah Mikey!)
STEPHENY! (?!)

[I've never been called Stepheny in my life. Although, it does sound a lot like Stephanie, which was the name I went by in my previous existence as an Old Timey English prostitute. In the life before that, I was a Egyptian Cat named Hook With the Thing, Half of a Moon, Stick Whatever That Looks Like a Pipe, and a Bird Looking to the Left. I think that spells CARL.*

*Egyptian name determined by loose understanding of hieroglyphics]

When the Spirit Squad first debuted in all their green and white glory, many fans were skeptical of the stable. They asked with furrowed brows, "Male cheerleaders? Are you serious?" It seemed that every man, woman, and child were ready to wish the five young men the best in their future endeavors, yet they have managed to take their rightful place as an integral part of RAW. Initially, people thought their schtick was downright inane, ridiculous, and preposterous... except one individual.

Me.

The moment I saw them on screen, I smiled and giggled like a little schoolgirl who was little and a girl and at school. They had a unique and refreshing gimmick rarely seen in professional wrestling. Sure, casual fans love the group Crew Cut in Tights, but I feel they're overrated (Crew Cut in Tights is a stable in my mind made up of almost the entire wrestling industry. Who's a member? Look at the name again and you'll know, buddy friend bud friend). Additionally, they had music that was different than "Hard Guitars with Screams" by Killseeth Stainvayne Taprutabaga. Overall, some people think the male cheerleader gimmick is effeminate in a homosexual way, but tell me something -- what do real-life, male cheerleaders constantly touch? Attractive cheerleader ass. Someone has to hold those lovely ladies up for peppy flips, twists, and aerial orgies. The Spirit Squad does just that, except there are no females in the group. They spend a lot of time closely with one another, but I don't hold that against them. They probably shower together too, but other than that, I'm loving it.

[The previous paragraph contains some of my pet peeves in wrestling today. I know mentioning the mock title "Hard Guitar with Screams" is unfair to the genre of hard rock and heavy metal music, as good things can come from any outlet, but WWE uses this type of song for their events to the point of overkill. In fact, I was relieved when WWE chose Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" as the official theme song for Wrestlemania 22; whether you liked the song or not, at least it was different. This year, they're using "Ladies and Gentleman" by Saliva for Wrestlemania 23. Sure, it fits the PPV, but I've heard it before.]

Of course, I want to be a member of the Spirit Squad. I have the talent, the moves, and my body's ability to "bring it on" (Bring-It-Oninity) is abnormally high. Five wrestlers in a group is a little much, but I'm not afraid to give it a shot and strain it to six. Like the saying goes, "Five is too much, but six is too cool for fools in pools." I stand by that quote by President Todd Grisham, and I am willing to do my best to make it on the squad. Here are my credentials:

1) Dancing

Some people call me the Modern Fred Astaire. On the flipside, others call me Stephen, but maybe they're right too. To tell you the truth, I don't think I'm a great dancer, but whenever I hear the Spirit Squad theme, I become a dance machine. I've been known to whip out such dances as The Sprinkler, The Carlton Banks Dance, and The Vince McMahon Butt Contraction. One time, I did all three dances in a minute and world hunger almost ended. I bet if I added a fourth dance, such as Jim Ross' patented Harlem Shake, I would've been successful.

[It's hard to explain the Harlem Shake in writing but I'll give you a comparison visual -- you know that toy flower with the sunglasses that would dance whenever music was played? Imagine that flower malfunctioning. There's your Harlem Shake. If Jim Ross did the Harlem Shake on WWE programming just once during my lifetime, I would eat my own face with joy.]

The Spirit Squad are hip and exciting dancers. Next time you walk into a club and notice two hundred people dancing with trampolines, you should instantly realize where they got the idea from. I think I'd fit in well with the squad because I've been using a trampoline for most of my life. I sleep, eat, and breathe trampolines. I'd show you how to breathe a trampoline, but I don't think you got "da skillz".

[Their use of the trampoline was great. I have no clue why the trampoline was not featured in a previous wrestling era for it is a glorious contraption. Unfortunately, WWE scrapped the idea of cheerleaders using trampolines. I loved it, so of course they hated it.]

2) Moves

The commentators are promoting the Spirit Squad as annoying, but athletically gifted performers. I don't know about you, but to me that is a milk-chocolate compliment wrapped in a rich, nutty truth filled with honest nougat.

I remember a clique in high school which consisted of stupid jocks with lettermen's jackets. They were great athletes as well, but they would push around nerds and stuff them in lockers, library listening stations, and historical textbooks. I hated them with a passion because I knew for a fact that freshman Spanky Winkerstein wasn't a part of the Industrial Revolution. I believe that's why the Spirit Squad work so well in World Wrestling Entertainment. Fans dislike them because they are obnoxious grapplers and have the potential to portray historical events innaccurately.

I'm not entirely sure if I can perform the moves that the squad can. I can jump pretty high and I can run pretty fast, but I can't pin an oppponent because of it. Also, Kenny will reject me because my leg drop is more of a leg fall, but I don't care about Kenny. Dear Kenny: go make sweet headband-y love to Mickie James and leave me alone, you bastard. I only want to hear Mikey's opinion.

[Some have compared Mikey to the late, great, super heavyweight Crash Holly. If Mikey adopted an Elroy Jetson gimmick, with Nicky dressed in an Astro costume, it would be excellent. It would be so excellent, the war would end.]

Anyway, I was going to call my finishing move the "ESPN National Cheerleading Championships 2006 Splash presented by Cingular", though I thought that wasn't clever enough. Instead, I'm going with something with a kick. I'm changing the maneuvre to the "1080 Degree Fingerpoke Off the Skyscraper, Through the Tunnel, Over the Bridge, Off The Top Rope, Nothing But Net."

Wait, I've just been informed that Kenny doesn't like that either. Well screw you, Kenny. I was not born to please you.

[More and more each day, Kenny looks like Owen Hart. If I can trick myself into thinking that the King of Harts has come back to life in the form of Mr. Dykstra, I will be a much happier person, then quickly delve into doldrums of depression once more when I notice that Kenny is not carrying any of his Slammy Awards.]

3) Cheers

As many of you know, Mitch is the cheerleading leader who starts the cheers, though I can't say he does a good job. Mitch and his crew often screw up lines and dance sequences to the point that I actually feel spirit exit my person. To cheer is to express through boisterous speech and motion what your heart cannot. To cheer is to live a life that death fears. To cheer is to be and I don't think the Spirit Squad truly understands that. Alas, I am here to help. I have more spirit in my pinky than anybody has in their pinky. I'm not a brain surgeon, but I think that's a lot of a spirit.

[This paragraph is so well-written. This paragraph belongs in a book of some kind. With that said, it'll be a picture book, so there will be no room for this paragraph. I apologize to myself. Apology accepted, me.]

Let me provide a few examples of my excellent cheers:

Cheer 1
John Cena has a Chain Gang
Yeah, right, that's more like a Lame Gang
He should be a part of Kool and the Gang
Celebration

Cheer 2
Shawn Michaels is going to lose
The Showstopper is not going to win
The Heartbreak Kid is going to be defeated
HBK will not be victorious in this environment

What do you think? I'm going to be humble here -- I am an immortal genius.

[I don't think singers, rappers or otherwise, or cheerleaders, rappers or otherwise, should force themselves to rhyme. Personally, I don't care if dog rhymes with frog in a song or poem if the rest of the words don't make sense. When I was in elementary school, we wrote a lot of poems. I didn't even try to rhyme. I just let my talent speak for itself...

Here's an excerpt from a poem I wrote in school at 7 years old:

You are big and fat, hippopotamus
If I could name you, your name would be Hippopotamus
Your name is not Joe, your name is Hippopotamus
Hippopotamus Hippopotamus Hippopotamus
The end... isn't that right, hippopotamus?]

4) Attire

One of my twenty favourite colours is green (right behind mauve and that brownish-grey colour in the crayon box nobody ever used because it fit with nothing), so I'm perfect to don the official Spirit Squad Uniform. Furthermore, I heard Vince McMahon loves the colour white. Therefore, I really love it as well, which is double ironic because that's the Spirit Squad's other signature colour. It's so weird that Vince and I have so much in common, right? You see, I admire white so much, I'm going to put the colour in my hair when I get older. Now, I'm not trying to suck up to Vince or anything, but he was on the cover of Muscle & Fitness and you were not.

Actually, how can the magazine be called Muscle & Fitness? I get a title like Field & Stream, but Muscle & Fitness confuses me. See, muscle is an actual physical thing, yet fitness is an act pertaining to being fit. That's like naming a wrestling magazine Turnbuckle & Existentialism. By the way, you can't use that title. That's only reserved for great things... like the Spirit Squad and I. "Is the turnbuckle hitting me, or am I purposely hitting the turnbuckle?" My readers are not awesome enough to answer that.

[People say that I'm a philosophical person. Up until about five years ago, I thought they were trying to tell me that I had an acute form of Mono. It turns out I was wrong.]

I see the squad has recently decided to wear tank tops and track pants for aerodynamical purposes. That's all well and good since Johnny can now do that spin kick without the burden of wearing sleeves, but I have a better idea. I'm sure the Spirit Squad will accept me after I tell them that I'll be wrestling/performing as a parade float. I will move around slowly as a large vehicle adorned with several balloons. That act alone should be rewarded with a WWE Championship reign. Six guys holding one title may seem ridiculous, but what happens if a new belt is introduced that is as big as a house? At least we're prepared to carry it.

[If a new title belt in the size of a house is manufactured for WWE or any wrestling company in the future, I would like to see two houses fight over the championship. Volunteers from the neighbourhood would have to work together as a community to strap the title around the victorious house. Get to filming the event, Extreme Makeover: Home, Not Face, Edition.]

5) Food

The Spirit Squad eats food. I eat food. It's meant to be.

Kenny: "Well, I don't eat food."

I hate you, Kenny. Damn you. I will punch you in the gonad. I swear I will.

[At such a young age, Kenny Dykstra is already a frequent visitor of the Mickie James Birthday Suit Arts & Exhibition Centre. Week to week, he's wrestling legends like Ric Flair. Also, he is making more money in a day than I make in a day-and-a-half combined. He's got it all, except one thing -- an old WWF magazine autographed by Barry Horowitz. You know what Horowitz did with the magazine after he signed it? That's right -- he patted it on his back. Take that, you damn Kenny.]

This WWEek in WWE Questions of the WWEek:

Q: Did you know that the all five members of the Spirit Squad have the same haircut?

A: Yeah, that's why I boo them.
[Even after DX had their way with the team in every sense of the word, I still think The Spirit Squad was a worthwhile faction. It shouldn't have been just a vehicle to get Kenny Dykstra noticed, but that's Kenny for you. They all had the potential to be something meaningful for WWE fans. Someday, if the other members of the Squad are given another chance, I think they are capable of creating some capitivating wrestling moments. And yes, Mitch has potential too since he can, in fact, scoot across the ring on his buttocks.]